Planning your video

Whilst some videos won’t have the budget for a beautiful hand-drawn storyboard, a well designed list of shots coupled with the desired content/output for each shot is a great start, and will make budgeting, filming and editing much more straightforward and cost effective.

Taking a Logistics launch video we did as an example (although this could apply to most of the companies we work with), the procedure was:

STAGE 1

Logistics Company  provided:

  • description of the product to be launched & target audience (in this case press/MP’s and VIP’s)
  • Key messages (less is more here!) they want to communicate order of importance (e.g. speed, flexibility, upgrade-able, style)
  • where the video will be shown (e.g. live, broadcast, online)
  • details/examples of existing branding, and intended branding for the product
  • script for various actors/employees (if budget allows this can be outsourced)
  • actor look and feel (e.g. regional, elderly, lumberjack, super-model, approachable, upper-class)
  • key points to be conveyed by the video broken down into chronological order
  • duration of video
  • company fonts, logos, banners and colour scheme (e.g. pantone/hex)

STAGE 2

Big Ant then provided a concept for integrating existing elements visually within the video.
These included:

  • visual style for interviews (e.g. background/lighting/angles/duration/clothing/location)
  • any CGI elements (in this case cardboard boxes and warehouse build)
  • musical style (e.g.orchestral/pop/fast/slow/serious/fun)
  • an overall look and feel (e.g. light & bright, dark & sombre, clean and techie)
  • Solutions/suggestions for capturing the different actors/employees (e.g. studio/chromakey/on location)
  • suitable actors
  • suitable voiceovers
  • the most efficient way of filming the different elements of the video

STAGE 3

We then met with the client and went through all the points raised, and discussed budget, and at the end of this we had a VERY clear idea of what we all wanted to achieve, plus we had bullet lists of everything we wanted to capture on each shot.

A final meeting was all that was required where we presented our solution for achieving the desired outcome, and to discuss budget.

When discussing budget we always have several options that allow an incremental scale.  All our solutions will achieve the end goal – it’s then about the wow factor!

As a voiceover was decided on you are not having the talent say anything, so provided we shoot enough angles and detail, we can pretty much make the video whatever you want from it – fast snappy, fluid and stylish – it’s all in the edit.

If you can provide information like this we will help all we can to suggest ways to make it all possible.