Corporate Video Production: The Most Ultimate Guide

Here are some frequently asked questions about corporate video production, specifically as it relates to us:

1. What kinds of Corporate Videos does your Production Company Offer?

We offer a wide range of corporate video services, including corporate overview videos, staff training, brand films, investor relations videos, product demos, event coverage, onboarding videos, employer branding, CEO statements, executive proposals, and customer testimonials. Most importantly, we have a solid, smart team that is able to get under the skin of most problems and understand most briefs. The art is in asking the right questions.

2. What Kind of Businesses Do You Work With?

We were established in 2011 and have produced many thousands of different films for over 150 clients in a broad range of sectors. We work with businesses of all sizes, from small businesses to multinational corporations, across various industries such as finance, healthcare, energy, retail, education, agriculture, sport and tech. We have a particular affinity for and deep experience with tech startups and scaleups.

3. How much Creative Input is needed or wanted from the client?

It depends on the project but we want you as involved as you want to be. We will always know more about making films than our clients, but our clients will always know more about their products and their audiences. It’s in blending these two that magic happens. We encourage our clients to be involved in the creative process from start to finish. We value your input and collaborate closely with you to ensure that the final product aligns with your vision and objectives.

4. How much communication can we expect?

The best answer to this is ‘enough’. For long standing clients we know exactly what is required in terms of comms and we know how much leeway we have with decision making. For newer clients this level of trust takes a while to build up so we rely on your input to guide the production process effectively. Once we’ve agreed the brief, scope and outcomes including your objectives and target audience, we take it from there. We’ll keep you updated throughout the process and seek your feedback at key milestones.

5. Do we need to write the script and can you provide storyboards?

Firstly, we do these things but only where they’re required. Clients will often provide us with an outline and it’s the job of our scriptwriters to turn these messages into useful pre-production documents. Storyboards are not required for every project as these are usually used for films with a more narrative structure. But we will definitely guide you through what is required for any given film,  including mood boards, storyboards, scripts, interview guides etc.

6. What does a corporate video cost?

Great question. Glad you asked. We tend to start at about £4.5k for a single day corporate video that involves interviews in one location and nothing unusually complex. But complexity equals cost and over the history of the company our budgets have ranged from the above to around £150k. We have written a much more detailed explanation of why video costs what it does, not in terms of the value in pounds but how risk is the key factor.

We are flexible though. If we can’t hit your budget we’ll tell you and we’ll tell you why. But we’ll also explain what compromises and risks are being introduced by not paying for the things we think are important.

7. How long does a corporate video take to produce?

Generally speaking 6-8 weeks is a fair timeline. Often the stickier stuff happens towards the end and stakeholder management on the client side can be where the deadline related friction occurs. We have incredibly rigorous systems and processes that mean we always hit our deadlines.

We pride ourselves on having a ‘no-surprise culture’ for our clients which means we’re highlight where we see possible issues early and work to resolve them as quickly as possible.

8. Can you do it faster?

Yes. But let’s talk about how we make that happen.

9. Are There Surprise Costs and will you try to upsell us? What about things like travel and accommodation and social media versions.

Depending on the project requirements there may be additional costs for travel, accommodation, or other fees like locations, teleprompters or stock footage. It entirely depends on the brief but our costs are transparent and we’ll flag stuff to you early. We don’t do hidden costs. However, clients naturally want their budget to stretch as far as possible so we’ve worked out the best ways to make that happen. If something is not included we’ll be clear about it.

Of course we’ll try and upsell you. We’re a business. But we retain our clients by being honest and fair. We tend not to work with clients that don’t treat us with the same respect.

10. What about social media versions of films?

It’s been years since we made only one version of a film. Clients do, very sensibly, want to make their budgets work well for them and as the cost of high quality corporate video is often a noticeable proportion of the comms or marketing budget then it makes sense to maximise the assets available afterwards. We will properly scope out your requirements at the beginning of the project and cost accordingly. But we have become adept to streamlining this process to its maximum efficiency so the cost involved in providing different versions is a small proportion of the total budget, and we usually don’t mind doing a little bit more too.

11. Can You Help Us Ensure our Video gets seen?

Absolutely, we’re experienced in distribution and our films have been seen by over 15M people in the past 18 months. We can support video distribution to put the right film before the right audiences. We run our own YouTube channels so we’re experts at video SEO and anything we can’t do we have partners for.

You can understand why it’s important to us that your video is successful.

12. What about copyright, who owns the video?

You do. All of it. At least that’s the case if we make your film. Some video production companies can be a bit funny about this but our position is that you paid for it. So long as no-one’s rights have been infringed in the process but that’s an overly long and complicated answer to this question and relies on someone having done something incorrectly. We’ll do our best to protect you from that.. In its most basic form, you paid for it, you own it. But also we’d really like to use it on our website because we’re inevitably proud of the work we do. We have a contract that lays all of this out.

13. What about GDPR (and similar laws overseas), Data Security and Confidentiality?

Funny you should ask. We recently had a client approach us 5 whole years after a production to say a staff member had not given their permission to be in a film. When we were able to produce the signed release form giving permission we had a very grateful client. We also worked with them to provide a new version from our archive because they didn’t think it was fair to keep using it now that the person in question had changed their mind.

