Part 1 of a 2 part series
By Lorraine Grula
Internet Video Gal
Planning to Outsource Video Production
Producing video can be a lot of fun.
It can also be a royal pain in the butt. 
I hear from people all the time who realize they need to do video production to promote their business on the Internet but have no idea where to begin.
Learning everything necessary to do the production themselves seems daunting.
I understand completely. I feel the same way about learning HTML!!
Outsourcing video production can be money well spent. Let’s talk about how to get it done as cheaply and easily as possible.
First, think about it this way. There are three phases in any video production:
* Pre-production
* Production
* Post-production
Now, how easy is that?
To outsource effectively, you probably don’t need to hire help for all three phases.
Here’s an explanation of the three phases and you decide which you want to outsource.
Pre production includes all planning.
- Who is your audience?
- What do they want/need to know?
- What do you want to shoot to illustrate this?
- Where do you want to shoot it?
- How will it be pieced together? Editing is usually planned (at least somewhat) before shooting ever begins.
Pre production is the easiest and sometimes the most creative, fun part. Even if you don’t do it 100% yourself, you can do a lot of it; experience helps but the process is largely logical. Sit down and think about it, using real TV shows as your guide. Read through other articles on my blog to get a clearer picture of all the things you need to consider before the camera ever comes out of the box.
The production phase includes anytime the camera is out taking video or a microphone is in use. Getting video and audio onto a tape or hard drive is what production is all about. For the novice, this is probably the most complicated stage. This is what you should outsource.
Post production includes all editing and duplication. Post production is time consuming and therefore expensive. Computers make editing easier and less time consuming, so it’s not unrealistic at for a inexperienced person to do their own editing.
Now don’t be scared, video editing is a lot of fun. If you can use a word processing program you can learn video editing. It’s slightly more complicated, but not much. Here is a free video editing tutorial to get you started.
There is a learning curve though, so be prepared for it. And as I said, editing is time consuming. If you’re editing a standard, professional-quality video, you can count on it taking about one hour of edit time per finished minute. Seriously. If I did a 7 minute video, I’d allow at least 7 hours to edit.
Simplistic videos that are mostly talking heads will go substantially faster.
Now that you know the basic video production process from start to finish, your next step in getting your video production done is to go through the pre production phase.
Part 2 in this series will cover how to go about finding professionals who will work cheaply to outsource those tasks you wish to hire out.
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