How to choose a video production company

What a showreel tells you

A showreel tells you a company can execute at a given level of craft. It does not tell you whether they made those decisions or an agency did, what the budget was, how the shoot ran, or whether anything was delivered on time.

Ask about one specific piece in the reel. Who directed it, what the constraints were, and what changed between the boards and the final cut. The answer is more informative than the reel itself.

Ten questions worth asking

1. What is the first thing you would change about this brief?
2. How many shoot days would you scope, and why that number?
3. Who is on set, and who is our day-to-day contact?
4. Do you direct in-house or bring in a director?
5. What post-production happens in-house?
6. What deliverables would you recommend beyond the ones we listed?
7. How do you handle talent usage and renewals?
8. What does your revision process look like?
9. What would make this project go wrong?
10. Can we speak to a client from a comparable job?

Question nine is the most useful one on the list. A company that answers it honestly has run enough productions to know the answer.

Reading the response

• They ask about distribution first. Where the film runs changes almost every production decision. A company that asks about placement before budget is thinking about the work rather than the invoice.
• They push back on something. A brief that arrives perfect has usually not been read closely.
• They scope rather than quote. A number without a scope attached is a guess.
• They tell you what they would not do. Useful, and rarer than it should be.

Red flags

• A quote arriving within hours of a complex brief
• No questions asked before pricing
• Deliverables described in general terms
• Reluctance to name who will actually be on set
• A price well below every other quote, with no scope that explains it

That last one is usually a smaller job wearing the same title.