Guide to Managing a Successful Video Production Plan
For anyone that’s been keeping an eye on the field of marketing, that’s one trend that’s getting too big to ignore.
The explosive growth of video content—and how much engagement it’s been helping brands drive.
For starters—
- viewers retain 95% of video content vs. just 10% of text content,
- mixing in video content increases your chances of making page one of Google by 5,300%,
- video attracts 300% more traffic vs, text content, and
- YouTube—the video giant—has consistently remained the world’s 2nd most popular website, behind Google.
The reason why is easy to track down. Humans are visual creatures. We learn more, feel more engaged, and connected with video vs. any other channel. Nothing else even comes close.
You need to take an intentional approach towards your video marketing to make anything out of it.
So, if you’re looking to take your business further, you’ll need to double down on your video marketing to leverage the opportunity for growth it offers.
But the video doesn’t create itself. It takes concerted effort to create shareable videos that appeal to your target audience and helps you get your message out there.
In this article, you’ll learn—
- How the video production process works,
- The tips and tricks you need to create winning videos,
- The ideal tool for managing your video production process.
Learn how you can double down on video production and open new channels to attract, engage, and convert your ideal customers with the help of project management.
Three steps to the video production process
You’ve probably watched hundreds of YouTube videos over the years—product unboxing, movie trailers, music videos.
All those have views ranging from hundreds of thousands to even a few billion.
You sure want your videos to be like that, no?
To achieve that, you need to copy what those successful videos did to create theirs. You need a process.
While it may seem a bit contradictory, video production isn’t a purely creative field where you come up with ideas on the fly.
No director ever gets into the studio, comes up with a plan on the spot, and starts trying to see what they can shoot.
For optimum results, you need a plan & a process that you can follow to the letter.
Now, the video production process is divided into three different ranges of input needed to create quality video content. These include
- pre-production,
- production, and
- post-production sequences.
1. The pre-production sequence
The pre-production sequence sums up all the work that goes into preparing for shooting an actual video before you get started on it. This sets the stage and prepares the elements you need to make your video the best it can be.
Determine your high-level goals
What are the objectives, targets, and overall outcomes you intend to achieve from shooting this video? Maybe, leverage to drive organic traffic, or promote on your social handles? Creating a clear picture of what you intend to achieve makes it easier to achieve when you start shooting.
Create a storyline
What story do you want to tell? What will this video be saying? Create a rough storyline to define exactly what your video should say.
Create a detailed storyboard
A storyboard is simply a breakdown of the video you’re looking to create—told in pictures. A storyboard is simply a picture-by-picture draft of the different takes and scenes that’ll make up your video when you’re done. You can use a Kanban tool to create your storyboard, organize it, and manage it even when you start producing.
Define your budget
You don’t have unlimited funds for creating your video and as such, you need to create a budget and find a way to map your budget to the outcomes you want to create.
Location
Indoor or outdoor, where do you want to shoot? What should the weather be like? Location planning is simply figuring out what each scene should look like and planning to make it so.
- Ready your equipment & the lineup of actors you’ll be featuring for your video.
- Plan and create a time window for actually shooting the video.
- Create backup plans, locations, actors, etc., for contingencies or emergencies.
The pre-production sequence is essentially you setting up the plan, tools, and environment you need to shoot successfully.
2. The production sequence
Once you have a vision of what you intend to achieve plus all the resources you need at the ready, the next step is to head right in and get started.
Shoot
Ensure you shoot the different takes you’ve planned in your storyboard. Keep your video true to the idea you’ve planned on your storyboard as well as your script.
Shoot as many takes as possible
This gives you a huge library to choose from when you get down to editing.
The production process is where you start capturing the ideas you’ve planned and putting them into action. Shoot, edit, and experiment to bring out the best.
3. The post-production sequence
The post-production sequence is where you go through all the raw content you’ve created to edit, refine, and bring out the idea you’ve planned. Here’s a brief breakdown of what the post-production sequence looks like.
