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Videos are now an integral aspect of every successful marketing campaign. More importantly, videos are essential to the success of any business, no matter how big or little.
Due to the growing popularity of online video and the increasing importance of reaching customers through this medium, the number of companies offering video production services has increased.
Producing a video isn’t a piece of cake. It takes a good production strategy, a lot of patience, creative charm, and plenty of faith.
It is crucial for organizations to generate videos that are of outstanding quality in a little period and can help them enhance conversions and ROI.
A wide variety of corporate video formats are available. Explainer videos, 2D animations, motion graphics, etc., are just a few examples. The length of the videos produced should reflect the needs of the company.
But here comes the billion-dollar question, “How long will it take you to complete the entire project?”
Pre-production, production, and post-production are the three distinct phases of any video production process. Not to mention, this is what the entire project’s deadline will revolve on.
In this article, I will describe each stage of the video production process in detail so that you can grasp the big picture.
But before we get into it, let’s answer the two most crucial questions that everyone has about every project: how much will the video project cost, and when will it be finished?
The answer to how long it takes to make a video from beginning to end is the same as that for how much it costs: it depends.
Ideally, four to eight weeks should be allotted to finish the production of a 60-second live-action corporate video that includes interviews, an animated motion graphics video, and a b-roll video.
However, it’s a proven fact the simpler the project is, the less time it takes. Let’s take a look at what goes into a video production process during those four to eight weeks of tenure.
The Universal Chronology for Producing A Corporate Video (The Timeline)
Pre-production, production, and post-production are the three primary stages of video production. Nonetheless, there is still a great deal of groundwork to be done before pre-production. Here are the five components—some of which occur concurrently—that establish the order of events during video production.
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Strategy creation, planning, and preparation take up to a week
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The creative assets development often takes up to on to two weeks
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The pre-production phase takes one to two weeks
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The production phase can take one day to one week
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The post-production phase can take up two to three weeks
This sums up what all goes into a video production process and which stage requires what.
Creating Video Strategy and Preparing for Video Production
So, let’s go back to the beginning when contracts were being made for the project. The first step in making a good video is having an intake meeting with the client to find out exactly what it is they want to achieve with the final result.
Thereafter, the organization comes up with an inventive messaging brief that serves to explain key aspects of the project. It’s a simple yet crucial method of maintaining order and harmony throughout the video production process.
The agency seeks to collect the right information as much as possible in these briefings so that it may plan the necessary creativity and allocate the necessary funds. What kind of video you want to make (story versus interview-based, location versus studio, voice-over artist, professional actors, etc.) will be among the topics covered.
Timeframes are very variable depending on the aforementioned factors; however, it is estimated that this procedure can take up to a week.
After the video production company has established the parameters of the project (cost, duration, desired outcomes, etc.), it will enter the creative creation phase.
Creative Assets Development
How do we define creative development? The inspiration behind your video is the most significant element. Oftentimes, the success (or failure) of a video project hinges on the strategy you employ to create it. This might take a few days or up to a week if everything goes perfectly.
If the video consists entirely of interviews, that time period will be shortened. Since the creative strategy already incorporates our current understanding of the project’s aims, target demographic, and central message, it needs not be fully developed before proceeding.
The idea may be to make a training video in the style of a reality show or to film an interview so that it seems like a documentary. After settling on a certain piece of creativity, you’ll go through the following stages.
Phase No. 1 Pre-Production
There are a lot of phases in this process, and the length of time needed for each is entirely according to the method being used for creativity.
Step 1: Scriptwriting
Pre-production always begins with the screenplay, no matter what creative technique is being used. A week is a good amount of time to write the script, collect comments, and make changes before finalizing it. Timeliness might increase if the customer needs “legal” assistance.
Step 2: Graphic Designing
In the event that your video will have design and motion graphics for instance kinetic text, then the style frames will need to be made to demonstrate how the motion and graphics will be implemented. This can happen in parallel with the scripts and take anywhere from a couple of days to one week or so.
Step 3: Talent casting
Casting professional actors is a must if your show has a storyline. Many production companies may also have rehearsals with the actors ahead of time to assist them in perfecting their performance for the big shoot day.
Pre-interviews serve the same purpose as filming an interview-based video: to hone the performance and guarantee that all relevant material is recorded.
Step 4: Locating potential filming spots and arranging necessary production equipment
The location of your video’s filming is something you’ll decide on during the concept creation phase. Once you’ve settled on a place for it, you’ll need to do some scouting to make sure it’s perfect. The ideal site may call for special permissions; plan ahead to ensure you have enough time to get all the necessary authorizations.
