Most videos fail in pre-production. Here's how to fix that before the camera rolls.
We've seen the pattern enough times to know: the business that's unhappy with their commercial video usually didn't have a bad editor or a bad crew. They had a bad brief. Or no brief at all.
Pre-production is where commercial video is won or lost. By the time you're on set, you're executing a plan — and if the plan is weak, the footage is weak. Here's the process we use for every shoot.
Not three actions. One. What do you want someone to do after watching this video? Call you? Book a demo? Visit a location? Buy a product? Everything else in production — the script, the visual style, the pacing, the call to action — is reverse-engineered from that single answer.
If you can't answer that question in one sentence, the video isn't ready to plan yet.
A 60-second brand film for your homepage needs a completely different approach than a 15-second Instagram ad or a 3-minute case-study video for a sales deck. Aspect ratio, pacing, caption requirements, audio levels, the amount of text you can put on screen — all of this changes based on where the video will actually be seen.
We always lock the distribution platforms before we write a shot list. Otherwise you're building something for a context that doesn't exist.
The script and the shot list should be developed together. Every line of narration or dialogue needs to be covered by a specific visual. Every moment of silence needs to earn its place on screen. If you're writing a shot list that doesn't map to a script — or if your script has moments you can't visualize — stop and fix it before the shoot day.
Run-and-gun shooting looks great in documentaries. In commercial work, it's a way to come home with a lot of footage that doesn't edit into anything useful.
On set, label your shots. Mark which ones are hero shots that you absolutely need for the edit to work. Mark which ones are coverage — nice to have, but the video functions without them. If the day gets compressed (it will), you protect the hero shots and cut coverage first.
The edit is only as good as what you brought home. Plan for what you need, not what would be nice.
If you're planning a commercial video shoot and want a second set of eyes on your brief or shot list, reach out to our team. We do pre-production consulting alongside full-service production.