A question we are constantly asked: How long does it take to produce five minutes of video? The answer can never be precise, because every video has varying requirements in terms of different shooting locations, the number of interviewees and the complexity of the graphical elements required. In this article, we will use the example of a video we produced detailing the role one of our architect clients played in delivering Zaha Hadid’s The Opus building in Dubai.
Pre-Amble
Around five years ago, when we were predominantly a copywriting, social media and SEO agency, we began to advise our clients that video content would become the future. But very few companies had ever been exposed to video, nor had the need for it, so it was a very new concept. There was, and still is today, a distinct lack of awareness of the time-consuming nature of producing high quality videos.
The Opus video
Here is the video we will discuss today:
The time estimate we give for this video, from pre-production through to post, is based on a single person shoot with two locations – the client’s office and the project itself. The shoots were held over three days – one shoot was conducted while the project was still under construction, although almost complete – in fact it was so close to final handover when we filmed you would probably not be able to tell which of the shots were actually from that first shoot. The first shoot was done many months in advance for a different client project; however, we were able to use some of the shots for this video. The second shoot was a half day in the morning once the project had opened. The third shoot was a half day for interviews and b-roll at the client’s offices.
Here is the workflow, detail and the time estimates for each of the key milestones towards finishing this video.
1. Scripting | 1 hour
There is a key factor in the preparation stages for this video which differentiates it from a lot of other client videos. We know the project, we know the roles played in the project, and we knew the narrative the video should follow. This is because we have worked with the client for more than five years and have covered this project a lot throughout that time on the copywriting side, producing construction updates, attending site visits, providing Press Releases for local media, etc. So the video concept, the key messages and the scripting kind of took care of itself. Having said that, we did spend around an hour to formulate a flow of the narrative, and to write the questions we would ask the two interviewees so as to get the responses we knew we would need to get the message across.
On videos which are for clients you don’t have a five-year-plus history with, or for products and services which are new, this stage is a lot more involved. It requires research, pre-discussions with the client to understand the key messages, and more research, before you can produce a script/narrative.
2. Drive to location | 40 minutes total over three shoots
Again, this is a huge variable. But travelling does take time, and this is something your client needs to be aware of when it comes to costing your video. In our case, this project was 10 minutes away, and the office approximately 20. Since we visited the project twice and the office once, that works out to be 40 minutes total.
3. Project location filming | 5 hours
It’s important to note that although in total we were on location at the project for five hours across the two visits, this doesn’t mean we were left with five hours of footage at the end of it. We probably had around two and a half to three hours of raw footage after these two visits.
4. Office location filming | 2 hours
With interviews, there is a longer process of setting up, ensuring the lighting and background are all good before you get to shooting. Each of the two interviews we conducted were approximately 30 minutes in length, while the office b-roll took around 15 minutes.
Total for Pre-production: 7 hours + 40 minutes
5. The Edit | Two full days
Back to the studio, and this is where the fun, and the challenges really begin. First let’s deal with the challenges. Once we’ve uploaded the footage to Premier Pro, which took around 20 minutes, it’s time to start trawling through what you’ve got. First up, we want to find all the b-roll that’s good enough to make it into the final round of useable cuts. It’s kind of like F1 qualifying, where you have three rounds to cut out the weakest before then ordering your final footage from best to “useable if you really need it”.
Bearing in mind we have around three hours of project footage, there’s a lot to get through. We already know the scenes we took which are the ones that stood out at the time (we take notes on location), but it’s a case of scrubbing through each of clips and cutting out all the non-useable stuff to begin with (Q3), then once you have a more concise set of clips you go through from start to finish and eliminate any that aren’t quite up to it (Q2). We’re then into Q1, and this involves fine tuning, adding some effects as required (warp stabiliser/gaussian blur as it’s Dubai and dust spots just happen), then we’re into Lumetri Colour, and this is a process that on this video required a bespoke approach for each shot as the lighting was so different from each side of the building due to the position of the sun.
In total this part took around five hours to whittle down the footage into our prime cuts. With another hour or so to get the colouring right on all of the clips.
Then we go to the interviews. Now, not everyone you interview is going to be a top public speaker; however, the aim of the edit is to make them seem so. This involves first finding all the parts that fit your narrative, and cutting out anything that isn’t well conveyed. Once this part is done, it’s then a case of going through each of the selected interview clips and really tightening them up. This includes cutting out the “ermms” and any pauses, and really trying to keep the flow of what they’re saying. Something that makes this crucial component of the editing process easier is learning how to be a director at the time of the interview. You need to lead the interviewee into giving you the answers you want. You also need to pay close attention to what they’re saying to ensure it’s articulated as well as it can be. This could involve asking them to have another go. In fact, often you’ll find that on the second take the content becomes far richer as your subject is able to become more comfortable with the process, and thus their thoughts have more clarity.
When we’re cutting up interviews, it can be time consuming, and this is why it’s so important to get the best out of the interview when you’ve got them in front of you. It takes practice and a lot of attention to detail to ensure you pull it off!
Once we have the interviews cut up and ordered correctly, we can then start with placement in the final timeline. We use the interview footage and audio as the foundation for the video, and we lay the b-roll and the background music on top.
Once we have good structure, and we have covered any cuts within the interview with the b-roll, we move onto the final part, which is final colouring and tidying up the audio. Then we’re done!
This one took two full days because of the sheer amount of footage we had, and the interviews which needed a bit of work to get the clarity of narrative we wanted.
Total for Production: 2 days
So there we go, that’s basically three days all in for a five-minute video. This video was easy in some respects (for example it didn’t require any hardcore graphics and no use of After Effects), but it did need a bit of work on fine tuning the interviews and the getting the b-roll looking as good as possible (the aforementioned warp stabiliser came into play quite a bit).
Add in the rendering time after any significant changes to the timeline in order to get smoother playback, plus the final render which actually took almost an hour, and there you get your two full days.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Three days for five minutes. We’ve made five-minute videos in a day; we’ve made them in a week. It all depends on the complexity of the production and the number of shoots required. But for a video like the one above, that’s three days of solid work from our side.
A lot of video production companies will budget one minute of video footage as two day’s work. As we’ve shown here, that seems on the excessive side, because if you have a solid workflow and you work smart and quite quickly, you can produce a minute and a half to two minutes of video to the standard above – in just one day.
To find out more about our video production services, call us or drop us an email. We would love to work with you!