Pre-Production for Video Projects

The Writing Center can help you as you plan your video project. We can help you create your storyboard, outline your ideas, and work through the production stages of filming. Here's a short video on pre-production strategies:

Advice on Pre-Production for Video Projects

Transcript

Hi, my name is Hailey, and I am a Writing Intensive Tutor at Wagner College’s Writing Center, and today I will be giving you some tips and tricks for pre-production for video projects.

Step One: Brainstorming. Some of the things you’ll want to do during this step are determine how your video project will relate to or answer the prompt that your professor gave you. You’ll also want to determine how long and complex you want your video project to be, as this will determine a lot of your planning in the future. You also want to determine who: your actors, what: props or costumes you may need, when: your planned schedule, where: your filming location, why: your topic and intended audience, and how: being the equipment that you may need to make this project happen.

Step Two: Planning Your Schedule. Now, this is a step that a lot of people tend to overlook, but it is critical for a successful video project. You should plan for a schedule that allows for ample time. Filming and recording always takes longer than people think. This is because a lot of the times, you have to do multiple takes, or people mess up, or something is just not lining up right, and you should always make sure you have enough time to complete your project. It is also helpful to create a calendar with dates that you can share with others working on your project, be it your group members, or your friends that you just have helping you, and this is even just helpful for yourself, so you have it so you can keep yourself to a schedule. Some questions you’ll have to answer while you’re making your schedule are, “when are all the people helping with the video project available to help” and, “when will you have access to your locations and/or your equipment that you will need to record your video?”

And finally, Step Three: Your Scriptwriting and Storyboarding. This is a step that the Writing Center can help the most. So for your script, it is a guide for what people say. A lot of information may be improvised or additional, added while you’re actually recording the video, and that’s okay. It’s always okay to have additional information. You should think of your script as an outline for a research paper, and sort of translate that idea into how you want to present your video project. This script also greatly helps with closed captions later on, so you can make your video more accessible. The storyboard is a visual plan for your video. And, for this part, it may be helpful to watch clips of famous movies of a similar style or genre, or you might be able to watch informational videos, such as this one, to get inspiration for video projects that are less creative, and more just factual.

So that is all that I have for you guys today, and I hope you will use the Writing Center for your
video projects in the future! Thank you, and good luck!

References:
Anderson, Patrick, and Florence Davies. "Multimodal Video Projects: Video-- Doing By Example." Ed. Lindsay A. Sabatino and Brian Fallon. Multimodal Composing: Strategies for Twenty-first Century Writing Consultations. Logan: Utah State UP, 2019. 153-69.

Kolker, Robert P. Film, Form, and Culture. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.

 

Resources:

The resource list is a works in progress and will be regularly updated.

Software Suggestions:

Adobe Premiere Elements: https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere-elements.html

Camtasia: https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html

Windows Movie Maker: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/movie-maker-10-tell-your-story/9mvfq4lmz6c9?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

iMovie: https://www.apple.com/imovie/

 

Accessibility:

Creating Accessible Videos by University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/accessibility/videos/

Making Video Media Accessible by W3C: https://www.w3.org/WAI/media/av/

 

Video Guides:

DSLRguide, "Introduction to Filmmaking for Beginners": https://youtu.be/t33owpmMTfo

Filmmaker IQ: https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmmakerIQcom

Cinecom: https://www.youtube.com/user/YapperDesign