In part 1 of this series, I wrote about our experience with a remote video production service in 2020, what we're learning now, and how different solutions or combinations of solutions work with different projects and different budgets.  Remote video production seems to be an all-encompassing term and I’ll get into the actual production part of the process later, but first let’s talk remote pre-production. What are we doing at Elephant Productions? We’re taking advantage of those tools that most of us have been using for years. Since we provide corporate video production services to clients across the country, and even across the pond, we have been utilizing the cloud to collaborate for quite some time. 

Using Dropbox to share schedules, scripts, track revisions; Zoom or Teams meetings for verbal and face-to-face communication; performing casting sessions with Zoom or assembling recordings and headshots of talent and sharing via Dropbox; sharing scouting photos and videos with the client to give them a sense of the look and feel of the space. It doesn’t make sense if the client(s) is hundreds or thousands of miles away to come in for a scouting or casting session.  

Sharing these items and allowing feedback and two-way communication saves time and money. Now, don’t get me wrong, at our video production house, we love working with our clients in person so the welcome mat is still there, but we have options to suit their needs. Maybe one client comes to town and a few others join remotely?   Remote pre-production may benefit more than just the client. If we need to cast someone from another city or need to socially distance the casting session, we can connect with the talent remotely. Want to keep the scouting team small? The scout can use Facetime or Skype and show everyone around the space.  There are plenty of other tools that we’ve all heard of and use at least one if not more. We use Dropbox and Zoom, but a lot of our clients use One Drive and Teams. Of course, there is Google Drive, Google Meet, Box, Slack, etc.    We are currently implementing project management software that will tie some of these things together and help manage the process from budget to preproduction and through delivery. We’re looking forward to diving into that new tool. It’s a little bit of a learning curve, but we’ll get there. I’ll dive into the actual production process in the next installment of remote video production.