What’s Involved in the Video Making Process?
The video-making process for professional productions requires much more than grabbing a camera, filming the first thing you see, and uploading the footage. Rather, there are weeks worth of planning, scouting, editing, and countless other steps behind the curtain that bring high quality videos to life.
Here, we’ll look at several of those steps and show you what to expect when creating a video. This article is written with education in mind but at Otto Studios we believe strongly that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ process for every video and we tailor the process for each project. Read more about our video production Adelaide services to learn more and contact us for a consultation.
Pre-Production
Pre-production is the planning process before you film your video. Here, you’ll fine-tune your ideas, hire some video-making all-stars, and determine how long you’ll need to make your creativity a reality.
Build a Script and Storyboard
You need to know what you’re creating before you start creating it, which happens in the script and storyboard building process. Here, you’ll craft an original story or dialogue, build characters as necessary for a script, and use your storyboard to visualise camera angles, backdrops, actor placement, plot progression, and more.
Assemble a Team and Meet as a Collective
The bigger your video project is, the more talent you’ll need to bring it to life. Large-scale productions need actors, lighting experts, microphone operators, and dozens more people on set, and it’s your job to build that team.
After hiring your talent, gather everyone for a pre-production meeting where you can discuss your goals with the project. There, you will also explain everyone’s roles and answer their questions.
Scout Your Filming Locations
After storyboarding your video, you’ll need to find real-life locations where you can film those scenes. During the scouting process, you can bring the rest of your crew so they can assess what challenges they’ll face filming in that area.
Set a Production Timeline
Once you know what you need to actualise your video, you can schedule how long the remaining steps will take and move to the next phase.
Production
The production phase is where you turn your ideas into reality. Production is arguably the most labour-intensive part of videography and requires high skill and attention to detail, but it’s also typically the shortest part of the video-making process.
Set Up Your Equipment
Once you’re on location with your team, set up the necessary equipment, station everyone in their appropriate spot, and ensure your tools are on the correct settings.
You won’t need every crew member or piece of equipment depending on what or where you’re filming, so be sure to consult with everyone beforehand and only bring the essentials.
Acquire B-Roll Footage
B-roll is footage videographers use for transitions. Most B-rolls don’t have dialogue or anything vital to the plot but naturally carry the story from one point to another without a dramatic cut.
Before you film your actual scenes, think back to your script and what content would fit for a transition. Then, gather whatever B-roll makes sense and move on to the most crucial part of the video-making process.
Film Your Scenes
Bring your team together and use your equipment to film the scenes in your script and storyboard. Shots might require multiple takes and hands-on directing to get right, but it’s vital to have a perfect copy of everything so that you don’t have to reassemble the team and refilm after thinking you finished the project.
Record Voice-Over/Additional Audio
Some projects require voice-over or replacement audio if the original comes out poorly. You’ll want to record those lines after filming so that you know what you need, using either a professional recording booth or your filming equipment.
Post-Production
Post-production is the phase where you trim the fat off your video project and give it the finishing touches. In some instances, it’s also the phase where you market and promote your finished product.
Edit Your Footage and Audio
The first and most time-consuming stage of post-production is the editing process. Here, you’ll splice the best takes from your filming together, clean up the audio and merge it into the video, and assemble the first draft of your finished product.
Once your clips are together, you can focus on colour correcting and re-lighting frames to get closer to your final video.
Add Special Effects and Music
If your video needs graphics or animations, you’ll add them after you’ve tied your clips together and edited them as much as possible. You might need to hire another team member for professional grade effects, but there are free tools online you can use to make simple charts yourself if that’s all you need.
This is also the phase where you will add music to your video. In most instances, music is easy to weave into video content wherever you want it, as there are thousands of royalty-free melodies online where you won’t have to pay for licensing.
However, if you’re a large production eyeing a popular, licensed song, you will need to spend the money and acquire the rights to use it.
Publish the Content
Now that you’re ready to show your video to the world, you can convert it to the proper format and upload it on your platform of choice. Some of the most popular options for first-time videographers are YouTube and Vimeo, but a large-budget production might consider publishing on a physical medium.
Promote Your Video
Just like that, you’ve finished the video-making process. Now, it’s time to put your hard work in front of your target audience and build effective advertisements.
Depending on the type of video, you can make those advertisements anything from social media posts to full-blown commercials.
Conclusion
We hope that this article has given you a solid overview of the steps involved in making a video or film. But remember that this is only an overview and there’s really no ‘one size fits all’ process for proper film making. Contact us for a consultation tailored to your project.