New to producing video? This guide illustrates the steps, from planning to rollout, for producing a video.

1. Producing video: a starter guide
(case study)
Elizabeth Teodorini &
Elizabeth Monier-Williams

2. youtube.com/user/YorkUAlumni

3. Overview
• Planning
• The shoot
• Post-production
• Rollout
• Resources
• Lessons learned
• 5 recommendations

4. Planning: content
• Clarify—in one sentence—the single message
you want your viewer to take away.
• Adapt your content to make it relevant to the
viewer.
How to Make Your Garden Bee Friendly speaks directly
to viewers about the benefits of bee-friendly plants
and gives practical suggestions for what will attract
bees.

5. Planning: location
• Consider doing a pre-shoot visit with your
videographer to troubleshoot challenges like
lighting and sound.
Professor Packer told us we needed a sunny day to
ensure the bees would be out.

6. Planning: your subject
• Get a feel for their speaking style
and presence. If your speaker is not
strong on screen, or will require a
lot of editing to deliver longer
sections, you will need more b-roll.
• Discuss the single message. Does it
make sense to the speaker? Body
language will make it clear if he or
she is uncomfortable.

7. Planning: the outline
• Working from an outline, and using it to prompt
your speaker with questions during the shoot,
results in a more natural product than scripting.
How to Make Your Garden Bee Friendly
• Why bees are important to human survival (food)
• Bees are in trouble (population, pollution, illness, etc.)
• Bee-friendly plants and “houses”
• Interesting facts (all sizes, not furry, not wasps, etc.)
• Resources (URLs, book)

8. Planning: videography
• Your videographer wants to know:
• Location details (light sources, power sources, etc.)
• Video outline—what footage do you need?
• Timeline for post-production
• Deliverables (file types, inclusion of graphics, music
requirements, etc.)
• Tone and styling (documentary style, transitions or
hard cuts, fonts, name key style, etc.)
• Audience
Ask for input throughout the process.

9. The shoot
• Work from your outline and b-roll list.
• Work closely with your videographer.
We started in the garden’s east end so that we’d have
direct sun throughout the shoot and a consistent
product after editing.

10. The shoot
• When prompting your speaker, ensure he or she
sets up the response.
• You: “What kinds of plants attract bees?”
• Speaker: “The kinds of plants that will attract
bees to your garden are x, y and z.”
• NOT: “X, y and z,” which will be completely out
of context after editing.
We encouraged Professor Packer to say “you” rather
than referring generically to “people,” and to treat the
camera as though it was a single person with whom he
was speaking.

11. Post-production
• ~3 rounds
• Sites like Vimeo
save time when
you have multiple
reviewers and
provide a clear
editorial record.
• Get someone with
no content
knowledge to
watch it for gaps.

12. Post-production
• Be flexible:
• Your speaker may touch on something unplanned
that you want to include with more detail.
• Something you thought would work could flop.
• The content order may change if a more natural
segue emerges elsewhere in the footage.
We introduced the freeze frames, a.k.a. “cards”, to add
clarity to the content. Their styling changed considerably
over the post-production period.

13. Rollout
• Know your audience and forum:
• Event presentation
• Website
• Social Media: Facebook,
Twitter, You Tube, etc.
• SEO
• Caption your video
• Use content tags
• Pick a strong title
• Try a Google search to see
where the video ranks

14. Rollout
Fall 2010:
• Alumni Matters, Alumni website, You
Tube channel, Facebook post
• Research news, Twitter, targeted
messages (e.g., funders, bee book
publicist, etc.)
• VPUR media relations, Y-File, faculty
webpages, etc.
Spring 2011:
• Gardening, urban space and
environment magazines, blogs and
organizations
• Second push through Alumni Matters

15. Resources
Time:
Planning—2 days
Shoot—½ day
Post-production—1 day
Rollout: ½ day
Film Crew Cost: ~$950
$525 shoot
$425 post-production

16. Lessons learned: location
• Shooting outdoors subjects you to weather, but
can produce exceptional footage.
• Consider noise when scouting locations.
• Listen to your crew.
We dealt with nearby construction and planes flying
overhead, which meant we had to wait for gaps in the
noise to film some sections. The crew was confident
the audio would be fine, so we didn’t have to move
inside.

17. Lessons learned: collaborate
Teams are more powerful than individuals:
• Sharing costs and resources makes video
production more manageable
• More expertise = stronger product
• More connections mean wider distribution
networks and better exposure for your product
• The more people who see it, the more chances
it’ll go viral.

18. 5 Recommendations
1. Don’t script. Prompt.
2. Work to your speaker’s strengths. Not
everyone is a performer.
3. Use b-roll and editing to fill the gaps. That
means you have to plan ahead.

19. 5 Recommendations
4. Invest in training for staff and faculty who will
be on camera or producing video regularly.
5. Develop a simple, standardized styling for the
video that emphasizes the overall brand (York
University), not internal nomenclature. This
can be applied to future videos and by others
on in your organization.