Commissioning a piece of professional video content for the first time can feel more daunting than it needs to be. If your previous encounters with film production have been limited to watching the results rather than being involved in creating them, the process can seem opaque: full of unfamiliar terminology, uncertain timelines, and creative decisions you are not sure how to evaluate. The result, too often, is a brief that is vague because the business is not sure what to ask for, a production that drifts in scope because expectations were not set clearly, and a final film that is fine but not quite what anyone had imagined.
None of this is inevitable. The video production process — from initial brief through to finished film — is logical, manageable, and genuinely collaborative when both sides understand what is required of them at each stage. Here is an honest account of how it typically works and how to prepare so that your first commission goes as well as possible.
Before You Approach Anyone: Getting Clear on the Brief
The single most important thing you can do before commissioning any video content is to be specific about what you want it to achieve. This sounds obvious and is consistently underestimated. ‘We want a video about the company’ is not a brief. ‘We want a sixty-second film for our homepage that communicates our core proposition to senior HR managers considering a new recruitment software solution’ is a brief. The difference between these two statements determines whether the production process goes smoothly or becomes a long series of conversations about what the film is actually supposed to be.
The questions worth answering before you speak to anyone are: What is the single objective of this video? Who is the audience, and what do they currently think and feel about our business? Where will the video be distributed, and what are the technical requirements of those channels? What is the approximate budget, and is there flexibility? What does success look like — what would need to be true for this to have been a worthwhile investment? You do not need polished answers to all of these questions before initial conversations begin, but having thought about them seriously makes every subsequent conversation more productive.
The Discovery or Strategy Stage
Good video production partners do not simply take a brief and disappear into production. The first stage of a well-run project is a discovery or strategy conversation — sometimes a single meeting, sometimes a more extended process for larger or more complex commissions — in which the production team seeks to understand the business, the audience, the objectives, and any existing brand or creative guidelines that should inform the work.
This is the stage at which the video’s core message is clarified, the appropriate format and length are agreed, and the creative direction begins to take shape. It is also the stage at which potential complications are identified and addressed: a customer testimonial film requires willing and credible customers; an on-location shoot requires access to the right spaces; an animation requires approved scripting before any visual work begins. Surfacing these dependencies early prevents them from becoming crises later.
Come to this stage prepared to share: your brand guidelines if you have them, examples of video work you admire (even from outside your sector), any previous content that has performed particularly well or badly, and any strong views about tone, style, or content that the production team should know about. The more context you provide, the more accurately the creative response can be calibrated to what you actually need.
Pre-Production: Script, Storyboard, and Shoot Plan
Pre-production is the planning phase that precedes any filming or animation, and it is the stage most frequently rushed by clients in a hurry to see results. Resisting that rush is important, because decisions made — or not made — in pre-production are enormously more expensive to fix after filming has begun than before it.
For live action productions, pre-production typically involves script development (for voiceover-led or presenter-led films), location scouting and agreement, casting of any on-screen talent including customer interviewees, shot listing, schedule planning, and any required permissions or risk assessments. For animation and motion graphics, it involves script approval, storyboarding, style frame development, and voiceover casting.
The key discipline at this stage is approval. When you are asked to review and approve a script, storyboard, or shot list, do so carefully and completely before signing off. ‘We’ll sort that in the edit’ is a phrase that costs money and time; ‘we changed our minds after the shoot’ costs more. The pre-production stage is the cheapest place to make changes.
Production: The Shoot or Animation Build
The production stage — the actual filming, or the animation and visual build — is usually the most visible part of the process and often the shortest in calendar time relative to what precedes and follows it. A well-prepared one-day corporate shoot will typically yield the footage needed for a two-minute brand film with room to spare; a less well-prepared shoot of the same duration may produce material that is technically usable but creatively constrained.
If you are present on a live shoot, the most useful thing you can do is be available for decisions — not to direct the camera, but to answer questions about content and to confirm that key messages are being captured clearly. Most productions will have a nominated client contact on set for exactly this reason. Bring any relevant colleagues or stakeholders whose sign-off will be needed on content decisions: a dispute about whether the CEO’s interview covers the right ground is much better resolved on the day of the shoot than in the edit suite two weeks later.
Post-Production: Edit, Review, and Delivery
Post-production — editing, colour grading, sound design, music licensing, graphics, and final delivery — is typically the longest phase of the process in calendar time and the stage at which the film takes its final shape. The first edit you receive will usually be a rough cut: a working version of the film that establishes structure, pacing, and the selection of material, but which is not yet colour graded, fully sound designed, or finished in any of the other ways that distinguish a rough cut from a final deliverable.
When reviewing an edit, the most useful feedback is specific: ‘the section on our service offering starts at 1:15 and we feel it undersells what makes us different’ is actionable; ‘it doesn’t feel quite right’ is not. Good production teams will help you articulate what is not working if you struggle to identify it precisely, but the more specific your feedback, the faster and more efficiently the revision process moves.
Campaign Magazine has practical guidance on getting the best results from a creative agency relationship that applies equally well to video commissions — the points about clarity of brief, appropriate approval processes, and managing the feedback loop are directly relevant and worth reading if you are new to commissioning creative work professionally.
Working With the Right People
The quality of a video commission depends not just on the business’s preparation but on the people executing it. The right production partner is one that combines technical competence with genuine interest in your business — one that asks good questions, offers creative perspectives you had not considered, and manages the process in a way that keeps the project on track without requiring you to chase for updates.
Rise Media work with businesses across a range of sectors to develop and produce video content that is strategically grounded and creatively strong. If you are at the stage of thinking about commissioning your first piece of business video, or looking to build a more consistent video output, reaching out for an initial conversation about your objectives is usually the most useful first step.
The First Commission Is the Beginning
It is worth finishing with this thought: the businesses that use video most effectively are almost never those that treated each commission as a standalone event. The most powerful video strategies are built incrementally — each film informing the next, each production relationship deepening over time, the library of content growing in coverage and coherence. Your first commission is not just a video; it is the beginning of a way of communicating that, developed consistently, becomes one of the most distinctive and valuable assets your brand possesses.