We always work with clients to understand their audience and their message before we start any video production, but we realize that no amount of meetings can replace a career’s worth of experience in a market or industry. That is just one reason why we want our clients to be involved in the process at every step along the way, and to offer them opportunities to revise everything from concept, to script, to storyboard, and to the final video.
Inviting clients to collaborate in the process prevents surprises in production and postproduction, and avoids costly, relationship damaging pitfalls when a client’s vision doesn’t line up with our understanding of the project. With that on the table, there are some things that we like to let clients know about the revision process, and this blog seems like another great way to get the word out.
For starters, the cost of revisions scales as the project moves forward. If you read the process section of our website, you will see that video production works in layers, and each stage of the process is built upon the previous layer. If we begin moving forward with a treatment, every subsequent stage of the production is impacted by alterations to that treatment. In fact, the further along we get, the harder it is to return to an earlier stage in the process. Allowing for revisions along the way reduces the chances for changes to dramatically shift budgets and timelines.
I don’t want this to sound like we don’t allow changes late in the process. Quite the opposite actually, we usually allow multiple sets of revisions between the first screening of the video and the final delivery. In fact, in a pinch we’re even happy to arrange layers of revision beyond what was originally contracted for (though we almost never need to do so). The point I want to get across is that it is far easier, cheaper, and faster to make all the revisions to a certain phase before moving forward.
With this being the case, we can’t stress enough how important it is to include all the important decision makers in each approval phase. It may be time consuming to channel multiple revisions through the legal department, but it certainly beats ending up with a finished or nearly finished video that you can’t use because the legal team won’t approve it.
Revisions exist for the client’s benefit, and we’ve found that building layers of approvals into our process keeps everyone involved and on target throughout the entire timeline.