3.1: Importance of a Production Plan

Now that you have completed the following:

• Identified your video topic
• Defined your learning objectives and audience personas
• Developed your Storyboard
• Practiced the basics of filming

You can now start filming your video, right? Well, not so fast...

At this point, you need to have a solid Production Plan. Going out to the film site and winging it will not produce good results. You may think you will capture everything you included in your storyboard, but this is almost never the case.

Your production plan will include a step-by-step checklist of what you need to do when you get to the video shoot location.

• In what order will you film your scenes?
• What content will be captured indoors, and which outdoors?
• How will you organize taking video, audio, and still photos?

There are many questions to consider to make the most efficient use of your and your talents' time. Organizing your time will also help prevent the need for multiple trips to the field. There's nothing worse than driving to a remote location, spending all day capturing video, audio and still photos (of several very busy people donating their time to being the 'talent' in your video), only to return to the office and realize that you did not capture critical audio or video.

A Production Plan is basically a shotlist and a schedule. It is important to put it on paper and have it at your shoot. Preparing a Production Plan will also help you identify any missing elements in your storyboard.

Where and when are good starting points when making your production plan. The best place to shoot audio is indoors where you have more control over background noises; that wind, background tractor noise, or unexpected airplane (none of which sounded THAT loud when you were shooting) WILL make your audio unusable.

A production plan also helps you plan how to shoot raw footage in a way that is efficient. You will not necessarily shoot the video in order of the story. Plan to shoot all the indoor portions at one time (with the camera set up at the same distance from your subject so the sound is consistent). Plan to shoot all the still photos together, and then all the video together (or not) depending on which strategy makes your time (and your talent's time) more efficient.