The following steps will help you when producing a video for your brand, business, product, or personal use.

Video Production Company Commissioning and Production:

This article will detail the crucial things that you as someone searching for video production services need to know prior to hiring the right video production company. Understanding the types of videos, formats, pricing and turnaround times is very important. You can schedule a consultation with a trusted video production company like Brainiac Pictures for a more elaborate understanding of the below information.

Step One: Choose the right video production company based on niche

There are so many different types of video producers and the one sure-fire way to get a great video is to use a specialist in that niche. We don’t mean that if you are marketing a candy bar or a toy the company has to specialize in candy bars and toys, that’s ridiculous. But they should specialize in products and B2C-type videos. Beware of companies who claim to do everything. If they do personal videos, such as weddings, bar mitzvahs, depositions real estate, then they probably aren’t any good at the highly competitive market of product videos, saas, and social videos. Here are the three categories you should look at.

COMMERCIAL VIDEO PRODUCTION COMPANIES – Commercial Video Production Companies serve brands and companies. They often do B2B, B2C and Social Videos. If you are marketing a product or software as a service, it would fall under this category of production. If you see weddings or behind-the-scenes content on the same site, choose another company, one that specializes in commercial-level production.

PERSONAL VIDEO PRODUCTION COMPANIES – These companies do weddings, bar mitzvah videos, legal services, and also often do real estate videos and legal videos. They are not qualified to do “brand videos” if they have to make their living off weddings. These are two very different types of production and good companies never do both.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

BEHIND THE SCENES COMPANIES – These companies document what real creatives do. They shoot behind-the-scenes videos of commercial productions. If you see their website has behind-the-scenes work, they may be qualified to shoot your wedding, but they are not qualified to deliver an incredible advertising video. And the same goes for commercial producers. Unless they have shot a wedding, don’t hire them to shoot weddings. Sticking to these three categories when selecting a company is absolutely necessary for your success.

Step Two: Help your director understand the goals and audience for the video

When you are first speaking with your video producer or director, share the link to your brand or product, along with your target audience/buyer. They should then be able to recommend which platform is right for promoting your video and lay out all of the best practices for promoting that type of product on that video platform.

The main platforms are Broadcast, Streaming/Proggamatic, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, and your own website landing page. Each site has specific runtime best practices and aspect ratios, as well as the amount of text and type of approach. A season Video Director will be able to help you understand those best practices once he knows who your audience is and what you are looking to sell.

Step Three: Give details on your branding and product features itself

The details of the product and features is the next information you will give your director, and that will be used to inform both your script and the keywords behind your Search Engine Optimization Strategy within the video itself.

Video Production Steps

Script – Once your director has the product details, he will draft a script that is appropriate for your branding and target audience. A good director will use programs like Tubebuddy and SEM RUSH to understand keywording if the video is planned for online organic discovery. Adding the SEO keywords to the screenplay itself can improve the video visibility in search engine results and social media feeds.
Casting – Your director will then share with you a handful of actors to choose from based on your target audience. Sometimes, simply pictures/headshots are used to determine who is right. If there is dialogue, demo reels and audition tapes are often used to select the right person.
Shooting – The typical turnaround time for a video shoot is 4 to 6 weeks. Often times the production company has free in-house locations or they keep the location budget separate, as different locations charge different amounts and this gives the client flexibility in terms of both budget and visual choices.
Editing – The editing and color correction process is one of the most important processes. Most companies give two free rounds of revisions once the second invoice has been paid. Additional revision rounds usually cost between 300 to 1000 oer round depending on the company.
Placement and Video Seo – A good company has SEO and Placement in mind before they start production. They often give you your hashtags and descriptions along with your completed video.

Understanding Video Production Pricing

Beware of video production companies offering commercial-level productions for less than $4000. A good explainer video for software costs between $4500 and $8500. A proper product video or commercial costs between $6500 and $12,000 for small to mid-sized brands. Commercials requiring large locations, union actors, and planning to spend a half million on ad campaign placements usually spend in the low to mid six figures on production, however, often audiences can’t tell the difference provided the production company the brand chooses has a slick, good looking video production reel.

THE NEED FOR BULK VIDEO PRODUCTION

Consider choosing a company that offers both Product Videos shot on cinema cameras and Social Media videos, as the various formats are helpful when targeting your buyer. The company you hire does not have to be the same company (usually it shouldn’t be) that purchases the Google ads or Facebook/TikTok ad campaigns. But they should know the various formats you’l need to hand to your media buyer for platform representative.

To get quotes and advice on video production you can reach out to Brainiac Pictures.

–