The video-making process

- Before we dive into making our short video, I thought I'd provide a bit of an overview on several important video topics to lay the foundation for what we learn going forward. In this movie, I wanna talk about the high-level process of making a video from start to finish. We're gonna talk about pre-production, production, and post-production. Pre-production includes tasks like research, film planning, scriptwriting, making shot lists and storyboards, location scouting, and production planning. Production includes elements like setting up the shoot location in terms of production design, equipment, lighting, and sound, and then shooting various elements such as interviews, stand-ups, scenes, B-roll, and other footage. Finally, post-production encompasses tasks like media prep, editing, color correction, sound design, graphics creation, and delivery. Let's breakdown each of these phases broadly starting with pre-production. Pre-production begins with an idea which you then work to flesh out. During this process, it's important to first define your goals, figure out who the target audience is, and identify what you want the viewers to get out of the video. Once you're relatively certain how your goals will align with the target audience, it's time to plan the film in terms of story, structure, and style. Most of time, you wanna make sure that the idea can be translated into something fairly visual and you'll also wanna ensure that the idea can be structured in a narrative sense with a compelling beginning, middle, and an end. Then comes scripting. This is where you take all of your work and write it down in a format that can be translated to the video form. Often for a video like the one we'll make, this comes in the form of a two-column script where we make plans for both the audio and the visuals every step of the way. Once all of the important prep work has been done, it's time for production. Once the shooting location is in good shape, the equipment needs to be assembled. This involves setting up the cameras, lights, sound, and more. For small productions like the one in this course, it involves building the phone rig and other accessories. The rig includes the most essential elements, like a central case for control and connectability which is then often mounted to a tripod for stability. Accessories that attach to the case include things like shotgun microphones, lights, lenses and more. It's also important to setup and test the various apps that you intend to use while you shoot the video. It doesn't usually take long to turn the phone into a real film-making powerhouse. Once the location is set and the equipment is ready to go, it's time to shoot. Depending on the type of shoot, you may wanna start slow and test the waters with several rehearsals, but once you're confident, it's time to begin recording. There are so many different types of shoots, but many, like the one we're going to make in this course, involve speaking to the camera in some way, shape, or form. This is the delivery that often forms the foundation of the video. Many times getting this right involves shooting multiple takes. Then, finally, there's post-production. There are many phases of post, but the first thing that's usually done is to organize and prepare the media that was shot during production. Once you've assembled and organized everything, it's time to bring them into the editing software. It's here that you'll screen everything and take notes. There are quite a few phases in editing and not every project will contain each one, but I'll just go over some of the most common. First, there's the rough assembly which is where you assemble a layout of the show with most of the shots generally in the correct order. This forms the foundation of the project. The rough assembly becomes the rough cut. It's the rough cut that you'll show to others to get feedback. Once you've screened the film and gotten feedback, it's time to continue refining it until you reach fine cut, which is a very polished version of the film. The film can enter the finishing phases of post-production like color correction, sound design, effects work, and more.