Pre-production is important because it is the only phase where mistakes are cheap: a script change costs nothing on paper, thousands on a shoot day, and may be unfixable in the edit. The planning phase, brief, script, storyboard, casting, locations, scheduling, determines most of the final quality before a single frame is filmed.
Every production decision gets exponentially more expensive to reverse as the project advances. A message change costs a conversation in week one, a rewrite in week two, a reshoot with crew, talent and locations rebooked in week four, and after delivery it costs the whole video. This is why professional producers insist on written approvals of script and storyboard before shooting: not bureaucracy, but the cheapest insurance in the industry. Projects between CHF 4,000 and CHF 80,000 obey the same law; only the size of the loss scales.
Expect your production partner to spend one to three weeks planning and to ask demanding questions about audience, message and success metrics before talking about cameras. Your side of the bargain: one named decision-maker, honest disclosure of internal approval steps, and feedback on documents rather than on finished films. Teams that work this way are why a first cut can arrive roughly two weeks after the shoot, on budget, with no unpleasant surprises in the review link.
Warning signs to act on before they cost money: no written brief after the kickoff call, a shoot date proposed before a script exists, nobody has asked who signs off internally, and no storyboard or shot list a week before filming. Any of these means risk is being quietly transferred to you. The fix is undramatic, pause, get the documents, get the signatures, because a one-week delay in planning is always cheaper than one reshoot day.
Viven — Showreel
Tell us what you’re working on — you’ll get a clear quote, usually within one business day.