Video Production – Quick Tips
December 7, 2018
6th December 2018 by CH
If you want to get the most out of your content, check out our tips below.
Know What You’re Making
Would you build a house without blueprints? It’s obvious, but really important to plan before committing to filming or creating animation, motion graphics etc.
Make sure everybody involved is on the same page as early on as possible, and never start filming or creating anything without a script, storyboard and strong idea of what the plan is beforehand.
We suggest thinking about four key things to start you off – purpose, length, deadline and budget. These will help you stay organised and on-track. Once you have those you can start to write a video brief .
Good Thinking
So you’ve nailed your video brief and know exactly what you’re going into.
If that includes filming, be sure to plan enough time to make the video you really want.
Arrange a filming date that works for everyone (client, crew, talent, location etc.) including spreading it out over several days if that’s what’s required. You don’t want to end up rushing things, because the end result could be take a hit.
If you’re filming outdoors, you’ll want to know these 10 tips first .
And if you’re filming things yourselves and sending UG footage to include in the edit, we definitely recommend:
- Filming with a high spec phone or GoPro (if you want that type of look).
- Make sure you know which shape footage will work in the rest of the edit. Landscape (16×9) is most common but vertical (portrait) can also work, with Instagram and Facebook Stories being so popular.
- Don’t film with light behind you – you’ll look too dark!
- Think about audio – if you’re filming yourself in a quiet area, this will ensure sound on your phone is good enough (think about how loud and muffled gig videos can be!).
- Think about using a selfie stick and get some movement in there.
- Make sure what you say is really natural and you come across like yourself.
Share, Share, Share!
Once you’ve put all those hours into planning, executing and producing your video, it’s time to show people. Social is the likely option for many people, as video content is received so well on social .
And when it comes to post-production, we’ve already covered editing, sharing and all the other juicy bits in some of our other blogs here .
If you’ve got a question, get in touch .
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We're #23 in the UK Top 50 Big news from us! CH Video have climbed 7 places in the EVCOM (Event & Visual Communication Association) + Moving Image UK Top 50.
When Euronics came to us with a brief, it was a good one: take a true story about an extraordinary delivery and turn it into something worth watching. The Brief Joe, a Euronics delivery agent, had been tasked with getting a chest freezer to a customer in rural Wales. The road ran out. He carried on anyway, on foot, through fields, across rivers and over hills. The customer was delighted. The story deserved to be told. Euronics asked us to produce a short comedic video retelling that journey. The challenge was finding the right visual language to match the scale of the tale. The Concept We pitched several approaches centred on a comic-book aesthetic, bold, energetic and a little tongue-in-cheek. It felt like the right fit: a story that was equal parts heroic and absurd, told in a style that leaned into both. The concept paired real interview footage of Joe with AI-generated visuals to bring his journey to life. Where a traditional shoot would have required location days across Welsh countryside, generative AI gave us the tools to illustrate the story scene by scene. Creative Wrangling We filmed Joe against a studio blue backdrop, letting him tell the story in his own words. His delivery did a lot of the heavy lifting (puns intended!), dry, matter-of-fact and quietly brilliant. The AI-generated visuals were built around detailed multi-angle reference sheets for Joe, the Euronics van and the chest freezer.
Generative AI can easily open doors to help create bespoke, crafted content to elevate a video beyond the usual approaches. Recently we tested the latest AI tools to create vast scenic landscapes, humorous underwater worlds and visual effects shots for several campaigns. The tools have advanced a long way over the last few years and the barriers to creating believable or imaginative worlds are fading away all the time. Need an underwater disco full of dancing fish? Got it. A speaking anthropomorphic clown fish? Absolutely. The Key is Consistency It was key to ensure a good amount of consistency across each video. We created multi-angle reference sheets of characters and key objects and use node-based tools to link these, and additional brand references, to ensure the look was maintained throughout. The tools are now in a place where you can also direct and control the results much more closely. Camera moves, lens choices and lighting can be defined and adjusted to get closer to the image or video that you’re looking for and as the creative options expand, options for creativity within each shot expand infinitely.
