When people think of commercial or video production, their first thought is usually live action. This means you’re partnering with us to set up cameras and capture a story that relates to your product, service, or story. This is generally the most expensive solution for brand storytelling because it involves the most people, equipment, and time. However, when you think back on your favorite brand stories, they’re often live action productions.
Working with Mile 80 on a live action commercial production has multiple steps:
1. Introductory scope call
During this call we’ll meet each other, learn about the project, and aim to scope out budget and timeline. While we do still bid for projects, we find it’s best to offer solutions based on the budget available. If you’re unsure, we can offer ranges based on our perception of the scope, and then write up a bid. However, the benefit of offering the budget available is that we can back into the best way to service your storytelling needs. Remember, live action is the most expensive solution. Having a conversation about total budget can help us understand if it fits your needs.
2. Bidding
If you are looking for a bid - we offer those within 24 hours. If the bid is agreed upon we can send an SOW and sign any documentation you need to kick off the project.
3. Concept and script
Once the contract’s signed and everyone is on the same page about schedule and cost, we move into concept and script. It should be noted that this is the most common step in the process to be removed. That is because many clients come with concepts or even scripts already developed. The amount of concept and story work that our team needs to do has a direct impact on cost and scheduling. So make sure it is clearly stated during the introductory call whether your team has the concepting/scripting phase handled, or if you’d like to hand it off to Mile 80.
Assuming we are crafting the concept and script, this is generally a two week process. We usually offer 3 concepts and then 2 rounds of notes on a script once the concept is chosen.
4. Storyboard
After the script is cleared, we move into a storyboard phase. This will include sketched images of all of our scenes. For live action - there is usually one round of notes on the storyboard to ensure that we grab all the shots you’d like to see in your story.
5. Pre-production
Pre-production starts parallel to storyboarding. However, once we have the storyboard, we can complete the process. It involves booking talent, crew, and finding the best locations. Each client is different during this phase - whether you prefer to be hands-on or opt to trust us and walk away is completely up to you.
6. The Shoot
We don’t require clients to attend shoots. Since it sometimes proves too costly for clients to be on set, we usually provide a zoom link to the camera feed so they can see the shoot in action. However, if you prefer to be on set, we always welcome that. While this creates an additional fee on top of the production costs, we are happy to include this in overall budgeting. Most 30, 60, or 90 second videos constitute 1-2 days of production.
7. Post-production
Post-production changes on every project. The big question marks are - how many deliverables? How much VFX are being integrated? The part that doesn’t change is that we work with 2 rounds of notes for each project, and a 3rd final delivery round. We’ll all be working on an agreed-upon schedule by the time we get to this phase. This is the fun part - we start to see all the work come together!
The most common question we get is “how does this work?”. So the above list is a great starting point. However, please don’t take it as mandatory. We often switch it around, spin it upside down, and change it up to fit the unique needs associated with each collaboration.
Now for some fun - check out the reel below for some selects of various live action shoots we’ve done in the past.
