Keep Video Production Simple
In this week’s edition of the video production jargon busting blog we look at keeping things simple. After the last edition which focused on what you needed to know before hiring a video production company we’ve had some pretty complex requests. One such request was shooting a delivering a 30 minute short film in a day. Now I know we pride ourselves on doing high quality, ‘Done in a Day’ videos, but we feel that create a 30 minute film in a day was pushing it, especially when they started to go into technical and shot specifics. ‘We want an army of drones overhead covering multiple angles. Our script requires explosions, guns, live ammunition, and naked women; basically we want a shortened version of James Bond which only includes all the bits we like’. Ok, we may have exaggerated that claim, but the point still stands, they asked had a large number of unrealistic expectations which would have difficult to meet. The decision at the time was to not take them on as our client because we felt we couldn’t meet their demands.
Below is an example of work which is simple yet great at telling a story.
Select the Right Video Format
After this experience we wanted to encourage companies to keep things simple. Something that is short and to the point is more likely to be done well, as there are fewer things which could go wrong. When coming up with creative ideas for video content KISS it. KISS is the acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid. Could your company’s marketing strategy be better served with an illustrated talking heads video which explains: what your company does, new product launches, event highlights. Does the project really require: expensive animation, special effects, that song you have in your music collection? The song you have in your collection that you want used on the video production can easily cost upwards of £200 per 30 seconds used. That amount can still go up depending on where you are showing the video.
'Time is Money'
Every addition/edit you want to make to a video will take time. As the age old saying goes, ‘time is money’. The more you want to add to the video, the more time it will take to edit, colour correct and mix the audio. When we do our ‘Done in a Day’ business video production for clients we work on the basis that for every hour filming it takes an hour doing post-production (editing, colour correction and audio mixing). For instance a 4 hour shoot will normally entail 4 hours’ worth of post-production. This formula changes depending on the clients requirements. For our seven day turnaround package we do a full day’s worth of shooting (12hrs sometimes more) then up to 6 days in post-production. Clients who select this generally have more complex requirements, but we make sure that they are aware of the limitations and suggest other creative ideas which may be more appropriate.
We recommend to people who wish to hire a video production company to have a look through our blog content, in particular the 'Steps Before Hiring a Video Production Company'.
If you require a helping hand with corporate video production, get in touch.
Please comment below with your thoughts on this week’s Video Production Jargon Busting blog.