Like some vacations or a really good buffet, our budgets are often “all-inclusive.” The hours of project management, creative nourishment, shoot days, edit time, equipment, music licensing, etc. — it’s all in there! At the kickoff, we’ll overview things like total edit time and rounds of revisions. Should the project start to move beyond the estimated scope, we’ll let you know. Should we decide to change the agreement in a major way, we’ll draft a PCN.
B-Roll
This refers to the secondary footage in a live-action video. For example, if we interviewed a farmer talking about farms, the b-roll could be action shots of farming, while the A-roll is the farmer speaking. But don’t say A-roll, because that’s not a thing.
Bumper
Bumper has a lot of meanings, but we’ll most commonly use it to describe a super-short video opener that uses motion graphics and sound to reveal a logo or title. Bumpers can be used in front of other videos, to play before events or simply sprinkled wherever a little bit of branding is needed.
Content Cut
In a live-action video project, we’ll use a content cut to get a sense of the story without any b-roll. This may be preferred to a written script, as it will give a better sense of tone, pacing and emotion. But these edits can be rough. While they may have music, they almost never have color correction and are often riddled with visually jarring edits. They’re not for the faint of heart.
Download Link
Unless your email can handle crazy-big attachments, we’ll send you a download link to the appropriate digital file(s) when your project is completely done. For videos, you will need to download these files before uploading to the appropriate platform, like YouTube, Facebook or other proprietary players.
Kickoff
After signing the agreement, we schedule a kickoff call or gathering. This is the official meeting of the minds — when two teams become one. Whether the project is a simple shoot or the beginning of a brand new campaign, we encourage you to invite the necessary influencers and fans on your end. We’ll be sure to include the Account Rep and Producer + Project Manager. We may also bring a scriptwriter, designer, cinematographer and members of the “nerd trust.” Kickoff agendas and goals vary, but they’re always followed by tangible action items and a detailed production schedule. More importantly, people walk away feeling utterly jazzed about the project. In person-meetings may even end in hugs.
Mood Boards
Mood Boards are a series of collage options for graphics-heavy projects. After learning about your brand and objectives, we’ll whip together a few visual medleys, to get the creative juices juicing. Maybe you like the bubble text in option B, but the photo-realistic shadows in option A. Maybe you hate option C so much that you’re seriously concerned about us as human beings. We’ll stretch your imagination in this back-and-forth brainstorm to best position us for something like storyboards.
Pcn
A Project Change Notice is an amendment to the original signed agreement. These come into play when the the scope and / or creative of a project dramatically changes during production. Maybe we need an extra day of shooting to cover a new angle of the story. Or maybe that series of six videos became five because six was too even of a number. But don’t worry! PCNs are pretty common and part of the journey of getting a project just right.
Preview Link
When we’re ready to share something, we’ll send you a preview link. This is a private URL for you to watch a video draft. These things are completely unsearchable from the Googles and mobile-friendly.
Ppm
Our team members wear a lot of different hats, oftentimes going against standard industry titles. The Producer + Project Manager is not only your daily point of contact and chief logistics-keeper. He or she is also the interviewer, talent-wrangler, visionary and even director. These well-trained nerds will study you and your brand and protect your best interests. They will give their opinions about what works best, and provide an unforgettable client experience.
“Rounds” OF Revisions
Every project milestone comes with a specific number of revision “rounds.” That’s when you share your feedback on a script, storyboard, video draft, etc. Contrary to popular belief, a “round” is not a scientific metric. It can be super straightforward, like “I don’t like purple.” Or it can be as ominous as “I have a bad feeling about this.” But however simple or robust, we ask that rounds include feedback from all stakeholders on your project. And preferably not-contradicting feedback, too!
Storyboards
Storyboards are renderings drafted in pre-production that illustrate key moments from a video. It’s a form of pre-visualization and we want to get them perfect before we enter production. For a live-action project, we may use photo or hand drawn representations. For a motion graphics project, we’ll most likely use actual graphic depictions — it’ll be like seeing still frames from the final video before it’s even made! Whoa.
Style Frame
After we do the mood board, but before we do the storyboard, we’ll usually create a style frame to give a nice flavor of the video’s typography, color palette and general… style. This ensures we’re on the right track during our intensive ‘boarding process.
Typography
While copy is the actual words, typography describes the style of the text (the typeface, size, letter-spacing, etc.). Sometimes we’ll use the word “kinetic” in front of typography to describe moving text. We’re talking about words that literally move through animation — although I suppose moving text could be emotionally moving, too. Hmm.
