You Just Finished Shooting A Video. Now What?

The time between shooting a video and editing is an important opportunity to check in on how the overall process of creating your video is going. Think about this as a post recording checklist—assuring that you captured the footage you need and that you have a plan for how to edit it. During the shoot, you’re focused on getting the actual shots, and, while editing, you’re manipulating the footage. So you need a game plan. Here’s how:

Back Up Your Data

Archiving your data before editing ensures that you’ll always have a version of the original material, unchanged. So the first thing you need to do—the moment you’re done shooting video—is to back up your data in two places. For lower-end cameras that shoot at a low bitrate, such as smartphones and pocket cameras, you can easily add the data to any Cloud backup system. But for most cameras, you’ll need a little more space. So, you can copy the footage onto an external hard drive or computer. Save it anywhere you can. Just don’t lose it!

Thank Interviewees & Crew

This is one that can be easy to forget: let the people who worked with you on the video know how much you appreciate their help. Interviewees, camera operators, the guy making coffee—anyone involved should get a thank-you card or email. Because, as well as this being a considerate thing to do, it’s a great way to get them to help you with videos in the future.

Review Shots: Did You Get All You Need?

It’s necessary to take stock of the footage you have so you will know if you’ll need to grab anything else before editing. This is especially important if you’re still on-set and have the ability to shoot more footage if necessary.

Take Notes for Editors

You won’t always be the person editing the video, so you need to create notes for future editors at this point—things you want to include and shots you really liked. Also, ask the crew if they noticed good shots or pieces of the interview that they’d like to include.

Envision a Final Product

While shooting, you probably began to develop an idea of what you wanted the finished product to look like. You envisioned transitions, what order the shots should go in, and snippets of the interviews you definitely wanted to include. Now, you need to continue brainstorming and, more importantly, you need to jot everything down so you can use these ideas while editing.

Download our handy, totally free Post Recording Checklist

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