It is important to understand the overall process when producing a video and how to plan for each phase.

It doesn’t matter whether your budget is 50 bucks or 200 million-the principles of planning are the same. The planning phase is critical no matter what you’re trying to accomplish. You might be saying to yourself “I don’t have time to plan.” Bottom line - make time! You will spend twice as long in the field or in the editing session trying to wing it. Believe it or not, even the producers of so called “reality TV” go through a long planning process before the cameras roll.

The amount of planning required for a project really depends on the project itself. Planning may be as simple as selecting which tape to use in the camera that day and that the batteries are charged to as complex as creating a complete script, storyboard, and previsualization scenes.

It is also important to think about the type of control you’ll have over the project. There are primarily two camps: Controlled and uncontrolled.

The description of these two follows from their names. In a controlled project, you can plan and control every shot of every scene. This includes control over the actors, the lighting, the location, and the time it takes to capture all of the elements that you require. Examples of controlled projects include narratives, training videos, corporate, promotional and publicity projects.

Uncontrolled projects are more common and are the type you probably participate in every time you pick up the video camera. You have to catch the action wherever and however it occurs and you won’t know the special challenges of the location of the subject until you’re on site.

Phases of Production

Planning affects all phases of the production process. Let’s quickly review each phase:

Preproduction

This phase begins with an idea. Without an idea, there is production. Along with the idea come considerations for the deadline to completion, how much the production will cost, who the idea is going to be presented to when the project’s completed (family, friends, a paying client, broadcast television, school project, etc.); the script; budget for materials, talent, etc.; locations; and anything else you can think of that you don’t want to leave out along the way.

If you’re producing the video with help from other people, you will want to have a pre-production meeting to discuss the above. The overall idea is to plan BEFORE you begin, NOT DURING the production process. You’ll have enough surprises to worry about. Cecil B. Demille said “A picture is made a success not on a set, but over the drawing board.”

Even if you’re just shooting video of family events (which I do constantly), you should have a strategy in mind before you take the lens cap off. Think about the event your covering – what will be the most important things to capture. Who should be covered? Will you need to include shots of the venue to establish where you are? Even the basics of making sure your batteries are always charged and you have a backup, blank tape in your bag (I find that somehow I only ever have about 5 minutes of tape left) will save you a lot of headache when you get in the field and the nearest radio shack is an hour away.

Production - AKA The Shoot

This is where you find out if you’re planning has paid off or not. This phase of production involves capturing your idea on tape - and it definitely involves much more than pointing and shooting with your camcorder. Locations, lighting, sound, and proper camera work can add a lot more professionalism to your video than you’ve probably considered. Also taking into consideration how you will be putting the footage together in the edit session will help you make better camera decisions in the field. This is called “shooting for the edit” and we’ll discuss this in more detail later on.

Post-production

In this phase, your final product will be created. First it’s important to understand that HOW the footage is put together is just as much an artistic process as the shooting of the footage was. The greatest camera job in the world can easily get hacked by a poor edit job. Secondly you may not be relying solely on the gathered video footage as a source. You may want to add music, still images, computer generated graphics, animation, titles and other visual and sound elements to further enhance the finished product. This is not necessarily a time to relax - the edit session can sometimes be the most time consuming phase slowly piecing together the elements of the idea in just the right way.

This is also the phase where you find out what you left out. If you planned well, you have minimized what I call the “continual presence of missing elements.”

Distribution

This is often the most overlooked part of the production process. This phase involves getting your finished product to your audience. Most of us don’t need to worry about distributing masters all over the world to thousands of theaters, but we may need to worry about getting the highest quality upload of our video to YouTube. If physical copies are required, you should consider how you will make copies and how your copies will get to where they need to go.

Let’s Get Started

One of the greatest inventions that have come along that can be invaluable in the pre-production process is the Personal Computer with a word processing program. Create a folder on your PC where you can store all of the materials you generate for your production. These materials can include all of the documents related to the planning process, the script, and any computer generated images to include in the final edit. If you’ll be editing and finishing your project on your PC, then this folder could also include the other elements of your project. If you keep everything organized in this fashion, then it will be much easier to archive and backup your project.

If you don’t have a Personal Computer (how are you reading this??) you should still create the documents that will help you plan. Get a binder with dividers and label each section for the type of materials you’ll store.

Some documents that you might generate to plan your production should include:

Idea Document

This document describes the idea for your video. You might be surprised at how helpful it is to be able to read through how your idea sounds. It’s also helpful to bounce the idea off someone else - they might have some good ideas that could make your production even better. Try to include as much detail about how your video will begin, what is in the middle, and how it will end. This document will become the foundation for the rest of the planning process.

The Idea Document should also include consideration of the intended audience. This is important because every audience is different. Is it for the general public, your friends, your family, a teacher or class instructor? The type of audience that your video is intended for will affect the WAY in which you produce your video.

Also, as you think of creating things to do in your project like special effects you may want to try, fonts that you like for titling effects, people you may want to use as actors, etc. put them in your idea document. This will also become a great resource for future projects to look back on and get other ideas from.

