Jan '17 | Get More Videos Out of Your Production Days (Part 4 of 4)

Think Like A Corporate Video Scriptwriter & Producer

Out of all the stages required in creating a corporate video:

• Script writing
• Design
• Casting
• Scheduling
• Preproduction
• Filming
• Editing
• Audio Mixing
• Coloring

The bulk of your budget will be spent during production. Even if you’re only filming one-day, the personnel and equipment required to create video content makes this day your largest line item. So if that’s the case, don’t you want to milk it for all it’s worth?

We know we do.

In the last part of this four part blog series, we’ll take you behind the scenes and showcase the benefits of thorough planning, not just on the video project at hand, but on all your marketing needs where video may be applicable.

A Ten Hour Work Day

Generally speaking, production crews bill flat rates based on a ten-hour day. So that means your cameraman is charging you the same whether you film one hour or ten hours. So, as a corporate video scriptwriter and producer representing a client, it behooves me to keep the crew working and the camera running.

And when the project itself only requires five hours, that’s when I turn my attention away from the immediate and start strategizing my clients’ other video needs.

Piggy Back Projects

Every corporation needs a variety of internal videos but most don’t want to spend money on something where ROI isn’t applicable. This is when piggy-backing projects becomes a great value add. For example, during a shoot where we were already scheduled to capture an event for RocketSpace, we piggy-backed the above internal video, ultimately delivering two videos for the same basic cost as one. Here’s how we did it:

• While guests were registering for the event, we took the time to pull in several employees and capture specific soundbites.

• While we were filming b-roll of the event itself, we made sure to follow our employee “characters” so that we’d have applicable footage to use in our internal video.

• We took an extra hour with our steadicam operator to turn the camera around, filming a variety of employee collaboration shots that were then reused in a series of internal videos.

• The above all fell within our original 10-hour day, thus the only cost for the internal video accrued during editing.

Here are a few other examples where a little planning had us shooting (and delivering) more videos for less. While filming Dreamforce for DocuSign, we turned the camera around and created several speaker hooks like the one below.

We also captured the sales team’s pre-conference talk, which then turned into a video that played at their Sales Kick Off.

Finally, we did a simple time lapse of their set build, which became a great pre-conference behind-the-scenes social media clip.

So when starting a new project, take a moment to apply the above and think like a corporate video scriptwriter and producer. Your budget (and boss) will be happy that you did.

Want more production tips? Check out our last blog on how to capture High Quality on a Low Budget.