PROCESS MAPPING OF PROCEDURES

When we are producing our movies of we are been hired for a corporate video, TV commercial,
or projection mapping event one of the first things we will have explained to you is our
production process. The steps may vary slightly, depending on whether we use live action,
motion graphics, 3D animation or green screen, but in essence the production process is the same
whichever technique we end up using.
For corporate messages and company overview videos we recommend a target length of 90
seconds. The idea is to only say what is necessary and get to the point fast. Today’s world is fast
moving and mobile. Decisions are made rapidly, so the quicker you can successfully deliver
your message, the better.
An animated, comic online contents or TV commercial 30 second or successful 90 second
corporate video production actually takes a lot more work. It’s the result of several weeks work
for our team. Typically, each 30-90 second project takes us between 3 to 4 weeks to complete.
From the initial start up meeting with our creative team and the client, through to completion and
delivery of the final project. Below are the many stages we go through at McChatij Enterprises,
ensuring we always produce great video content for customers.

Discovery, Discussion & Ideas

Through a series of meetings either in person or by phone, we will listen and discuss your needs,
wants or a goal to establish what is it you are trying to say and to who. Through this discovery
stage we will do a lot of listening. It is only by listening to you that we are going to understand
exactly what you want to achieve. Once we have a good idea of what you are looking to do, we
will then start to create a concept that we believe will embody everything you need and want to
achieve your goal.

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Scripting & Visual Content Development
This is a very important part of the process. Your message is fleshed out during this stage and
crafted to work perfectly for you. You may be launching a product, promoting your services,
telling your story or simply connecting emotionally with your audience. Whatever it is designed
to do, it will be driving the video and live action we see on screen or projection. This is the
reason it needs to be approved and locked before moving on to later stages. A good script –
whether it’s a audio script or a visual one – is the backbone of every great production and we
work with some of the most experienced writers and creative directors available to ensure your
message is entertaining and engaging.
As we come closer to obtaining sign off on the scripting, we will start to fill in the visual
description to go with the script. The visual description is the Creative Directors visual
interpretation of the script, describing what is happening on screen at each point.

Music Selection & Voice Over

We want to ensure the project has a voice, not just any voice, but the right voice. We audition
many voice artists per project to make sure we have found the right voice for you.( In the case of
animation video) Sure we have our favourites and indeed we have a long list of talented voice
over artists that we keep busy on a regular basis, but we always source new possibilities too. We
narrow down the submissions and present you with our recommendations in a short list so you
can have the final say. All the ones we present to you, we believe will work well. At the same
time we will already be thinking of music to accompany the voice, something that resonates well
with your image as well as with the voice over.
In the case of Projection Mapping projects we often start with a click track or tempo that will
form the basis of a custom track that will be composed by our sound designers.

Storyboards, Style Frames & Animatics

Many projects require storyboarding, style frames and animatics, although some projects only
require style frames and animatics, it depends on the complexity of messaging and clients budget
or our budget – which we always have in mind.
Typically each frame of a storyboard relates to a line or two of the script. A storyboard is often
digitally created but may also be hand drawn.
A style frame is a series of near final quality images that visually represents a particular point in
the video, to illustrate style and mood as close to the final quality as possible. Approved style
frames are used when creating the final animation.
An animatic is an ‘advanced storyboard’ that is made up of the approved audio track along with
sketched or rough images, hardware renderings or even just animated text to explain what will
appear. The point of the animatic is to show flow and timing of each scene and does not
represent the look or quality of the final video. Your feedback is crucial during this stage
because the animatic clearly represents the final production scene by scene Getting this right
saves time and budget later on.

Filming & Photography

This stage is relevant for live action, location and green screen shoots. We obtain all principle
photography required to completed any video editing for the project. Everything we shoot is HD
1920x1080p and sometimes UltraHD (RED Scarlet 5120 x 2700p) for visual effects and green

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screen shoots. We use the very best equipment and talent to ensure your/our footage is of the
very best quality.

Editing, Motion Graphics & Animation

This is where all the magic happens. It is also the most time consuming part. By this point, our
whole team is clear on the concept and understands what is needed to get the project done.
Contrary to what some people believe, we do not have a button that just “makes stuff happen”.
Everything is custom built, it takes experience and talent , dynamics and visual effects to add a
whole new level of possibilities to your production. Our design team knows what’s hot and
what’s not and they’ll bring a level of creativity and solid brand awareness to your project that
you’ll be extremely proud of.
We spend countless hours bringing everything to life, using the very latest in editing video and
animation software. We may go through a couple of iterations at this point to tweak elements and
colour to make sure everything is as slick as possible.

Audio Mastering & Additional Sound Effects

At this point we go over the audio to ensure everything is mastered and equalized to sound
awesome. As editing progresses, we also start to add in additional sound effects to emphasize
various objects and actions in the video/animation, this increases the level of engagement with
the audience.
Great audio is VERY important and our are good for sound design, it can be the make or break
of a great production.

Final Colouring
The last thing we do is colour grading. This ensures every shot and scene is saturated to
perfection, every animated line, shape or object is matching throughout the video, every hue,
shadow and highlight is perfectly spectacular. Techniques such as “crushing the blacks” help
make the final look really qualitative.

Tweaks and Changes

Throughout our production process it’s important to note that our clients (in the case of external
project) see each stage, feedback and approve. We are very collaborative and always allow for a
couple of small tweaks and revisions. There are so many elements created during this whole
process, that no matter how much we plan something out, until you actually see the final version,
it’s inevitable you will want to tweak something.
Changing scripting or voice over at this point can be problematic as a whole scene may need to
change, which could end up requiring many more hours to fix.

Final Delivery
With everything approved, we then set up the final files for full resolution rendering.
This can take anywhere from an hour or two, to several days to complete and depends heavily on
the complexity of the scenes we have built. Fortunately we have a custom off site render farm for
final rendering so render time is optimized. Motion graphics and video productions usually only
take a few hours at the most to render and compress for delivery, whilst projection mapping
productions take much longer due to the sheer size and resolution of the imagery.

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