One of the production disciplines we talk about here at FreshDV is the all-important planning process. Hours put into a project on the front-end can literally save days when you are in the field. Unfortunately, pre-planning is all too often overlooked and marginalized…talk to anyone that has worked in production and they’ll tell you the horror stories. This article by Simon Wyndham talks about working with your client to clearly define their needs and expectations, as well as taking care to plan effectively for the location and shoot. It’s a good basic primer on how to approach a challenging shoot and (hopefully) turn it into a quality production that fully meets the needs of the client and properly impacts the intended audience.

“…while clients are often willing to spend less and less on video production, they still expect the same high quality. At the same time we, as the video producers, still have to pay bills. In other words, our overheads do not decrease just because clients have decided to pay less for the same work! The way around this conundrum is embedded within the entire video production process. At the end of the day it all comes down to project organisation, and importantly, project clarity.”