It’s December at Banter, and the tree has gone up. But i’m already fed up of it! You may call me a grumpy guts, or a miser, but the truth in filming is – if you’re seeing a professional video related to Christmas, unless it’s live it was all done months ago.

It’s a fact of filming life that everything has to start happening at least 3 months prior to airing date, and why should Christmas be any different?

Poor planning provides….

Let’s say you get an idea and give us a call. It’s December 1st.

“I want to film a christmas video for my company.”

“Sure” I say. “Who’s going to be in it?”

“The Managing Director, Accounts Manager and myself”.

“Ok great, when are they available?”

“Ah” you respond. “The MD is available next week on the 8th, the Accounts Manager on the 10th and I’m available anytime”.

So you get the footage filmed, and it’s all ready to go on the 11th. We get a first edit put together by the 13th, and get initial feedback from you on the 15th, and get a revised edit back by the 17th. We get another call from you.

“The second edit is great, but we need it to be approved by the MD before it can be released.”

“Ok” we reply – “when can he/she do that?”

“Oh he’s on holiday now until the 27th”.

So the entire point of the video has missed the Christmas window, and if it ever gets released it’ll get reactions like “This is strange, is this from last year? Bob doesn’t work here anymore.”

Alternate universe filming

Because of this necessary forward planning, we camera operators end up in an alternate universe, where we can film current events one day in July, and the next day wake up, load up the gear and end up on set with sleigh bells and fake reindeer (not real ones – never work with children or animals!). It can really throw off your sense of time, but before long we don’t get surprised by anything.

There’s something quite refreshing about filming a corporate video next to a Christmas video series, then a Halloween video and then going out at the end of the day to sunbathe. Maybe I don’t hate Christmas after all, I just wish the weather was warmer…