Budget document

There is no such thing as a video that is made for free even if you have "no budget." At the very minimum there is your time and materials expense. If you have a budget to work with, then try to determine what you might need to spend it on. Any or all of the following can include potential costs:

1. Recording media – tapes, DVDs, removable media - you’ll need material to capture your video on and ultimately send it out on.
2. Equipment Rental - anything that you don’t own will have to be borrowed or rented.
3. Sets and Props - Anything that doesn’t exist where you’re shooting is going to have to be created, bought, borrowed or stolen . Try to list individual items even ones you’re not sure you’re going to use. Include food items as well.
4. Misc. equipment - extension cords, outdoor lighting, batteries, duct tape. All the little things that you don’t want to forget (did I mention duct tape).
5. Transportation - Fuel costs and general wear and tear on your vehicle
6. Talent - you might have to pay them, at the very least take them out to dinner for helping you out.
7. Location costs - paying for parking, entry into parks or other recreation areas, etc.
8. Food - you might as well plan on eating out during the shoot and ordering lots of pizza and coke for the long edit session ahead.
9. And finally - Your Time and sanity.

The Script

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS produce a script in some form or another. It does not have to be a professionally formatted document (although its fun to learn what the Hollywood Scripts look like), but it should be something that contains the details of the flow the production. It doesn’t matter if it’s a wedding video, a narrative, a school project, or an edited version of last years vacation to Disneyland. At a minimum, you’ll want to get down on paper the things you absolutely need to capture for the project to be successful.

You might start out with an outline and add the details as you get ideas. Create separate pages for different segments or scenes in your production. That way you can print the pages, and pencil in details as they come to you, and you’ll have plenty of room for changes. You’re going to rely heavily on this document as you get closer to the shoot and/or the edit session. The more detail that you include, the more time you’ll save. Include the types of shots you want to get, the type of locations and special environmental conditions (night, day, rain, sunny, etc.), the people involved, the duration of time that each segment should last, any dialogue, sets and prop considerations. Consider how you want to cover the scene - the types of camera angles you want to capture. Think of the script as how you would describe the finished video with as much detail as possible.

The script can also help with the Budget Document in helping you identify potential expenses. Make sure that the script fits your Idea Document and vice versa.

If you can draw, you can also generate a story board. I like to draw although I’m not that great at it. I’ve done several projects now where I have sat down and actually created a storyboard. I divide a paper up into 6 squares and then number each square. I also number subsequent pages with each square numbered sequentially from the page before. I draw each shot in pencil (so I can erase a lot) representing a scene with a small caption. This helps me to visualize what the shots will look like, helps me define the types of shots I would like to get, and gives me an overall view of the flow of the program.

Here is an image of a part of the storyboard that I did for the latest "Spy" film of my boys:

The link to the finished film on YouTube is here:

You can also create some forms that will help you when you’re in the field. The two most common forms are the Shooting Schedule or Shot List and the Shooting Log. Both these forms will help in the field and in the upcoming edit session.

Shot List

The Shot List is generated from the script or storyboard and is essentially a checklist of all of the individual shots you want to get. Create a Shot List for each segment or scene. Let’s look at a quick example of what a shot list might look like for the first part of the day at a family reunion:

SHOT LIST
DAY 1 - LAKE TAHOE - DAY

The Shot List will never contain all of the shots that you might want to get. Things always change once you’ve reached the location, but at least you have taken the time to think about the shots that you know you will want to get. Placing a check box beside each shot description will let you keep track of what you have once you’re in the field. There is nothing more frustrating that getting into an edit session and not having coverage of something that you need. Most of the time you can’t go back to the location and get it and your edit suffers.

Shooting Log

Where the shot list is valuable in the field, the Shoot Log becomes valuable in the edit session.

The shooting log can be prepared in the field or after the shoot in a logging session. If you haven’t prepared a Shot List then it’s a good idea to have a Shooting Log prepared for the field. The Shooting log contains a record of what you have actually recorded on tape with its approximate start and end time. You should have one Shooting Log per field tape with the Log and the tape clearly marked together.

While the shot list may contain a list of the shots you would like to get, it may not always end up that you shoot the list in the order that you wrote it down in. This makes it difficult to find that one shot in the edit session. For this reason, logging becomes important.

You can lay the shooting log out into columns to look something like this:

The “In Time” represents the actual time that the shot started usually represented in Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames (01:03:43:15). The “Out Time” represents the actual time that the shot ended. Use the “Shot Description” field to give a quick shot description. The “Comments” field can be used for additional information for example if you have several shots of the same scene you might make a note as to the best one. We’ll go into more detail about the shooting log in the next chapter.

I can’t overemphasize how important the planning phase is to any production. I’ve seen clients paying big money in an edit session agonize over a missed shot, and ending up settling for an inferior replacement shot. I’ve also edited in sessions that went like clockwork because of excellent pre-planning. Just remember this rule - If you’re in the field or in the edit suite, it is too late to begin to plan.

Page Last Modified: