Naturally, any creative project requires a degree of flexibility; however, it also benefits from having a clear process—something to guide us, making sure we maintain a sense of direction.
Our process is designed to facilitate constructive communication every step of the way. With that said, every project is different, and each will demand its own unique variation on the creative process. Here is a look at what will be involved.
1. Exploration & Questionnaire
Before beginning any sort of project, it’s important to explore your overall goals and strategy – in this case, your video marketing strategy. If you’re scratching your head wondering what that is, that’s even better! That’s what we’re here for, and we’d love to work with you to develop one. We’ll work with your team to figure out where you’re going, then develop a clear roadmap to help you get there. We’ll even help you find the best way to roll the final product out to your clients and prospects.
We’ll then get familiar with the specific project. What is the purpose of the video? What is your key messaging and target audience? What sort of tone should your video to have? These are the first things we need to know before developing a story. In order to best answer these, we will develop a short Questionnaire uniquely tailored to each individual project. This helps us to gain a deeper understanding of your business and its offering, to clearly map out our goals, and to begin drafting our script and visuals.
2. Script & Storyboard Development
Next up is the script. Most videos have some form of narration (either an on-camera spokesperson or a voice-over), so it makes sense to script this first. It’s helpful to think of it as the ‘backbone’—it establishes a voice and tone for the video and provides an opportunity to make sure that it’s on-message, and on-brand.
We may also draft what’s called an ‘A/V Script’. Presented as a simple table, this includes the Voiceover Script in one column, along with an outline of the visuals and audio in another, and the running time of the video in a third. This easy-to-read format will enable you to envision the final product and is particularly useful for live-action videos.
For other projects, especially those that are being animated or involving complicated visual sequences to be filmed, we’ll develop a storyboard. This may be just a series of very rough sketches, or more complete sequences of animation (called animatics) which help to show the video’s visual style and progression.
This pre-visualization process helps to establish the look of the video, and in more complex projects, to plot out its narrative and plan transitions between scenes.
Each script and storyboard may go through a number of revisions based on client feedback, helping us to not only share our vision for a project with our clients but also acting as a reference for our film crews, editors, and animators—anyone who is involved in the project throughout each stage of production.
3. Visual Style Design
While the script is being developed, our creative team will begin to design some still images that demonstrate the overall visual style and colour palette that we’ll apply to your project. There’s plenty of opportunity for collaboration here, and we’ll be happy to take lots of feedback and brand direction at this stage. This is the best time to make major changes – before filming and/or animation have begun.
4. Interview Questions
Sometimes we’ll film interviews or testimonials to add credibility and to support the statements made in a voice-over. These are never completely scripted; if they were, the interviewee’s responses would sound canned and rehearsed. Instead, we develop targeted questions, along with a list of intended answers which help to guide their responses to ensure that our interviews sound spontaneous and genuine but also communicate the desired message.
In Summary
Video is a powerful tool for storytelling, but harnessing its full potential requires planning and preparation. Our creative development process is designed with this in mind and we have worked hard to make sure that it is collaborative, transparent, and efficient.
Contact us for a consultation to learn more about our process and how we can help your business use video to communicate more effectively.
