Ancillary production services
Captioning, grading, sound, media management, streaming and localisation are separate crafts with separate suppliers, quoted as their own lines.
02 Specs
Video Production Formats: Definitions, Crews and Deliverables
Format decides crew size, day count and the post-production chain. These entries define each one as the industry uses the term.
Every Format, With Its Crew and Day Count
Animated explainer
An explainer is a writing problem solved with pictures: the stages in order, where revisions stop being cheap, and what a brief has to lock.
Animated music video
In an animated music video the audio is finished before the visuals begin, so a locked track sets the schedule and the technique.
Automotive video
Automotive filming has two hard problems — photographing a moving vehicle safely and legally, and controlling what a car's paint and glass reflect.
Construction video
On an active build the crew are visitors under the site's safety regime, and inductions, PPE, escorts and access windows decide the schedule.
Corporate video
What corporate video production means in practice: the crew a shoot needs, how many days it runs, the approval chain and the deliverables.
Crew and roles
A role-by-role anatomy of a crew — what each department is responsible for, which roles get cut first, and what understaffing actually costs on the day.
Documentary
A documentary schedule is governed by access to people and places, informed consent, and the rights on everything that was not shot.
E-commerce video
E-commerce video is throughput work: a fixed setup, a batching plan, a naming convention that matches the catalogue, and a reusable template.
Editing (post-only)
A post-only engagement lives or dies on the handover: media, audio, structure and a delivery specification, and why organising footage sets cost.
Educational video
Teaching video is judged on whether it is still usable in three years, which makes consent, accessibility and re-versioning the constraints.
Event video
An event is a single take that cannot be repeated, and what makes it usable is the sound path and the redundancy behind it.
Fitness video
A workout video is performed along with, not watched. Real-time continuity, cueing and a session's actual duration constrain the shoot.
Food and recipe video
Recipe video is a continuity problem: the dish changes while it is filmed, so the kitchen produces multiples at every stage.
Green screen video
A key is made or ruined at the shoot. Separation, spill, wardrobe and edge detail decide whether compositing is an afternoon or a week.
Location scouting and logistics
Scouting is a de-risking process that ends in a written record of access, power, sound, parking, permissions and contingency for one day.
Lyric video
A lyric video is a typesetting problem on a fixed timeline: how the words are timed and set, and where the format stops being cheap.
Music video
How music videos get made in Toronto: who commissions them, how a treatment becomes a shoot, what playback and lip sync require, and which lines set the cost.
Nonprofit and charity video
Charity film carries an ethical obligation the commercial formats do not: informed consent, and a budget that has to cover years of use.
Product video
Product filming is about repeatability: motion control, matching the stills shot the same day, and the accuracy a demonstration owes.
Promotional video
A promo exists in versions rather than as one film, and the placement plan determines the durations, ratios and where the post cost sits.
Remote and distributed production
Recording contributors at a distance means a local operator, a shipped kit or a browser recording, and sound is always the thing that breaks.
Single-operator videography
The single-operator booking is the most common video engagement and the most over-scoped: what one person covers, and when a crew is needed.
Social media video
Social video is a volume format shot vertically first: how a batch day is planned, and why the finished count is decided before the shoot.
Startup and product-launch video
Most startup products are software and cannot be filmed, so screen capture, staged demonstrations and metaphor carry the work instead.
Testimonial video
A testimonial is only as good as the contributor and the questions asked, which is why recruitment matters and a script produces the worst result.
Training video
Training content changes when the procedure does, so modular construction and platform delivery are what keep a library maintainable.
Video marketing planning
Most video is commissioned before anyone decides where it will run. A placement plan produces the asset list instead, and can be measured.
Website video
Video on a web page obeys the browser as well as the brief: muted autoplay, file weight against page performance, and hero loops.
Wedding editing (post-only)
Editing a wedding means assembling unrepeatable material from several cameras and audio sources, where synchronisation and sound are the hard part.
Whiteboard animation
Whiteboard animation trades visual range for the sense of an idea being built. What it suits, what it cannot show, and how the pipeline runs.
YouTube channel production
A channel is a publishing schedule, not a project. Batching, series architecture and retention structure decide whether it survives.
Questions About Choosing a Format
What is a deliverable, exactly?
One finished file that has been approved for use. A single film is one deliverable; the same film captioned, reframed vertically, cut to a shorter length and versioned into two more languages is six, and each of those is separate labour after the shoot has wrapped.
Why does format decide crew size rather than budget deciding it?
Because a format is a set of roles that have to be present for the material to exist at all. A testimonial needs a camera, sound and a director; a brand commercial needs departments. Cutting a role out of a format does not make it cheaper, it makes it a different format.
Does a longer runtime mean a longer shoot?
The two are only loosely related. A three-minute film built from twenty locations shoots for days, and a twenty-minute recorded presentation can shoot in an afternoon. Setup count and location count drive the schedule; runtime mostly drives the edit.
Which formats are usually confused with each other in a brief?
Promotional and corporate work, because both describe an organisation, and explainer and training work, because both explain something. They differ in who the audience is and in how long the film has to stay accurate, which is what decides whether it is worth building to be updated later.
Where in the process is the version count decided?
Ideally in the brief, and in practice often after the edit is approved, which is the expensive moment to decide it. Reframing, captioning and language versions each change how the material has to be shot and cut, so a brief that fixes a runtime and leaves the version count open has left the largest post-production variable undecided.