We take data security very seriously

Our kickass record keeping proved that this was not the case and we adhere to strict protocols to ensure data security and confidentiality. Your data and video content will be stored securely and will not be shared with any third parties without your permission.

14. What happens to the files after the film is complete?

Our archiving system is very rigorous. Footage that comes back from a shoot is backed up onto two separate drives. This is then transferred to a RAID5 NAS and also backed up to the cloud. Once the project is complete we offer clients several options. The raw footage and assets used to make the film can be provided on a drive for your own backup, or we can leave it stored in the cloud in case you think you require further work on it in the future. There is a small annual fee for this. Generally speaking we do keep hold of the files for years afterwards on drives but without the paid support of an online backup we can’t guarantee the footage will not be corrupted.

15. Can we update our Corporate film later on?

This is why we keep archives. For many of our longer term clients we’ve found ourselves making various films out of existing footage so revisiting older projects is very familiar.

16. If our corporate video involves interviewing people, how do you put people at ease?

This is something that comes with experience. First of all we provide a copy of our ‘how to be interviewed on camera’ guide to relax people in advance. We provide additional guidance and coaching for people that are particularly nervous and we work very hard on the day to get a good performance out of people.

17. Can we use famous music in our corporate video?

In the vast majority of cases the answer is no. Virtually any music can be licensed for usage in films but the budgets involved are often many times the total budget of the film. We use a range of different libraries for music and we can always find something to work to your budget.

18. How many rounds of amends do I get?

Our budgets are calculated by estimating how long it will take to edit the film to first draft and then provide 3 rounds of amends with each round of changes being allocated less time than the previous one. These amends are best likened to ever-decreasing circles. There shouldn’t be major changes cropping up in the 3rd round for things that were there in the 1st round. This is a clear breakdown of communication and we’ve got a lot of practice in avoiding this. But we’re not militant about the 3 rounds. If it takes a little more then it takes a little more. We’ll let you know if we’re starting to feel taken advantage of.

One of the things that sometimes stumps clients is that after the edit is signed off, this isn’t the end. We will then do a final audio mix and colour correct the footage so it all matches.  This process is not done until the project is signed off because we risk doing grade/mix work to footage that may change and it’s just a waste of everyone’s time.

19. Can you do language localisation?

Mais, oui! One of our major clients usually has their work localised into at least 9 languages and sometimes more. We are very experienced in this area working with foreign voiceover artists, often located overseas and directing voiceovers in languages we don’t speak. We have systems and processes for large scale localisation as well as a personal touch if you just need a few language tweaks. The team are exceptionally good at version control.

20. Do you work internationally?

Encore, mais, oui! We have shot commercials in the United States, South Africa and across Europe, short documentaries in Afghanistan and Kenya and huge amounts of corporate video production work across Europe.

In this post-covid, eco-friendly era we’ve become particularly adept at managing crews remotely. We’ve got a 27 episode branded content case study that involved almost every permutation of managing filming overseas.

21. What useful things is it handy for clients to know?

There’s all kinds of conversations we’ve had multiple times with inexperienced clients but here are a couple of handy hints:

• The first version won’t sound perfect or necessarily all look quite the same. This is for the reasons laid out above, that the colour grade and audio mix aren’t done until the end.
• Some clients want to see something before it’s ready. This is almost always a bad idea because it takes a lot of experience to see what a film is going to be before it’s ready. Sometimes you just can’t unsee the early version.
• On the shoot you, the client, should be near the monitor. Extra pairs of eyes are always handy and you know your subject matter better than we do.
• Changing the music towards the end of a project is a Pandora’s Box of pain. Not only is music intensely subjective but a lot of editing is timing the right shots to the right point in the music. Changing it is much more than just replacing a file. Obviously getting the right music is vital, but clients often underestimate how big a change it can be.

22. Can I use Stock Footage?

Stock footage is often an excellent addition to corporate videos. Fortunately the cost of stock has dropped dramatically in recent years and there are also free and bulk libraries available so you don’t need to purchase individual clips. In fact we’ve made almost entire films out of stock footage for some clients and we’ve enhanced many with a few well-chosen clips.

23. What kind of things go wrong in corporate video production?

Obviously we work very hard to prevent things going wrong and have decades of experience between us to predict and prevent potential points of failure. But here are a few things that can crop up sometimes.

• Late stakeholder engagement can be very detrimental. Sometimes clients don’t want to show their bosses until quite late in the process. But then the boss hates it and 90% of post production time has been used up.
• Trying to do too much. There is ample research to show that the more messages you try and cram into any piece of content the less likely it is that the audience will remember any of them.
• Overestimating what can be achieved in the shoot time can lead to shooting more than you need not as well as it should be.
• Trying to be all things to all people. There should be a solid and interesting idea at the core of your project. If this idea is 3 minutes long then expecting it work just as well in a 30s Instagram reel is difficult.

24. How long should my corporate video be?

The best and most useful answer to this question is the same for any film and that’s “as long as it needs to be and as short as it can be”. The vast majority of our corporate video work is 3-5 minutes long and starts to feel particularly lengthy the nearer you get to 5 minutes.

Hopefully our Ultimate Guide to Corporate Video Production has provided you with everything you need to move forward. Please do get in touch if you’re thinking about a corporate film or have any questions about any aspect of the process. After 13 years and thousands of films, we’ve taken on board quite a lot of experience and we’d love to help you next.