How a video production works: from first idea to final approval

The six phases at a glance

Whether it's a brand film, a product video, an event film or an interview film: the process behind a video production is nearly identical across formats, only the effort per phase changes. If you're not sure which format fits, the article Brand film, product video or event film: which one fits your business? helps you place it, and our guide cluster on video marketing gives an overview of every format. The table below shows what happens in each phase, what's needed from you, and who makes the call, so you can place where a project of yours currently stands.

What stands out: you decide at three of the six phases, we prepare the other three. Because the same two people shoot, edit and post, there's no handover to a separate agency between these phases: Öykü and Nils carry the film through from first call to delivery themselves, keeping your channels in mind well beyond the finished file.

Where you set the direction across the six phases

In the first call you set what the film is meant to support in the first place: a new website, a recruiting campaign, a product launch. That decision shapes every phase that follows, from the scope of the concept to whether one shoot day is enough or several are needed. That's why the first call sits before any quote, not after it.

At the concept and script stage, and again after editing, you decide by sign-off whether a version moves on or needs another round. Both moments are deliberately built as approvals, not mere updates: without your okay, the production doesn't move into the next phase. That costs a bit of time at those two points, but saves considerably more elsewhere, because nobody ends up arguing past a finished cut you never actually approved.

What a shoot day really is

A shoot day with us usually runs eight to ten hours: set-up, shooting, wrap. The whole crew is tied up for that time, plus camera, lighting and sound as equipment, extended by a drone or extra lighting where the concept needs it. That's exactly why the shoot day is the unit our pricing runs on, not the minute in the finished film: it ties up the most time, the most crew and the most equipment. How our pricing model works in detail, and what corporate videos cost on the market, is covered in the article What does a corporate video cost?.

The person on set is the same one you spoke to during the first call: Öykü or Nils, not a rotating account manager who just passes the job along. Anyone who has shot in a workshop in Weißensee or a storefront on Torstraße knows how much time it saves when nobody on set needs the concept explained to them from scratch.

How many shoot days a project needs depends on the format: a brand film with several interviews and locations often runs over more than one day, a single product video shoot in a showroom can often be wrapped in one day, and an event film is tied to the date of the event itself and doesn't spread across several days. The first call already sorts out this scope, so you know what to expect before the quote arrives.

Why we don't price by the minute

Some providers bill post-production per finished minute: Light Hunters names €800 to €2,500 per finished minute of editing on its own pricing page (light-hunters.com, as of August 2026). The problem with that math: it mixes up length with effort. A quiet minute in an office is a different job from a busy minute across several locations with actors, yet that logic charges the same for both.

With us, length follows content, not the other way around: a film runs as long as the message needs, and the price follows the actual shoot and editing effort. A 30-second clip pulled from a demanding shoot day across several locations can end up meaning more work than a calm three-minute film shot in one office. We only outline the model itself here, the exact scope gets set out in a written quote after the free first call.

Editing: two revision rounds are part of the calculation

After the shoot, editing follows in several steps: rough cut, fine cut, colour grading and sound design. Two revision rounds are a fixed part of our calculation and are stated in the quote, not as a courtesy, but planned in from the start. If you need a third round, we bill it by effort, named in the quote beforehand, never as a surprise on the invoice.

With package models, as several agencies use them in content support, the number of revision rounds is tied to the booked package tier: werkvonmorgen names 1, 2 or 4 revisions across its packages, depending on which one you book (werkvonmorgen.de, as of August 2026). Land in the smallest package and you get a single revision round even for a demanding film, no matter how much feedback comes back. With us, the number of rounds isn't tied to a tier: two rounds apply the same way to every project, regardless of how big the shoot was.

How a revision round works

After each cut, you send us your feedback in one batch, ideally in a short call rather than spread across messages over several days. That keeps every round a defined step, not an open-ended loop. How fast the next version comes back depends on the scope of the feedback, not on a fixed number of days.

It matters to separate a revision round from a content change: colour, music, pacing or swapping a take fall under the two planned rounds. A fundamentally new concept that only comes up after the shoot is a separate task, one we discuss and scope on its own instead of quietly folding it into a revision round. That keeps it clear on both sides what the two rounds are for, and what they aren't.

Delivery: every export, no time limit on usage rights

After final sign-off, we deliver in the agreed formats, usually a main film plus short cutdowns for social media. You get every export, not a thinned-out selection of what came out of the edit.

Which formats exactly are part of the delivery is best clarified in the first call itself: landscape for the website, vertical for stories and reels, with or without subtitles. If you plan to keep posting the clips from the shoot on an ongoing basis, they can move straight into ongoing support at a fixed monthly rate, instead of commissioning every new clip on its own.

With any film production, check how usage rights are set out: under its own terms, Spreadfilms grants usage rights only within an agreed time frame and territory (spreadfilms.com, as of August 2026), and in.frame Filmproduktion states in its own terms that raw footage remains the production's property and can only be acquired for an extra fee (in-frame.net, as of August 2026). That's how most productions handle it, us included: the raw footage stays our property, and if you need it, we put together a separate quote. Usage rights to the finished films, though, sit with you with no time or territory limit once the film is approved, and you get the finished films in every format you agreed on.

You can get a sense of our visual style across formats in the references.

What slows the process down

The biggest time sink is rarely the shoot itself, it's what happens before and after. A vague brief from the first call has the longest reach: if the goal or audience only gets sharpened once the concept is already underway, every phase after that shifts with it. Three further causes come up again and again:

• Late approvals: every deadline slips when concept, script or a revision round only gets a reply after days.
• Missing shoot permits: a public square or a building you don't own often needs a permit, and finding out too late can push back a whole shoot day.
• Weather on outdoor shoots: a rainy day in Tiergarten rarely turns into the planned shoot day, so a backup date needs to be in the schedule.

Within Berlin, none of this adds travel or overnight costs, and shoot dates are built around your operations, not the other way round: a workshop opens at six, a restaurant has a quiet stretch at midday, a practice keeps fixed office hours, and the shooting schedule is built around those windows, not against them. The most reliable way to speed things up is a clear point of contact on your side who approves things quickly, that goes for concept, script and every revision round alike.

Where to go from here

Why the effort of a video production pays off for your website and social channels in the first place is covered in the article Why video matters. And if you'd rather walk through the six phases in a first call than just read about them, you'll get an initial read on your own project in 45 minutes, free and with no obligation.