5 Questions All Content Creators Should Ask Themselves Before Starting a Video Project
Rab Bradlea March 29, 2024
0 Comments
Online media is a creative discipline in its infancy. It's easy to forget that even YouTube, one of the earliest video-sharing websites, isn't old enough to buy beer yet. TikTok, the most recent social media juggernaut, only emerged in 2016. We're collectively in the process of figuring out how to communicate using these new methods of expression, all while new outlets for digital creativity are constantly being developed.
It's an exciting time to be producing video, but it's also creative chaos. Having created content (as gratingly vague as that phrase is) for over a decade, I've found certain guiding principles are applicable no matter where the end result will be shared. To that end, here are the five questions I believe all content creators should ask themselves before starting a video project:
1 Does my video have a clearly defined goal or purpose? While this may seem like a no-brainer, content creators caught up in a whirlwind of deadlines and juggling projects often overlook the critical task of establishing clearly defined goals or purposes for their videos. It's surprisingly easy to do. To avoid this, start each project by asking yourself what story you're trying to tell. What is the point? How do you want your audience to feel or what do you want them to take away in the end?
Why is this so important? Because if you don't know why you're making your video, neither will your audience. And you'll self-sabotage your own project with poor production choices. For example, I once edited a video series created using a group of interviews shot over the course of a day. Although each video was intended to have a specific topic, the project's director never asked interview questions that were relevant to those topics. So I didn't have the footage I needed to make the videos as designed, and the end result made far less sense than it should have.
Once you spell out the video's purpose and get your team in sync, let this factor into your production process and creative choices. Everything you do should be in service of meeting your project's goal for existing.
2 Do I truly understand my video's target audience? Understanding your viewership allows you to make choices that better communicate with your audience. And how you tell your story will vary quite a bit depending on who you want to appeal to. You won't get far with a text-heavy, black-and-white concept if your target audience is a group of 3-year-olds.
This understanding will factor into how you approach creating video both stylistically and practically. If you're trying to reach a particular genre's fans, for example, you'll be able to make creative choices that help your project fit better within that genre or avoid stereotypes that will greatly reduce your project's credibility.
3 Can I make the best use of my resources? As most content creators will attest, it's pretty rare that you'll get every possible production resource you could want on a given video project. So how can you make the best use of what you DO have? By asking that question, you'll be able to take stock of the resources at your disposal, and ultimately creating a video that makes best use of them. You may not have as much money, software, expertise or media as you'd prefer, but a little creative problem-solving can overcome almost any production shortcoming. Or even create something better than expected out of necessity.
Another example from personal experience: In 2021, I was tasked to cut a documentary short called Little Measures that was a mix of animation and live action. Nearing the end of production, we realized that we had no footage for the story's climax. Because the narrative had shifted, we needed additional animation we couldn't afford.
As a fix, I repurposed the animation assets we already had to create a visual collage for the documentary's final moments, combining speed ramps, image resizing, visual overlapping and other editing techniques to conjure up an ending out of nothing. And because I found a non-repetitive way to use recognizable animations from earlier in the film, our finale was a stylistic crescendo that summarized the film both visually and thematically. Even though our ending was built out of necessity, the result still had meaning and purpose that concluded the film in a way we ended up loving.
I often refer to the work of Jon Bois as another example of maximizing available resources. Rather than using expensive editing tools or sets, Bois generally relies on a simple yet meticulous retro style reminiscent'80s and 90s animation. This lo-fi aesthetic is combined with well-recorded voiceover packed with research, and the resulting docuseries he creates rival anything produced by a major streaming service - all, of course, at a fraction of the cost.
4 Do I have what it takes to make my project stand out? Content creation is an art with almost no hard and fast rules about how it takes shape. The best ideas out there can start with a strange or even amateur vibe until something clicks, and it's suddenly a stylistic standard We see it in every creative discipline, whether it's social media Rickrolling or a trailer editor's use of the Inception brass BRAAAM sound effect.
Before embarking on a new video project, it's important to consider what you can do to make it stand out. Try to push the envelope, and put your specific stamp on your media (and thus the medium itself). What sets you apart from the literally millions of other videos out there?
Taking creative risks is admittedly not always easy, given that so much has already been done. And not to men
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
5 Questions All Content Creators Should Ask Themselves Before Starting a Video Project 
