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Corporate
and industrial: pre
production
When
we work with you we start first by clearly defining your aims and objectives and
identifying your target audience.
Printed
below is the briefing form that we give
to
clients before we start a
production.
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Screne Productions
Briefing form
Before embarking on a video production, these are some of the
questions we need to ask in order to gain a better understanding of your
requirements. Please tick/add notes etc. and return together with any
literature/brochure that you feel may assist us in developing a suggested
programme treatment.
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COMPANY NAME:....................................................
1. Would the programme be made to:
Inform
Promote
Sell
Train
Other (eg. fundraise)
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2. Who would be the target audience?:
Purchasing specifiers
Special groups
Professional/lay
In-house
External
Other
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3. What would be the main aims and objectives?
4. What do you feel would need to be shown and at what locations?
5. When is the programme required - is there a deadline?
6. Do you have any existing video material available
and if so on what format? (VHS, Hi8, Umatic, BetaSP, DV etc.)
7. What is the approximate budget?
NOTES:
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You
will have seen on the briefing form that Q5 asks about a deadline
for completion. This could be an exhibition or a conference where
the programme will be beneficial to the company, or it might
coincide with a planned mail shot so that the video can be sent
out to serious enquirers.
Having
a deadline is useful because it means that the production can
be concentrated on for a fairly short period of time and the
investment can be realised quickly.
Now
that we have identified your target audience, budget and aims
and objectives it is time to produce a treatment. This defines
the structure of the programme, what you intend to show, in what
order, how you propose to present it and forms the basis for
the script.
We
draw up a storyboard, rough sketches or even photos of the basic
things you want to show and write alongside them the key points
they are to portray. Once you are happy that it follows a logical
sequence and contains all the information you want to put across,
we are ready to write the script.
Here
are a few guidelines which we find useful.
1.
Remember that the written and spoken word are not the same thing.
Spoken English is far more relaxed and can be less formal than
say brochure or manual language.
2.
Don't get bogged down in minute detail (unless you are making
a technical programme for technical people), it's far better
to present an overview of the subject which will give your viewers
a flavour and encourage them to talk to you.
3.
We speak at a rate of 2-3 words per second so this should give
us an idea of run time, bearing in mind breaks and pauses.
4.
Remember that every word has to have pictures to cover it. Will
we have enough visual material? Wild life, training and industrial
process videos can get away with long video sequences, but most
other programmes need to be pacey with 2-5 second cuts.
5.
Always keep in mind the target audience and make sure that the
script remains specific to them. Once filming has been done it
is quite easy to re-script and re-edit the footage for other
audiences. Don't compromise.
How
long does it take?
The
production schedule below shows the processes of making a video
and the sort of lead time that is comfortable. This is only an
example and by no means sacrosanct. We have, for example, produced
a programme in a week (one very long hard week!) for an award
presentation and we have equally produced one over the course
of a year.
You
will see from the schedule that we recommend that our client
elects an executive producer to work with us. It's important
to have someone to liaise with who has the authority to make
quick decisions throughout the production. |