What Actually Happens on a Video Shoot Day

Most people don’t tell me they're excited about shoot day.

They're excited about the video. Shoot day is the part in between. The bit where you have to stand in your own business, in front of a camera, and somehow sound like a normal human being while someone points a bright light at you.

I get it. It's the single most common thing clients bring up on our first call, usually somewhere around the third sentence, usually phrased as a warning: "just so you know, I'm terrible on camera."

You're probably not. But I understand why you think so, and I'd rather you knew exactly what the day looks like than spend three weeks imagining something worse. So here it is, start to finish.

Before the day

We'll have already talked. That's the part people skip and then regret.

A week or so out, I send you a handful of questions, nothing complicated. Things like why did you start this? and what do people get wrong about what you do?

These are not a script. Please don't write out answers and try to memorize them; that's actually the fastest route to sounding stiff. They're there so nothing catches you cold on the day. Read them, let them rattle around in the back of your head while you're driving, and turn up.

I'll also ask about the space, where we're shooting, what the light does in the afternoon, whether there's a room with a door that closes. If your building has a fridge compressor that kicks on every four minutes, I'd love to know before we're rolling and not after.

What to wear: something you'd actually wear to work. Don’t overthink this part. Depending on the business, if you have branded clothing it tends to look great on video. 

The morning

I show up early.

For most of that time, you should ignore me completely. Seriously, keep working, take your calls and tend to your business. Setting up lights and sound is dull to watch and it's easier for both of us if you're not standing around waiting for it.

Some days it's just me. On bigger shoots I bring up to 3 or 4 people depending on the project. 

The part you're dreading

Here's the thing that surprises almost everyone: it's short.

The bit where you're actually on camera talking is usually 20 minutes. Less than the setup. Less than the drive over, in some cases. You spend three weeks worrying about a piece of the day that's over before your coffee gets cold.

And it isn't a performance. We just talk. I ask a question, you answer it the way you'd answer a customer standing in front of you. If you fumble a sentence, we go again, there's no limited number of takes, no tape running out, nobody sighing. I've done this a lot. The good version always turns up eventually, and my job is to keep asking until it does.

A few things I tell everyone at this point:

You don't have to be word-perfect. I'm going to cut this. Nobody watching the finished video will ever know you started that sentence three times.

Talk to me, not the camera. Easier said than done for about the first ninety seconds, then it stops being weird.

Being a bit nervous is fine. Better than fine, honestly. Local customers don't trust polished. They trust real. The slightly-unsure version of you sounds like a person they'd want to hire; the smooth version sounds like an ad.

For ten years before I did this full-time, I worked as a vocational specialist in a healthcare clinic, helping people get back to work after an injury or illness. That's a job where nothing useful happens until the person across from you relaxes enough to be honest. Turns out it's the same job. The camera changed; the part where someone has to feel comfortable before you get anything real out of them didn't.

The rest of the day

Once we're through the talking, the pressure's off and we shoot everything else, what the industry calls B-roll and everyone else calls "the footage of stuff."

You working. Your hands doing the thing you're good at. The front door, the space, your team, the details you stopped noticing years ago because you see them every day. This is the part that makes a video feel like your business rather than a stock video with your logo on it.

It's also the part clients tend to enjoy, because there's nothing to say. You just do what you normally do while I move around you.

After

I take everything away and cut it.

First version comes back to you in a few days (depending on the scope of the project). You watch it, and you tell me what's wrong with it, genuinely, that's what the round of revisions is for, and "I hate how I said that bit" is completely valid feedback.

Then final files, in whatever formats you need: the full version, cutdowns for social, vertical for Reels and Shorts, whatever the project called for. Plus a note on where to actually use them, because a video sitting on a hard drive isn't doing anything for anybody.

One more thing

Somewhere in almost every shoot, someone loses it. Coughs halfway through a sentence, or the dog walks through the shot, or a word comes out so badly that neither of us can carry on for a minute.

I keep those. They come to you along with the finished video. Partly because they're funny. Mostly because I think they're the honest record of what the day was actually like which is to say, not nearly as bad as you were expecting.

Thinking about a video for your business? Feel free to reach out: paynermedia.com