Video Production

What was the video for?

The video forms an integral part of a classroom based, customer services training program.  The video has been produced as a DVD with 5 chapters presenting a specific set of customer service scenarios.

Sous Productions were commissioned by our old friends Training For Advancement (TFA). They were responsible for developing the overall training program and they called on me to take care of the video element. Having worked with TFA before it is always nice to be invited back in.

Pre Production

Some aspects of the pre production were a little tricky due to the very tight timescales and the client needing to make changes to the scenes and the script right up to the point the rec button on the video camera was pressed.

I knew the client wanted maybe 4 to 6 actors but I was not given the final character briefs until 4 working days prior to the shoot so there was no time for auditions of any kind which leaves you a little nervous about the quality of the actors leading up to point they deliver the lines. As I didn’t know any agencies in that area I found an online site called CastingCallPro http://www.uk.castingcallpro.com/welcome.php

From the initial brief I felt fairly comfortable this was going to be a 1 day shoot but until the brief is finalised you can’t be absolutely sure. The client of course said well that’s fine, if we have to shoot on a 2nd day we will keep the shop and staff available. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that easily. The crew and actors need to be booked in advance for the days you want them. If you ask for an actor to be available for 2 days you can’t then send them away after 1 day without paying them for the 2nd. Vice versa, you can’t book them for 1 day and expect them to be available for a 2nd follow on day.

We settled for one day and so we had to make it work.

Crew & Location

I also knew from the guide brief that this was not a 1 man job so I could at least sort out my crew of one cameraman – Ian, and one sound man – Andy, in advance.  Leaving me to take the role of producer.

Ian is one of those very relaxed but highly professional cameramen. He pretty much worked with the camera all day everyday in a whole host of locations and typically for TV so I knew he would be great for the job.

Andy is a young lad but with a very mature head on his shoulders. He had a range of experience and while he might not be considered a specialist soundman I knew he would be able to handle the situation we would be in. Sound is tricky at the best of times and we were going to contend with a noisy City roadside location so I wanted to ensure I had someone focused on the audio side only.

The job needed to be shot on location in Liverpool due to the shop they wanted us to use and would consist of 3 locations.

1. Pavement / walkway leading up to the bakery shop
2. Inside the bakery shop
3. Next to and inside car near to the shop

Equipment

The kit list for the job was fairly simple although my main debate had been about whether to take one or two cameras. Budget allowed me two smaller cameras such as the Sony PD170  or 1 higher quality camera such as the Sony DSR570.  I conferred with Ian the cameraman and decided on doing the shoot using one camera and filming each scene from 3 or 4 different locations one after the other. Yes, it takes longer and there is always the risk of continuity issues each time you run the scene through but we felt we had all day and the scenes were fairly straight forward.

There were some other unknowns such as lighting conditions in the shop so we could not be sure on what lighting we would need so of course we took more than we might need.

Eventual kit list:

1. Sony DSR570 camera, tripod and Wide lens etc
2. 9″ monitor and a wireless monitor
3. 2 x Wireless Mics, 1x Boom mic and 4 way mixer
4. 4 bank videssence and 4 x redheads  for the lighting

I would be very interested to hear your views on crew and kit list for this job and how you would have gone about it.