If you’ve ever wondered how much work goes into creating one of our award-winning travel videos — the short answer is a lot!
Our Production Manager, Rohan Trundle, recently took the time to explain exactly what goes on behind the scenes:
“For every video there is a mountain of planning and organisation that happens before each shoot. There’s a lot of legwork for our photographer to get the amazing shots before the media team even gets their hands on the footage. And then of course there’s the script, music, voice overs and editing.”
A lot goes into planning a shoot, and we wanted to share some of our working process to demonstrate the level of care and detail that goes into each one of our videos.
Research & Consultation
In the early stages of planning, and through consultation with our clients, we look at data surrounding popular holiday destinations to help determine viable shoot locations. We then shortlist attractions in each of these cities according to search volumes, traveler experiences and reviews retrieved from Google. If the shoot will involve video, as well as stills, the script writing department conducts their own research in parallel to the production department and provides their recommendations on what footage would help build an effective travel story.
After getting a better idea of what and where we’d like to shoot, we then engage with the Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVBs) or local tourism organisations of that city. This communication helps provide the photographer with contacts for the attractions we want to include in the shoot, as well as introductions to the relevant person from the venue. This is all part of ensuring we have all the necessary permits and permissions for the shoot to proceed.
Scheduling & Shooting
The next step is scheduling, which involves a mind-bending level of location and travel data being processed by our software development team. This is then transformed into a user-friendly Google Map and online schedule that lets our photographers prioritise their shoots based on things like the weather and time of day.
Communication is crucial throughout the whole process, extending from pre to post-filming. Countless emails are exchanged with numerous organisations — from local tourism organisations, to the attractions themselves, as well as local film offices. This alone can take a huge amount of time organising aspects like film permits, with some locations requiring up to 4 different permits for the same area. But this level of communication and attention to detail ensures our clients are supplied with a finished video which is approved and usable in a commercial environment.
At the end of each shoot day our photographer will spend several hours downloading the photos and/or videos to their laptop and sorting them into the correct file folders to ensure they are attributed to the correct location. They will then back up this data to another 2 hard drives. As the old IT saying goes: if it doesn’t exist in three places, it doesn’t exist.
During the peak shoot season, usually summer, we may have four or five photographers ‘on the road’ at any one time. They will be following schedules that have been revised and fine-tuned over several months to ensure the shoot runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible. At the end of the day, we want our photographers to spend their time shooting, rather than trying to solve logistical problems.
Of course, this is just an idea of some of the extensive work that is involved in our travel videos. It takes a dedicated and passionate team to create them — something we can easily say about the people behind Tourism Media!
To learn more about what happens to the footage once it’s been sent back to our post-production team, check out how we choose the right tools to manage and process the footage. For more information on our general content production capabilities, head to our pages on video production and custom content services.
