LOS ANGELES VIDEO PRODUCTION
3Things to Do During Your Pre-Production Phase
Even after you’ve hired the perfect Los Angeles video production house to produce your marketing video for you, you’re not even done—you’re actually only a third of the way there. The video production process can actually be categorized into three major stages; pre-production, production, and post-production.
A lot of people start polishing the product and performing damage control during the production and post-production stages. Very few realize that taking extra steps during pre-production can actually lessen the amount of errors and mistakes they’ll eventually have to fix. After all, “the most important part of the production workflow is what happens before the cameras start rolling.”
Revise (and Re-revise) Your Script
Professional authors are often asked for a dozen or so revisions on their manuscript before their publisher deems it ready for print. Your script isn’t that much different. It’s the essential flow that, in most cases, can make or break your video. You want to be extremely attentive and make it as “perfect” (although we use this term loosely) as possible.
Before giving your chosenLos Angeles video production companythe go signal to start filming, go through your script several times, rewriting and revising as needed. It helps to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, so try not to cram your revisions in just one or two days. Read and rewrite your script 24 to 48 hours after you wrote it, and then look at it again after another 1 to 2 days. You can afford three to five revisions.
Your 8-Second Window
Humans are now officially more distracted than goldfish, and you can thank social media for that. With the average attention span being just 8.5 seconds long, you only have an eight-second window in which you can win over your viewers. If they’re not convinced your video is worth watching after eight seconds, or if their attention wavers before the eight second mark, they will very likely click out.
Thankfully, eight seconds is just long enough for an attention grabber or a witty one-liner to fully engage the audience. For instance, asking a thought-provoking question or starting your story in the middle (in medias res) are proven ways to hook a viewer, if only because they’re curious to hear the answer or receive an explanation. Eight seconds is also long enough to include your brand name and brief greeting, if so inclined.
Expectations vs. Reality
This is true for any creator, be they artists, writers, poets, or video producers. We have an idea of how we want the video to turn out. And it’s not even a rough idea, no; it’s a detailed, high-definition, full-colorplay-by-play of how we want the scenes to look. The dramatic background music, the breath-taking shots,the crisp, clean colors and quality—we can see it perfectly in our minds’ eye.
Unfortunately, those don’t often translate too well into real life. One big pre-production tip is to be realistic and practical. Do you really want to spend an extra thousand dollars or so just to rent a drone for that perfect aerial shot you’ve been dreaming of, or will a simple pan-and-zoom work just as well? Establish what you can do and what you want to do and compare lists. Anything that matches up in both lists can make it to the final production stage. Anything that’s a bit too fanatical, well. Los Angeles video production is already a pretty crazy process. Do what you can to lessen that, not add on to it.
