You’ve got the film idea that is going to be the next great Sundance Film Festival nominee, or become a pop culture hit, and you’ve done all your video pre-production with a reputable multimedia company, but now what?
Answer: pre-production meeting, or ‘pre-pro’, as we like to call it.
Your video pre-production meeting is a vital part of the process and one of the only times when the people who planned the video during pre-production get to meet with the people who will execute it. This is an important opportunity to make sure you’re all on the same page, so let’s explore the Do’s & Don’ts of a video pre-production meeting:
Odds are that multiple meetings will take place, depending on the size of the project, while you and your team consult with one another, undergo script research and development, and take time to budget, plot a realistic timeline, allocate resources, and so on. These things take time and you should go into your first video pre-production meeting fully expecting another one.
What may have just started as an idea in your head now needs to be put down on paper in a room of industry professionals who want to help your concept take flight. To do this, they’re going to ask a lot of questions about your concept and what you want to achieve. It’s important that you understand what that is and that you articulate it clearly.
Even though some ideas may seem brilliant in our head, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will translate well to screen or that other people will agree (which is fine, too). If your ideas get shot down here and there or you are told that they’re not possible to execute, bear in mind that it has less to do with your idea and more to do with how to pull it off.
With so many creative minds in one room, there’s bound to be plenty of amazing and amusing thought ideas being thrown in, along with yours, on how to execute your concept and why. Be open to new ideas but also firm in terms of precisely what you do and don’t want.
At this point, there are a lot of people involved in one project and they all have their own important agendas to attend to. Be prepared to fit into other people’s calendars as much as they will no doubt have to fit into yours.
With so many different elements involved in the actual production process, it’s important that all the main game players in the video pre-production process have the same idea (or one that is, at least, mostly similar) of how it is going to be executed. Anything less can result in a jumbled collection of thought processes and inadequate execution.
The Michael Group is an industry leader in video production not only in Chicago but across the United States of America. We offer a variety of video pre-production services which will help that great idea become a tangible masterpiece. Contact us today and let us help you take your concept from contemplation to completion.
