Our Video Production Services (Part I): Pre-Production
In the first piece of this three-part blog series, we’ll break down the services Noble Bison Productions provides as we work through the pre-production stage with our clients.
Image via Noble Bison Productions
Noble Bison Productions is a full-service video production company. What that means is that we’re able to produce your video from start to finish, regardless of your needs. From storyboarding to filming, motion graphics or editing, special effects, and more — we do it all. In short, you won’t need to hire outside of our production team for your video project unless you specifically want to.
You’ll often see that the process of video production is separated into three stages: Pre-production, production, and post-production. In this three-part blog series, each piece will describe the services we’re most often hired for/provide within each stage. We mainly want our prospective clients to get a better look at who we are and how we operate. In today’s blog, we’ll illustrate what we offer and how we work through the pre-production stage with our clients.
Our Pre-Production Services
During pre-production, we finalize the development of your video project and set into place all the resources needed to shoot it. Below we’ll explore the following pre-production services we offer:
Storyboarding & Project Development
Hiring a Professional Film Crew
Acquiring Film Gear & Equipment
Casting Talent
Set, Props, and Costume Design
Location Scouting
Hiring Post-Production Artists
Scheduling
Storyboarding & Project Development:
The earliest stage of your project is where we collaborate with you to develop your video concept. We start by learning about your vision, needs, and goals. From there, we work together on storyboarding the video. If you need help with the creative, we can brainstorm with you to conceptualize your goals and ideas through moodboards, scripting, and writing scenes.
Our focus is always on telling coherent stories with a beginning, middle, and end – even within 15, 30, and 60-second adverts. Storytelling is fundamental for videos to accomplish their goal, regardless of whether it’s an ad, music video, film, etc. Our storyboarding team will ensure that every one of our clients’ videos tells the story it needs to in the most articulate way possible.
And once we have come to a good understanding of what you want and how we can execute it, we’ll put together a project proposal. This is our official creative brief that goes into detail about the project expectations, including a breakdown of shots, crew, equipment, and the cost of services.
When we come to a fully realized video project, and you have signed the project proposal (statement of work), our team goes to town on the planning and organization, what we consider the meat and potatoes of pre-production. It’s when all the elements of your video project come together to guarantee the next stages of your production are smooth and efficient.
Hiring a Professional Film Crew:
Teamwork makes the dream work! Many people are involved when producing professional videos. And after a decade of working in the film industry, our Noble Bison team is lucky to have built relationships with a handful of skilled professionals. The G&E folks we work with are expert lighting directors, sound technicians, and dolly grippers. And we have some insanely talented directors, camera assistants, and cinematographers.
They’re all really awesome people who have a passion for film. They always have positive energy on set while maintaining their professionalism. Below you can click through and take a look at some of the hardworking individuals:
Acquiring Film Gear & Equipment:
The prime reason people hire us is that they want a video that looks professional. And it takes a lot of film equipment and gear to produce a high-quality video — more than you’d think in some cases, actually. Depending on the scope of your video project, our team may need to rent the equipment necessary to produce the video quality or vision you have in mind. This could be anything from lenses, cameras, a dolly, or a lightbox.
Professional film equipment is expensive, but that’s what’s neat about hiring a video production company. We have the means and know-how to acquire and operate top-notch equipment, which makes it more affordable and accessible to you! On shoot day, we’ll be ready with everything we need to ensure your video goes off without a hitch.
Casting talent:
What’s cool about working here in Denver is that there are many people who hop back and forth from here to LA, so our community is thriving with experienced talent. Whether your video project needs models, actors, and/or voiceover actors, our team will find the perfect talent to fill the role. Below you can check out the lovely people who have been featured in our past projects:
Set, Props, & Costume Design:
Visual storytelling is all in the details. Every element must be on point in order to convey your message and story. Whether you want to create a crisp and professional set, or you’re looking for something with a certain theme, our job is to bring your vision to life.
Our crew is so hardworking and passionate. They put their everything in to ensure each component is just right. We’ll build and design sets, and make sure to find or create the perfect props and costumes for your video. See some of this work come to life below:
Location scouting:
Noble Bison Productions will scout for the very best location to tell your unique story. As a skilled cinematographer and director, our co-owner Jeff is specific about shoot locations and won’t settle for anything less than exactly what the video needs. The setting of your video says A LOT. Does your video’s narrative need a professional or branded backdrop? Do you want a warehouse with tons of space and moodiness? Whatever it is, we can make it happen!
Hiring Post-Production Artists:
Beyond our on-set crew, we also work with talented post-production professionals, like editors, colorists, VFX artists, and sound designers. There’s a handful of this post-production work that we complete in-house, but we may decide to outsource these jobs based on your needs.
We choose and hire these professionals during the pre-production stage for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we need to ensure they are available for the job before we get to the post-production stage. But we also do this during pre-production because it’s part of your development phase, where we collaborate with you. For instance, we want to ensure that we find the perfect animation artist that fits your brand’s style. And that the cost of this artist fits your budget. Stay tuned for more on this topic in the third blog piece about our post-production services.
Scheduling:
I add scheduling because it’s a major part of pre-production planning that often goes unnoticed. From securing the location to hiring all the crew and talent, a successful production requires lots of planning and organization. We also take into account our client’s schedule and project deadlines. But this side of things is just another perk of hiring a professional video production company. We take care of all these details, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.
Once we have finalized the filming schedule, we put the details together into two types of documents. First, we create a call sheet that is sent out to the crew and client, usually about a week before the shoot takes place. It outlines the location, weather, parking info, and the times each person needs to arrive. On the back end, for our production crew, we create a document called the shot list. This is a separate spreadsheet that includes every frame, script, action, and more organized by the time of day from start to finish. See examples below:
To close, hiring a video production company to produce your branded content or any other video projects is a big investment, so it’s crucial to take your time evaluating where to put your dollars. When looking for the right video production company for your project or brand, it really comes down to these few factors: the cost of services, expertise, professionalism, and choosing a team you relate to and that understands your goals. Please feel free to reach out to our team if you have questions about our services or anything else!
Read on about our video services:
Are you looking for professional video production services in Denver, CO? Click the button below to tell us about your needs or ask questions!
NOBLE BISON PRODUCTIONS
A DENVER VIDEO PRODUCTION COMPANY
BROADCAST COMMERCIALS - MUSIC VIDEOS - BRAND VIDEOS - FILMS - ANIMATION & MOTION GRAPHICS - DRONE FOOTAGE - BRAND VIDEOS - WEBSITE BANNERS - SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEOS - CORPORATE VIDEOS- DEMOS - EXPLAINERS
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