Why Is Pre-Production The Most Important Part Of Video Production?

Last week I had coffee with a friend of mine, and one of the things that we talked about was how important pre-production is when you do any large-scale project, or even when it’s only a smaller project.

He was talking about creating video games at the time, but I thought I’ll explain how I use pre-production to ensure that the video content I’m creating is the best it can be and that it conveys my client’s message (or the message I want to get across myself, depending on who the video is for).

In most cases, my pre-production is divided into a few parts, starting with the “brief” or the “Outline” of what the video’s overall goal is.

The second stage normally consists of a few meetings where I really go into detail about what the clients would like the video to achieve in the long term. If I’m creating a promotional video for a business, for example, I will ask the client what they feel are the best assets of their business or premises. Then I will use that as my basis to build the rest of my ideas around.

When I know what I’m going to create and I know which assets I’m going to highlight, I will check out the relevant content platforms to see if similar content exists. I do this for two reasons. The main reason is to see what the competition has done, and where I feel I could build on or improve on some of those ideas. I also use this process to find the most important titles, tags, or other media data information which have helped others to have their content found and viewed, or create my own additional categories.

After those steps, I start to create my shortlist and work out how long filming each set or group of shots will take. This is also when I decide whether I’m going to break up my shooting time, so I can film most of the footage in the best light for the respective shots.

When my shot list is ready, I’ll give the client the opportunity to read over my concepts and suggest any other shots or ideas they may have.

If both the client and myself are happy to move forward into production, then we’ll go over the times and dates that would work best for both of us and provide the best light conditions, etc.

I’ll go into some more detail about other aspects of my overall workflow when it comes to creating video content, so you’re most welcome to come back to the blog if you enjoyed this post.