If you haven’t commissioned a professional film before, you might be wondering what actually happens once you get in touch.
Do you need a finished brief? How much planning is involved? What happens on the filming day? And how much of your time is the whole thing going to take?
The short answer is that you don’t need to have everything worked out before you contact me. Some clients arrive with a detailed brief. Others have little more than an idea and a problem they’re trying to solve.
Both are absolutely fine.
It usually starts with a conversation
Most projects begin with an email, occasionally a phone call.
If you don’t already have a brief, I’ll usually ask you to send me a paragraph or two explaining what you’re thinking. It doesn’t need to be formal. It just gives me a chance to understand the project and have a think before we talk in more detail.
From there, we’ll normally have a half-hour conversation online.
That’s where we start to pin things down. Who is the film for? What are you trying to achieve? Where will people see it? Is it going on your website, social media, being used by your sales team or forming part of a wider campaign? And what would success actually look like?
You don’t need to know all the answers. Part of my job is helping you work them out.
Then we work out what’s possible
Once I understand the project properly, I can put together a plan and a realistic cost.
If you already have a budget in mind, that’s useful. It doesn’t mean I’m simply going to spend all of it. It means we can make sensible decisions about where the money will have the most impact.
A larger budget might allow us to create several social versions alongside the main film, for example. Or perhaps you’d get more value from putting some of the budget into actually promoting the finished film.
If you need help getting the film seen, we can talk about that too. I can help with the marketing side myself or bring in other specialists where necessary.
Once we know what we’re making, I’ll provide a quote and we can start planning.
For larger projects, I normally invoice 50% upfront and the remainder on completion. For smaller projects, typically below about £1,500, I’ll usually invoice the whole amount at the end.
Before filming, everyone knows what’s happening
I’ll agree locations, dates and the basic structure of the filming with you beforehand.
You’ll normally receive an outline for the day so everybody knows when interviews are happening, how much time we need for supporting footage and whether we need access to particular people, places or equipment.
If we need drone footage or particular shots, we’ll think about those in advance too.
And if a project is weather-dependent, I’ll usually try to keep enough flexibility in my schedule to give us the best chance of filming in decent conditions.
The idea isn’t to plan every second. It’s simply to make sure that when I arrive, we can get on with making the film.
Filming is usually pretty low-key
People sometimes imagine professional video production involving a large crew, banks of lights and a van full of equipment.
That’s generally not how I work.
Most of the time I work by myself with a relatively compact camera setup. On a typical shoot there might just be me, someone from your marketing team and the person I’m interviewing.
That makes it much easier to work in real businesses without completely taking over the place.
We can film in offices, workshops, outdoors or wherever makes sense for the story. And because the setup is relatively nimble, we can adapt as we go.
I don’t tend to work with a stopwatch either. I usually think in terms of half days and days rather than charging for every minute. The important thing is getting what we need within the time we’ve allowed for the project.
Then I take everything away and build the story
After filming, I’ll normally have a first version for you within a week or two, depending on the project and my schedule.
Exactly what you see first can vary.
For an interview-led film, I might initially concentrate on shaping the interviews so we can agree the story before I add all the supporting footage, graphics and other elements.
Sometimes I’ll deliberately give you a slightly longer first version so you can see more of what was captured. We can then decide together what earns its place in the final film.
Once the story is working, I can build everything else around it.
Feedback is part of the process
I don’t expect to send you a first edit and have you simply say, “Perfect.”
There will nearly always be changes.
You might want something shorter, a section moved, a different shot used or a particular point emphasised. You send me your feedback, I make the changes and send it back.
I don’t generally impose a rigid number of revision rounds. Most projects naturally reach the right place through a sensible amount of back and forth.
If the scope starts expanding significantly and we’re moving beyond the editing time allowed for in the original budget, I’ll tell you before doing additional chargeable work.
There shouldn’t be a surprise bill at the end.
And finally, you get the finished films
Once everything is signed off, I’ll upload the finished films and other agreed assets to Dropbox for you to download.
I’ll leave them there for a few weeks, so you have plenty of time to save everything to your own systems, and I’ll let you know before anything is removed.
And the relationship doesn’t suddenly end when I send you the files.
If you have questions about uploading the films, formats or the technical side of getting them online, I’m always available by email to help.
If you want more substantial help launching or promoting the film, we can also look at that as a separate piece of work.
You don’t need to arrive with all the answers
Commissioning a film doesn’t need to start with a 20-page creative brief.
You might have a very clear idea of exactly what you want. Or you might simply know that you need to recruit more people, explain what your business does or tell a customer story.
Either is a perfectly good place to start.
My job is to help turn that into the right film, plan the production, make the filming straightforward and guide the project through to a finished piece of work.
So if you’ve got an idea, even if it’s still fairly vague, send me a couple of paragraphs about what you’re trying to achieve and we can take it from there.