The Benefits of Using Transcripts in Your Pre-Production Process

Before the cameras even begin rolling on your video project, there’s a critical step of the video production process you can’t skip: pre-production. 

Just like researching and planning your travel itinerary or prepping all your ingredients before cooking, the more diligent you are during pre-production, the fewer surprises you’ll run into during production – and the more successful your project will ultimately be.

Let’s dive in a bit deeper and learn about the three pillars of the pre-production process, and what you can do to make this process as easy and efficient as possible. 

The three Ps of pre-production

What is pre-production? Pre-production is the planning stage of a video project, whether that’s a movie, documentary, commercial, music video, Youtube video, or even a marketing video for your business or client. 

During pre-production, you and your team plan out all the details of your video project so that you have everything ready to go when it’s time to start shooting. This includes your project’s script, budget, schedule, storyboards, cast, and crew. 

The amount of time pre-production takes varies depending on the video content you’re creating. Pre-production for a typical movie can take anywhere from 3-7 months but generally less than a year, while other types of video content could take more or less time, depending on the length and complexity of your video. With a two-minute corporate marketing video, for example,  pre-production generally takes 1-2 weeks. 

The process can be a huge undertaking — and what’s more, the amount of information collected during this stage can make it challenging for you or your team to drill down on key ideas and avoid information overload. 

Here at Rev, we break down the pre-production steps into three main pillars: Purpose, Planning, and Preparation. 

1. Purpose 

The first pillar of pre-production is to determine the purpose of your video project. This is where you’ll decide what your story is going to be, conduct research on your topic, and do most of your brainstorming. A few questions to ask yourself in this step include:

• What are you trying to convey with this video? 
• Who is your main audience? 
• Is your goal to entertain, inform, or persuade your audience?

This is a key step because until you know your project’s purpose, you can’t effectively tell your story. Without knowing the story you want to tell, you can’t write your script, which in turn informs everything else: the characters, locations, props, costumes, sound effects, special effects and other logistics that are needed for your video. 

2. Planning 

Once you’ve determined your purpose, next comes planning. This is the step that will help bring your project to fruition. 

During this stage, you’ll work on logistical tasks like creating a production roadmap, laying out project timelines, figuring out project funding and setting the budget for the production. 

Creating actionable next steps and ensuring all the details of the video project are accounted for will help your production stay on track. Beyond ensuring you hit your deadline, thorough planning will prevent the video from going over budget and impacting key stakeholders.

3. Preparation 

Now that you have a script, schedule and budget, you can begin preparing for production. 

This includes hiring cast and crew, sourcing props, location scouting and sourcing all the video equipment you need. 

If relevant, this is also a good time to schedule pre-production calls with any subject matter experts and video subjects you might have in your video project. Use this time to establish trust and build rapport with your subject matter experts and interviewees, as well as talk through what the filming process will look like so they know what to expect once it’s time to shoot. Establishing that rapport with your cast or interview subjects will allow them to feel more at ease and understand your expectations. 

Transcripts can streamline your pre-production process

From conducting kickoff meetings with your production team to brainstorming your project’s storyline to preparing your interview subjects for shooting, there’s a ton of insights, ideas, and knowledge shared during pre-production. 

You never know which ideas will spark bigger ideas, or which brainstorming sessions will yield valuable insights, so it’s important to keep track of all this information so you have it in your records to reference. Plus, by keeping track of these conversations, you’ll also build out a library of information that you can use later on during production. 

The easiest and most accurate way to do this is to record all of the meetings and chats that happen during pre-production. However, rewatching and re-listening to all these recordings can take up a lot of time – time that could be better spent on more productive tasks. 

Transcripts are the solution. With a professional transcription service like Rev, you can have a more efficient and thorough pre-production process. By getting your recordings transcribed, you’ll more quickly and easily identify key information and ideas — and with Rev’s interactive Transcript Editor, you’ll be able to easily search, annotate, add comments, and share transcripts with collaborators and stakeholders on your project. 

Once you submit your audio or visual recordings for transcription, you’ll quickly receive full-text transcripts of your meetings that are both accurate and affordable. Best of all, this means you’ll get more time back to focus on making sure your production is successful. 

Using transcripts in pre-production sets you up for success

The pre-production process is challenging and involved, but when done well, it’ll set your video project up for success and increase your chance of smoother sailing during production and post-production. 

Interested in learning more about how to work smarter and more efficiently during your video pre-production process? Then you’ll definitely want to check out our in-depth guide to using transcription in video pre-production — it’ll give you even more tips, insights, and guidance.