What is the video production process?

Video is one of the most powerful tools in the modern marketeer's arsenal.

Year after year it outperforms almost any other formof marketing and that shows no signs of changing.

Whether you’re justgetting started with this exciting medium or looking to refine how your teamworks, discover the complete video production process - from initial setup all the way through to post-production and delivery.

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How to prepare for the video production process

Before you even start pre-production, you must make sure you’re appropriately prepared!

Choose a core message

The first thing that needs to be nailed down is the message you’re hoping to give people.

This should be consistent across all your output – because there’s no point in having a brilliant video telling everyone you sell high end watches if your PPC campaigns only appear on searches for “cheap watches”.

Having conflicting messages will cost you sales and leads, and ultimately waste your marketing budget. If you’re unsure exactly what your message is, try asking yourself, ‘What three messages do I want my audience to take away from the video?’

The answer might be ‘quality of service’, ‘beautifully manufactured products’, or ‘ethically sourced ingredients’. Once you have the messaging spot on, your video production company can make a video that gives people the right idea about your company.

Ensure your branding is ready

Branding is also key - most companies will have a logo and website by the time they’re commissioning a video, but some may not.

In a similar way to your messaging, launching a video without having any branding in place can be confusing for an audience and lead to sending mixed messages.

Most video production companies, like Eight Engines, work in partnership with branding agencies and can help point you in the right direction of someone who can provide expert support in this area.

Decide on distribution

Finally, having a clear idea about distribution is vital for video making.

You might have 50,000 followers across your social media or a video might be the first piece of content that you’ve ever put out on the internet - it doesn’t matter. What matters is knowing which channel you’re hoping to prioritise.

This will dramatically affect how your video is made as different distribution platforms will favour different types of videos. While most platforms favour short-form video content for discovery, they have varying limits.

For example, Facebook caps reels at 90 seconds, but the optimal length is between 15 and 60 seconds, while Instagram has a limit of 20 minutes, with the algorithm heavily favouring reels under 90 seconds.

A good video production company can advise which platform will work best for your message.

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What is the video production process?

With your messaging, brand assets and distribution in place, you’re ready to plan your video, but first consider what you want to achieve with it.

Are you looking for brand awareness? Direct sales? Launching a new product? Highlighting a service? Changing your perception? As soon as you know what you’re hoping to achieve with a video, you can start the vital planning stages.

There are four key video production stages, including:

Pre-production

Concept creation: This is where ideas and goals can come together to start forming a clear concept for the video.

Visual planning: Once you have an initial concept, you can quickly move onto storyboarding, writing a script, and planning the shots of each scene.

The logistics: The logistics can cover everything from finding and securing a shoot location to casting, scheduling, and determining an overall budget

Production

Next, you can move onto the main production process – the part where the magic happens!

Shoot setup: Depending on the complexity of your shoot, this could take longer than you think. You need to consider the efficacy and location of lighting, cameras, and audio equipment.

Filming: Of course, you need a camera operator to shoot the video, but you also need filming support from a director, sound technicians, and other crew members to get the best takes, angles, and raw footage.

Post-production

After filming has finished, it’s time to compile and edit the raw footage into something more refined.

Footage editing: A video editor should then carefully sift through the raw footage to extract the best takes, adjust the size of clips, and put the desired storyline together in a way that’s impactful and visually-appealing.

Audio adjustments: Sound is often added in post-production to enhance the footage. This might mean adding background music, creating a voiceover, or improving the quality of existing audio on camera footage.

Final touches: To ensure the video achieves the desired goal, it may be necessary to adjust the colouring, incorporate text, or even include visual effects. Once these final touches have been completed, the video can be exported in the most appropriate format.

Distribution and promotion

The right distribution and promotion strategy can have a major impact on exactly who sees the video and the kind of results it generates for your brand.

Distribution: You might choose to distribute the footage across your social media platforms, embed it on your website for Search Engine Optimisation purposes, or share it by uploading the footage to a video platform like YouTube.

Promotion: At the same time, you should be utilising all avenues of communication to ensure your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. This could include mentioning it in the monthly company newsletter, securing digital PR about the release, or simply shouting about it on social media.

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Choosing the most appropriate type of video

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Still with us? Good! Let's talk about some of the different types of videos and how the to use them to the best effect. There are so many ways to use video! For the sake of ease, we’ve outlined three basic categories of video.

Pieces to camera videos

Pieces to camera are exactly what they say on the tin.They usually consist of a person speaking either to an interviewer or directlyinto camera about a chosen subject.

