The standard response to the often-posed question: “How long is a video shoot?” is generally, “How long is a piece of string?” That may not be terribly useful, so in this article, we’ll try to be a little more helpful by looking in some detail at the different types of videos you may need, and how long each type might take to film. Some examples of what we’ve worked on – with actual timings – may also be useful to you.
FAQ Videos for your customers
This first example of our work is a FAQ video created for Nicole Bando, Melbourne Dietitian and Lactation Consultant. This job used two cameras – operated by one videographer – and worked from a basic script, held up near the main tight-shot camera. Fifteen of these videos were filmed in half a day. The ‘talent’ needs to be organised, and a video producer can help with that.
In my experience, I’d suggest that any more than about 15 short videos (filmed in one day) would be too much for one person on screen. Also, if there were, say, 30 such FAQ videos you wanted prepared and, perhaps, three people to present them, I think that could be all wrapped up successfully in one day at one location. As real-world examples, you could have a number of your sales managers talking about different products, or your department heads answering the typical questions they’re faced with. Two shoot days of this type could provide you with enough content to release one video a week on socials for over a year – a very valuable video marketing tool!
A ‘patient case study’ video
This patient case study video was filmed in half a day, and an important consideration for our production team was to minimise the time with the interviewee, so as not to make her too tired. A clear plan of what was required from the interview had been established before we walked in; this meant that the interview didn’t go on for too long. Setting up for interviews can be time-consuming; It can take around 45 minutes to set up for an interview like this. The rest of the morning was taken up filming ‘B-roll’, or overlay vision that appears over the interviewee’s voice during the video.
B-roll is such an important addition to this type of video; it really sets the spoken words in a wider context and helps greatly to tell the story, resulting in a much greater impact on the viewer – your target market, presumably. In fact, a viewer might not be able to remember any specific single shot in a video, but they will certainly remember how you made them feel. That’s where B-roll can add real value to your message.
Would this ‘fit’ your situation? – Fitness Video
This is a professional fitness video we created for Zee. We love the final product; you can probably guess that it took quite a bit of planning involving producers, the videographer and the client to work out a location and organise all the extras. This was shot in one morning (half day) with our videographer requesting an early start for the best light. The video production process was a lot of fun, mainly due to the enthusiasm of the talent involved.
Benjy – what a fantastic story; what an important take-away!
Benjy’s story was a great one to tell and Edstart did a lot of the initial legwork, but they asked for a producer and videographer to be on set for half a day to capture Benjy at home. Benjy was great talent, and that made editing the video a breeze. Storytelling really works in video marketing and Edstart often post short videos like this to tell their story.
Producing a video can be easy with the right story and the right video production company.
Pre-production makes good musical sense
Pre-production was key with this video for the Australian Institute of Music and shooting took half a day. We didn’t have the talent for very long and we needed to make sure we had access to old photos to help tell the story. Our producer nailed the questions and we got a great story out of it. A professional video can take time and money, but, when the pre-production is right, expensive edit changes later on become less likely.
Season’s Greetings, everyone!
This one took a day to film. However, we were able to create four other videos from the same day’s shooting on different topics. Hume City Council organised for us to be in four different locations over the course of the day and took care of arranging for all the talent. In each location we spent about 45 minutes setting up, then we dropped various couples and families in front of the camera to answer a short list of questions. The most time-consuming part of this day was physically moving from one location to the next.
“Goodbye Covid” … a multi-lingual challenge
“Goodbye Covid” was a project conceived by the communications team at North Western Melbourne Primary Health network. It involved 20 languages and three people from each language – quite a challenge! This video took us three days to complete and it was a logistical masterpiece of producing to make sure that the talent all turned up at the right time and at the right place.
We hope that these examples of our work will help you in thinking about, and planning for your video production. As always, if you have any questions about how long a video shoot will take, feel free to give us a buzz on 1800 JASPER (527 737) or send us an email at info@jasperpictures.com.au. We’re at your service.