I’m coming up on eight years of running a video production business. In that time I’ve been lucky enough to work with heaps of fantastic clients who understand how to get the best results out of me and my team. I’ve also had the odd occasion where things haven’t gone so well…but that’s not what this blog is about. (If you want to hear those stories, you’ll have to buy me a pint some time.) This blog is about three key ways that you as a client can have a great working relationship with your video production agency, freelance videographer, or any external creative team. I’m going to be brutally honest at times. (Practising what I preach, given the first heading!) But the heart behind that honesty is a desire to have the strongest possible partnerships with the people I work with. So let’s get stuck in.
Be honest
This is probably the most crucial prerequisite for a good working relationship. Well, any relationship really, but especially between a client and production company. For example, it’s okay to share how much money is available. I think sometimes people worry that sharing that information will result in being ripped off. If you know that your maximum budget for a project is £5,000, that’s really useful for your supplier to know. Knowing that allows us to quote accordingly. And no, I don’t mean by artificially inflating our prices to max out the available funds. We want exactly the same thing you do: the highest quality end product that the budget allows.
Be honest about your timescales, too. It’s a tale as old as time: an enquiry comes through for an urgent video project that needs to be finished in two weeks. We drop everything to make that work. In two weeks’ time, the client is dragging their feet and we’ve not even nailed down a shoot date yet, let alone a finished edit. When challenged, it transpires that the work wasn’t really needed by the agreed deadline. It’s so much easier for all of us if timescales are both realistic and genuine. For bigger projects, it’s worth agreeing delivery milestones to help you check if things are on track. For projects with genuinely tight turnarounds, we will always do our best to make it work – but we have to be able to trust that we’re not busting a gut to meet a “fake” deadline.
Be honest if there’s something you’re not sure of. We’ll let you know if we don’t understand something about your brand or your message, and likewise you can tell us if you don’t understand an aspect of the production process. We’re not expecting you to be an expert on videography – that’s what you’ve hired us for. So if you don’t understand something, please just ask. There are no stupid questions, and apologies in advance if we accidentally use tech/cinematography jargon…we try not to!
We want exactly the same thing you do: the highest quality end product that the budget allows.
Be clear
The true skill of a good video producer isn’t slick camerawork. It’s not knowing all the shortcuts in their editing software of choice. It’s being able to intuit what the client needs, even if they don’t know it themselves. For someone without that expertise, it’s hard to visualise the finished film at the start of the journey, and that’s okay. That said, we still need some kind of steer from the client as to what their expectations are. Here are some important things to consider in the early stages, perhaps even before you engage a video producer:
- What’s the message and who are the audience?
- What platforms do I need this to sit on, and therefore what duration/s and format/s (e.g. portrait, landscape, 4:5) do I need?
- What examples will inspire the producer to deliver what I want?
- When do I need this, and how much can I spend? (See “Be honest”!)
A written brief that answers these questions is really helpful, and that’s often how marketing and comms professionals will approach a project. If you don’t know where to start, we have a pre-project kick-off questionnaire. It takes you through all the important questions and helps solidify your vision for the project. Just ask if you’d like to see that – with no obligation whatsoever. As well as helping your video producer understand what you need, it will help you get more accurate prices when you’re gathering quotes from a few different suppliers.
Feedback is a gift! We want to know what you like or don’t like about the edit so that we can fix it. But we need that feedback to be clear and timely. Often people hold some thoughts back until later in the process. But it’s really frustrating to receive amends about something that could have been fixed two versions ago. Video edits can be very complicated things to unpick, even to change something that seems tiny. For that reason, we love it when clients are decisive early on.
On that note, it’s always handy to have one main client contact who has the final say on editorial decisions. If your boss is likely to ask for changes, get their input on the first or second draft. Not way down the line when you’ve already had a couple of rounds of amends.
It’s always handy to have one main contact who has the final say.
Be collaborative
Creative projects are fun – that’s why we do this job in the first place! So we love involving our clients in the process. At its best, the client/supplier relationship is an opportunity to combine all our ideas into something that’s greater than the sum of its parts. By working together as a team, we end up with something that looks and sounds great, feels original and authentic, nails the message and branding, and ultimately gets results.
What tends not to work so well is when clients want a video made without their input, like they’re buying a lamp off Amazon. We deeply value your knowledge of your organisation, your audience and the sector you work in. Sometimes we’ll hear things like “Whatever you think best, you’re the expert”. Unfortunately that’s often a precursor to “Actually, that’s not quite what I wanted”. There’s a recurring theme here: don’t keep your opinions and intentions to yourself. Don’t hold back because you’re worried about the video producer’s feelings. Our feelings are that we would have preferred to know sooner!
It doesn’t work so well when clients want a video made without their input, like they’re buying bog roll off Amazon.
So, if you’re someone who works with video production companies or creative freelancers as part of your job, or you’re thinking about hiring one, I hope this has been helpful. If you want to pick my brains about any of this, or you’re looking for a video producer who’s honest, collaborative and (usually) clear, then please drop me a line.