They can either be scripted or an interview which hasthe key soundbites edited into a coherent story. They’re like a directconversation between the speaker and the audience.

Pieces to camera are particularly useful for dealingwith information heavy topics, offering advice or telling your brand story. Hereare some examples below:

• Royal Shakespeare Company - Timon of Athens
• Carbon Theatre - Sea Girl
• Wavin- Tigres K1

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Marketing videos

This type of video is focused on maximising brand awareness. These films are traditionally concept-driven and when they work, they really work - a good brand film can be like rocket fuel for a marketing campaign.

This method is done exceptionally well by companies like Guinness, John Lewis, and Coke and so irritatingly by companies like Compare the Market, WeBuyAnyCar.com, and Just Eat (although you definitely have the We Buy Any Car song stuck in your head now, so it’s clearly working).

Huge companies spend millions of pounds a year on brand films, but that doesn’t mean they have to break the bank. Below are some cost-effective examples of marketing films which didn’t need a huge crew with 100s of cast members to solidify a brand’s identity:

• Team Academy - Life’s too short for boring training
• Aqua Pura - Life's Adventures
• Zen - Advert - No T&Cs

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Profile videos

Profile films are case studies, they take either a person or a subject and tell their story to an audience. They harness the power of storytelling that marketeers have been using for years and can create a lasting impression with an audience.

A compelling profile film is a great way to keep things interesting or humanising people. They work fantastically well for companies who want to shout about their success.

Profile films also work great for charities, as they’re an effective way to convey emotion and show the impact that a project is having on the lives of its beneficiaries.

• Help for Heroes - Kev
• The Good Life Experience - Alex Pole

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How can you use video to help your business?

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Builds brand indentity

The first and most obvious way that a company can use video is to build a brand identity. Videos have the unique capability of allowing a marketeer to control a customer’s first impression of their business.

With video content, you can meticulously plan the messages and thoughts you want a potential customer to take away from their interaction with your company.

Brands have needed a video marketing strategy to promote growth for years, but what has changed very quickly is how important video is for every platform and channel a company uses.

Video is no longer one strand of a marketing strategy, it’s now a central component of all outreach and campaign efforts, particularly on social media.

Generates highest ROI (Return OnInvestment)

According to HubSpot’s The State of Marketing 2026 report, the highest-ROI content formats (compared from 2025 to 2026) include:

As illustrated by the chart, all three types of video content were already delivering a high ROI in 2025, but have all seen a significant increase in this area in 2026 - adding extra return on investment to an already cost-effective medium.

Undoubtedly, because of this high ROI, it’s also where many content teams plan on investing their money for 2026. This is supported by the study which adds that 30% of marketers surveyed plan on investing in short-form video content, 13% in live streaming video, and 12% in long-form video content.

Holds consumer attention

Between TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and even LinkedIn, there are countless platforms where video content – and short-form videos, in particular – are proving to be astoundingly effective at holding consumer attention.

In a bid to capture some of this attention, this has led to a shift in the type of media formats companies use in their content strategies. According to HubSpot’s report, a massive 60% of marketers surveyed use short-form video content, 38% use long-form video content, and 37% use live streaming video content.

If video being the most-leveraged content format in marketing proves anything, it’s that there’s nothing quite as captivating as this impactful medium.

Why use a video production company?

In short, a video production company can manage every aspect of your video, from working with you to construct a creative idea, to managing the logistics like finding the cast and crew, right through to delivering the video and advising on a distribution strategy.

Where to start

If you want a cost-effective, smooth video then get in touch with a production company a month or so before you want to shoot. Once you’ve spoken with them, they should host a project planning meeting.

A project planning meeting will outline the project and ensure that it gets on the right path for success. During this meeting, you and the video production company need to work out how to convert your aims and messages into a piece of effective video.

Key discussion points for this meeting should be:

• The aims you have for the project
• The creative ambitions
• What, where and who you will be filming
• The schedules and logistics of the shoot
• All the milestones
• Where it will be shown

A good video production company will guide you through the very technical and complex world of filmmaking, but the right video production company will make it an enjoyable and rewarding experience, leaving you with something you’ll still be proud of in five years’ time.

Our professional video production services

Our talented team provides expert video production in Manchester, helping brands to get their productsseen, driving attention to good causes, and shining the spotlight on inspiringstories.

To learn more about the video production process at Eight Engines or to get the ball rolling on your next marketing project,please don’t hesitate to contactour friendly team today!

Call us on: (+44)0161 974 1319

Email us at: info@eightengines.com

Pop by: Jactinhouse, 24 Hood St, Ancoats, Manchester M4 6WX