One thing that sets our agency apart is our serious chops for creative video production. We’d like to give you a peek into our production process from start to finish! Here is the production journey for one of our recent projects – a series of outside-the-box promotional videos for a long-time client.

PRE-PRO

Ideation

This client, Powerwash.com, is an established brand with over 30-years of experience in a very specific niche of B2B sales. As the coronavirus outbreak began to affect the economy, we recognized the need and opportunity to make a big move creatively to dramatically increase their revenue. We began to ideate ways we could incorporate new video assets to diversify their approach to digital ads. (We’ll walk through how we leveraged these creative assets to turn $2k in ad spend into $105k in trackable conversions in our blog next week!)

To drive traffic and conversions for professional-grade power washing equipment, supplies, and training, we decided to flip the script and create entertaining content portraying what NOT to do…and just like that, Wash Rat Academy was born.

Write It Out

Once we had the go-ahead from the client and some input on their area of expertise, we began the scriptwriting process. Based on production scheduling and budget, we knew we were making four separate videos for this series. We started with a green-light brainstorming session to come up with all the bad ways someone might cut corners for their power washing business. We sorted those ideas into four groups in which we could build humor around central themes.

Once we had the major ideas sorted out, they were turned over to our Copywriter for scripting. 

Scriptwriting is an art based in the mechanics of motion picture production. It takes a great deal of artistic and technical understanding and skill to write in character voice & tone and to provide direction for your production team. While there are many ways to script out a video, we chose to write our scripts in the traditional Hollywood screenplay format.  No matter what layout you choose, a well-written and formatted script is the key first step to organizing your production process.

Organization Is The Key To Success

The next step for our video shoot was to determine exactly what locations, talent, equipment, and supplies were needed to execute this production. Our Production Manager and Chief Creative Officer created a full Shot List broken down by location and an Equipment and Supplies List for each shot. 

Because this video concept involved creating a fictional business entity, part of sourcing the necessary supplies included creating branding materials. (You can check out this blog to get a peek into our design process!) This final logo iteration was part of the branding package we used to legitimize our fictional business entity.

PRODUCTION DAY

Props, equipment, and sound gear were organized into tubs by location and labeled in accordance with our master shot list to make quick transitions while filming possible. Without this level of pre-planning, it would have taken days to get every shot needed for four separate videos.

We executed this production with a team of seven. One Director, two Actors, one Sound Tech, one Production Assistant, and two members of the Art Department for set design, costumes, & make up.

With organized guidance from the producer and director, our team was able to complete every shot needed, and we even finished early. To accomplish this, we filmed based on the strict order of our Shot List – organized by location – not by the sequential order of the scenes. 

Each shot on the list was broken into three parts: which of the four videos it would be featured in, the scene from that video, and the camera view. Before each shot, one of our production assistants would use a clapper to mark the take. At the completion of each scene, the production assistant would mark down the most successful shots to simplify the post-production process. 

POST-PRODUCTION

Post-production is where much of the magic happens. 

These screenshots can’t really capture the hours of editing that it took for our post-production team to turn raw footage into a polished final product – but what we do want to highlight is the level of meticulous organization that saturated every step of this process. 

To begin, our team organized the raw footage and audio recordings into folders broken up by the same categories as the Shot List. There were hundreds of files at this point, and creating a thorough organization system was key to ensuring that it would be simple to find specific files as needed throughout the rest of the post-production process.

From here our team was able to edit the video within the timeline, & correct and improve audio clips by Dynamic Linking with Adobe Audition. 

We cannot stress this enough, for video production – organization is the key to success. Our Production Manager Derek shares, “Organization is one of the most important aspects of video production. All the way from pre-production to final edits.”

Click below to see one of the final videos from this shoot! (And please don’t try anything you see at home.)

We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into our production process! If you’re wanting to create video assets that will take your digital ads to the next level, get in touch with us. For elevating your content, we’re always here to help.