Step 5: Creating a shooting schedule
Once you have all the aforementioned materials prepared, you can move on with setting up your shoot. To do so, the production crew, on-air talent, the client, and the shooting site must all agree on a convenient time.
Step 6: Planning shot list
The photography director/producer will create a shot list to guarantee that all necessary elements are captured during principal photography. Also, numerous shoot locations or interviews necessitate the use of shot lists.
All of this can add another two weeks to the process, and we’re still not at the shoot date yet.
Phase No. 2 Production
The production process is complete when you’re ready to begin taking pictures. We will know how many shooting days we need once we’ve completed our pre-production and are ready to start production on the things included in our creative development plan.
Depending on the format, videos with narration or interviews might be shot in a single day. Some people like to give it five. Setting out a week for production is a solid bet, whether planning or pitching.
Phase No. 3 Post-Production
After shooting all of your footage, it’s time to edit the footage together. Post-production entails a number of stages, similar to those of pre-production:
Step 1: Footage Processing
Whether your video is a structured story with several takes and multiple locations may affect how much time and effort is needed for processing the material.
The time it takes for a production team to process an image with a greater resolution, which improves its quality, depends on the processing speed of the computer system being used to download it.
Step 2: Editing
The video goes through numerous edits, much as the writing did. It usually takes around three to four days to complete each iteration, or revision, of the editing process. However, if there are several interviews, or if your subject wasn’t comfortable in front of the camera, that editorial might take more time.
It might take more time to edit the video into a coherent whole if, for instance, it contains many pauses, interruptions, and odd language.
Step 3: Hiring a professional voice-over artist
Casting and recording voice-overs If your video needs narration, you’ll need to hold auditions, find and employ voice actors, then record the dialogue.
Step 4: Including motion graphics
If you’ve been working on storyboards in the pre-production phase, it’s time to start animating your motion graphics.
Step 5: Color Grading
After the picture has been finalized and locked, then comes the color grading process. Color grading any video is similar to modifying the look of a still image in terms of brightness (or lack thereof), contrast (or lack thereof), saturation (or lack thereof), and exposure (or presence).
Step 6: Audio
When it comes to audio, the sound design process is the last to be completed after production. Included in this process are the narrative, sound effects, and music, all of which will be mixed and mastered into a single cohesive whole. The ultimate playback device is considered during the audio mix.
There are significant differences between mixing audio on the web, mixing for broadcast, and mixing for a live performance. As a result, it’s important to take your time and make sure the music fits the tone of each location.
Post-production on our benchmark two-minute promotional video should take no more than two weeks.
Accessibility Considerations
Finally, we reach completion, which includes taking into account accessibility factors. At this stage, a video has already been greenlit. Here, you’ll take care of things like final QA (quality assessment) and exporting to the final deliverable files, as well as accessibility issues like creating audio tracks, closed captions, and creating any subtitles if they are required.
The time frame for this procedure often ranges from a few days up to a week. However, this obviously depends on how many of the above-mentioned prerequisites are needed.
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Factors That Influence Video Production Timeline
When some videos take a couple of weeks to produce, some video projects might take more time than you anticipated in the beginning. But why so? Well, the video production process is primarily determined by the following three criteria:
The type of video
There are numerous types of videos available. You can choose different styles such as live videos, animated videos, explainer videos, and so on.
All you need is to remember the more you add special effects and other elements to your project, the more time it will take to produce. For instance, it does not take very long to produce a live-action video as no post-production work is required.
However, if you’re choosing animation as your video style, then it might take a little longer as a lot of work goes into the pre-production phase of animation, like creating storyboards and character designing. It might take a little to create even short animations.
The length of the video
Well, it goes without saying, lengthier videos take longer to produce when compared to shorter videos. This signifies that your video timeline varies on the video length.
Moreover, if something goes wrong, you can re-take and edit shorter videos. However, if you have to re-take and edit longer videos, it will consume more time.
The style of the video
The timeline of video production is also influenced by the video style. For instance, if you’re producing a talking-head video, you need to film a couple of continuous shots.
While on the other hand, if you’re shooting a documentary, you have to film a couple of shots from multiple areas and locations. The more photos you add to your video, the longer it will take to produce.
Quality Video Content Takes Time
As the demand for video marketing is increasing, so are the conversions and ROI. If you have not jumped on this bandwagon yet, it’s high time!
On a closing note, we hope this blog will help you to understand the whole process of the video production process and how much it can take to produce a video.