Before You Book a Video Company, Ask These Questions.

I realize there is something very convenient about a video producer telling you what questions to ask before hiring a video producer, so yes, I see the conflict of interest here, but these are genuinely the questions I would want somebody to ask whether they were considering us or somebody else.

Because “video production” can mean wildly different things depending on who is offering it, and two proposals that look similar at first can involve completely different levels of planning, crew, equipment, post production and responsibility.

Who is actually going to show up?

This seems obvious, but ask.

Is the filmmaker you spoke with the person who will actually be on set, or does the company hand the project to another team after booking? Is the crew employed by the company, assembled from freelancers, or a mix?

None of those things are automatically a problem, and plenty of excellent productions are built with freelance crews, but you should know who is responsible for your project and who you will actually be working with.

Especially if the person selling you the creative vision mysteriously disappears once the deposit clears.

What is actually included?

Do not assume “production” means the same thing everywhere.

Ask what is included before the shoot, during production and afterward. Who is handling creative development? Are they helping with interview questions? Locations? Scheduling? Does the quote include lighting and audio? How many crew members are coming? Is editing included? How do revisions work? What are the actual deliverables?

And if you think you might need the raw footage, ask about that too.

It is much less awkward to understand all of this before the project than to discover halfway through that something you assumed was included was never part of the scope.

Ask about audio and backups even though they are boring

Everyone asks what camera we use.

Almost nobody asks how we are recording sound or what happens to the footage after the shoot.

I would argue those questions are more important.

A beautiful interview with terrible audio is a very expensive silent film, and nobody cares how cinematic the footage looked if a drive fails and there is no backup.

The unglamorous systems are often the ones protecting the project.

Ask about them.

And finally: do they understand what the video is supposed to do?

This is probably the question underneath all the others.

You can make an absolutely beautiful video that solves the wrong problem.

Before talking cameras, I want to understand where the piece is going, who is supposed to watch it and what you want them to understand or do afterward.

Pretty is useful.

Useful and pretty is better.