You’ve just completed your video shoot, and hopefully had a celebratory beer with your production company! So what’s next? Can you finally sit back and relax and let your production company take it from here? Well, yes and no!
You’ve just entered into the Post-Production Phase of the project. This is when all the elements come together to create your program. So what can you expect going forward?
Narration Talent
If your program requires professional narration, one of the first things we’ll need to do after filming is to select and record the narration. We can’t do much until we have this in hand because the timing and flow of all the visuals (video, graphics, photography) is going to be sync’d to narration.
Photography & Graphics
If your program utilizes photography & graphics that were created by your organization, we’re going need to get these items from you. High resolution files are preferred. If we are creating the graphics, we’ll get to work on creating review compositions for you and your team to review and provide approval.
Select Takes
If you’ve got interview footage or product video shots we may need your help in selecting the best takes. For interviews, these are the sound bytes you know need to be in the program. For product shots, you may need to point out which shots best match the narrative. Your assistance here can save a lot of valuable time on the project, as well as ensuring that the final program hits all the key points you targeted in Phase 1.
Video Editing
You should be prepared in this phase to make some critical approvals for the finalizing of the program.
Now your script and storyboard become doubly important; your production company will have a blueprint for the program, and along with the narration and music, have tempo and timing to edit the video.
If you are producing an animation-heavy video, your production company will send you animation comps. These need to be approved before full animation can be done.
If you’re using mostly live video, typically the editor and director will put together a rough cut review of the program and submit that to you for feedback. This is your chance to give direction on the structure and flow of the program. Your feedback is invaluable, so don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and concerns. We typically provide one rough cut and one fine cut of the program, one opportunity for larger changes and one for smaller tweaks to zero in on your vision.
Depending on the size and scope of the project, this process might take two to six weeks.
Delivery
If you’ve followed this series and taken our advice, now you’ll have a high quality, well-targeted video in your hands. Now, it’s up to you to put it to good use. We always recommend placing that video on Youtube; you’ll have a billion dollar company hosting that video for high quality playback. We also suggest cross-channel marketing on as many platforms as you can. Use your Google Hashtags to track email marketing campaigns, and that goes for Facebook and Twitter as well. Make sure you direct your viewers back to your homepage or landing page, and the final piece of the puzzle is monitoring your analytics to see how your video is driving traffic to your engagement platforms.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this 3-Part video production series and that you’ve learned some valuable tips to carry you through your next video project. Thanks for reading!
