(PREVIEW COPY) Questions First Shoot Later. How to Commission Brilliant Online Video

WEAPON OF MASS COMMUNICATION

How to commission brilliant online video

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Over the years, lots of people have come to us for help making online videos. Swimming through the delicious spaghetti of our experiences, we began to notice some recurring themes.

So we started scribbling down the most common questions, challenges, and insights we’ve developed. We boiled them down into 11 bite-size morsels which make up this handbook with one simple goal: to help you commission brilliant online videos.

You’ll come across many words in the pages to follow, including tastemaker, trolling and Stringfellow. But there are a couple I’d like to draw your attention to. Daring and playful.

Keep them front of mind, as these words will certainly help you blow your objectives out of the water.

Daring to challenge expectation and thinking playfully in terms of how you can communicate with your audience are key ingredients in the mindset of every great video commissioner.

Now don your bravery pants, colour outside the lines, and bring YouTube to its knees.

Mike Cooper Creative Director, Republic Publishing

FOREWORD

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mike Cooper EDITOR Joseph Patrick DEPUTY EDITOR Ben Sillis WRITERS Tim Bunn, Joseph Patrick, Mike Cooper and James Beechinor-Collins DESIGNER Stephen Mellor PRINTERS Taylor Brothers PUBLISHED BY REPUBLIC PUBLISHING www.republicpublishing.co.uk ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to Daniella Orsini and Stanley Chow.

For all of our clients at Republic Publishing, without whom this wouldn’t have been possible.

REPUBLIC PUBLISHING LTD MANAGING DIRECTOR James Beechinor-Collins jbc@republicpublishing.co.uk CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mike Cooper mike@republicpublishing.co.uk DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR James Holland jh@republicpublishing.co.uk NON-EXEC CHAIRMAN Clive Swan clive@republicpublishing.co.uk Ian Delaney - Group Editor Mike Browne - Group Editor Michele Lonergan - Financial Controller Joseph Patrick - Video Producer Tim Bunn - Video Producer Nigel Brown - Managing Editor Ben Sillis - Associate Editor Adam Bunker - Associate Editor Phil Barker - Senior Staff Writer Boc Ly - Deputy Editor Jeppe Christensen - Managing Editor, USA Magda Voigt - Project Manager Adam Fraser - Reporter Jon Partridge - Editorial Assistant

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CONTENTS

8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38

Hello Audience Budget Format Viral Brief Agency Metrics Stakeholders Timescale Crew Why Glossary About us Get in touch Checklist

All about the Benjamins HOW MUCH WILL IT COST? How long is a piece of Stringfellow’s hair?

Grab your rulers and let’s get measuring.

Though perhaps a metre stick might be more appropriate because making video is a bit like buying a round of drinks at the theatre - it can get pricey.

So you’ve decided that your latest online video offering will be presented by a five year-old. We’ll treat it like a spoof cookery show, but the little nipper won’t be making chocolate brownies for his teddy bears, he’ll be showing your viewers how to assemble your latest product. Let’s start costing it up. We’ll need to pay the child actor. But it’s a 12-hour shoot and legally children aren’t allowed to work for more than four hours without an hour’s break. So we’ll need to hire twins.

That’s £200 per hour for each twin. Pro-rata that 12

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makes them the highest paid people on set. Both twins will need a chaperone, which can cost anything up to £300 each for the day.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t have video.

Getting a simple, quality production out doesn’t need to cost the earth.

Oh yeah, then there’s the license. We’ll need a performance license from the local authority - we’ll need the twins’ agent to sort that. There’ll be a fee there. Brilliant. We’ll need a Location Manager to find a nice little kitchen to shoot in. He’ll need to perform the relevant risk assessments. And this is all before we’ve even switched the camera on.

Time is money, so be sure to set clear deadlines. Key milestones to consider are concept approval, completion of the first edit, and delivery of a final cut that’s ready for upload and distribution through active seeding. Work backwards from your final delivery date and agree on timings for the other milestones with your agency.

The point here is that video production can be extremely labour-intensive. It often involves jumping through a lot of hoops, made from the reddest of tape, and bringing together many different individuals and agencies. It’s time-consuming and there’s no yardstick to measure cost by.

Everything is scalable. It’s most important to have a realistic budget and even more important to stick to it. Don’t be afraid to open up to your production company about what’s in your cheque book. Remember, they want to make something brilliant too and will always be looking to give you exceptional value for money.

BUDGET

DOnt! Underestimate the potential complexity of what might at first seem like a simple production.

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SHORT ANSWER NO. LONG ANSWER NO. HERE’S WHY...

Paying by the minute is sadly not a realistic way to quantify the cost of video.

It’s as simple as that.

Anyone can turn on a webcam for five minutes and bang on about how much they love their new superphone. But the meticulously crafted five-minute video a big brand produces, to walk you through its new product, can take months to engineer.

That’s not to say that both types of video don’t

have their place - they just don’t cost the same.

You see when it comes to film, TV and video, cost is inherently linked to the attention to detail of the production. Take Red Stripe’s recent hacking of a cornershop (bit.ly/Rid1ne) in which they created an orchestra from products littered throughout the shop - triggered when any customer pulled a bottle of Red Stripe from the fridge.

Although shot in a fly-onthe-wall, rough and ready style, the preparation work involved to create such a charming and engaging experience was clearly labour intensive.

Behind this 1m 55s video there were countless hours and many weeks of pre-production.

Consider the time it takes to arrange filming in such a public location, or the out-of-hours set up time, the rehearsals and choreography of the musical products, the engineering involved and the direction of such a theatrical live action experience. All of these individual facets require a great deal of time, and money, to get right. As evidenced by Red Stripe’s supporting making-of video (bit.ly/Tnouxv).

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CONTACT US

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www.republicpublishing.co.uk info@republicpublishing.co.uk Republic Publishing , 2nd Floor, 35 Great Sutton Street, London, EC1V 0DX