Embarking on the journey of creating a video is an exciting endeavor for any business. However, before diving into the production process, it’s crucial to embark on the path of discovery. This initial phase lays the foundation for a successful video project by understanding your objectives, audience, and message. In this blog post, we’ll explore the essential steps of the discovery process, including the Sherpa Process and Creative Treatment creation.

The Discovery Process

The Sherpa Process to Discovery: Just like climbing a mountain, creating a video requires a guided process to show you where you’re going. Our Sherpa Process involves identifying a dedicated team or individual within your organization who will lead the project from start to finish. This person will serve as the primary point of contact, ensuring clear communication and accountability throughout the video creation process.

• Tip: Choose someone with strong project management skills and a clear understanding of your brand and objectives.
  The Sherpa framework is designed to elevate your video project to new heights by helping you visualize a clear path eliminating any uncertainty, and making sure you have a clear goal for your video project. This involves analyzing your audience, story, competition, environment, narrative, message delivery, and direction. By conducting thorough research and analysis, you can uncover valuable insights that will inform your creative approach.
• Tip: Don’t rush through this step. Take the time to gather data and insights that will shape the direction of your video.

A Clear Purpose: One of the most important pieces of the Discovery phase is making sure you have, and understand, your clear purpose for your video. Here are a few questions to make sure your video gets started on the right foot.

• What is most inspiring about this/your story?
• What makes the story different?
• Who is the audience for this story?
• How do you want the audience to feel after viewing it?
• What do you want the audience to do after viewing?

Creative Treatment: With a solid understanding of your purpose, objectives, and audience, it’s time to develop a creative treatment. This document outlines the visual style, tone, and messaging of your video (not a script at this point), providing a roadmap for the creative team.

• Tip: Be open to experimentation and collaboration during this stage. Encourage your team to brainstorm and explore different ideas before finalizing the creative treatment.

Video Blueprint Creation: The Video Blueprint is the blueprint for your entire project. It includes key details such as the project timeline, budget, needed people and resources, loose production schedule, and distribution plan. This document serves as a roadmap, guiding you through each of the following stages of the video production process.

• Tip: Keep your Video Blueprint flexible. As the project progresses, you may need to make adjustments to accommodate changes in scope or timeline.

The Discovery phase is the crucial first step on your video production journey. By investing time and resources into understanding your purpose, objectives, audience, and message, you set the stage for a successful project. Check out the next step in the process where we explore the Pre-Production phase, where meticulous planning and preparation lay the groundwork for a seamless production process. Stay tuned for essential tips and insights to bring your video project to life!