Review your video sequences
Do your shots bring out the ideas you’ve planned out on your storyboard?
Are there any gaps in your script that need to be filled?
You need to ensure that not only do your shots capture the scenes you’ve planned but also that they tell a single cohesive story.
Edit your raw video content
The editing stage is where it all begins to come together since you start cutting off any parts of your clips that don’t work, fit in, or are substandard.
Editing is what takes several shots and combines them all into one piece of content.
Add in necessary effects such as transitions, color corrections, narration, etc.
Adding transitions gives a unique flavor to your videos and help you move from one shot to another. Transitions can be simple or complex.
Release and promote
With your video fully edited and ready to go, here’s the stage where you publish to whatever outlet you’ve planned, promote, and repurpose to serve any other uses you planned on in the pre-production stage.
Taking a retrospective look at the pre-production, production, and post-production sequences, there’s one thread that runs through them all—they are one. Right from the start, your efforts at each successive stage affects what you eventually get at the end of the day.
As a result, you must approach the video production process as a whole with a coordinated mindset, knowing that each task plays a key role in how the entire project eventually turns out.
Best practices for managing video production process better
Now, we’ve established the what and the why of video production.
We understand that video is the most-effective and fastest-growing promotion channel for attracting, engaging, and converting ideal customers. It remains to be seen how you execute; i.e. how do you leverage the video production process to create high-quality video content?
Here are five effective best practices you can start applying to get started producing better videos.
1. Set clear targets, goals, and objectives before you take any step further
Knowing exactly what you want to achieve helps you track when you’re either doing so missing the mark. Clear objectives help you align your choices and action to your desired endpoint.
2. Managing your video production like a project increases your chances of success
This includes creating a checklist of tasks for each production phase, keeping track of equipment movements, actor details, and other need-to-knows in a shared database.
3. Curate generously, and edit likewise
There’s nothing like a perfect shot. To create great video content, you need to collect lots of takes and then filter down to what best looks like your target video.
4. Keep your story cohesive
Focus on continuity. If you’re shooting across several takes, you need to take a long hard look at them all and determine whether they tell one cohesive story when placed together.
5. Practice, practice, and practice even more
If you’re using human actors, they’ll always be some room for improvement. Even if your actors are experts, chances are that they’ve not been in the unique situation your video is placing them in.
Your only route around that is to practice until your actors and actresses grow naturally into the roles they’ve been assigned.
Creating winning video content needs all the effort you can give it. It takes focus, persistence, and continuous improvement (which, of course, means continuous learning) to stay on top of the video production game.
The ideal tool for managing your video production
You need a tool you can use to:
- create project goals and keep them forward and center until your video is done and dusted,
- track tasks and check them off as you execute,
- engage your entire team and collaborate with ease,
- organize the video content you create in the pre-production and production stages, ideally a storyboard tool,
- store assets where your team can have easy access.
Despite the huge tranche of software tools on the market, there are very few you can use to do this comfortably. MS Word can help you create a plan, but it’ll go no further than a folder on your desktop or as an email attachment you can’t collaborate with.
Email can help you reach your team but before long, the endless threads will start getting out of hand.
Tools like Asana and Trello can help you manage tasks but they may fall short with collecting and managing ideas.
Pro tip: Use Creative Project Management Software like Kissflow Project instead.
Kissflow Project is our project board software that empowers you to manage video production projects easier, faster, and more collaboratively.
Kissflow Project’s Kanban board offers:
- task management so you can assign production tasks to teammates,
- a robust Kanban board for creating storyboards,
- collaboration features such as notifications, @mentions, and comments, and
- seamless file sharing.
Kissflow Project empowers you to manage your processes easily and quickly so you can dedicate more time to being creative.
Take Kissflow Project for a spin here.
More Resources
- Creating an Actionable Marketing Editorial Calendar – A Step by Step Guide
- How to Plan and Manage a Successful Product Launch
- 6 Excellent Tips for an Effective Website Redesign Strategy
- Everything You Need to Know About Marketing Operations
