How a corporate video gets made: concept to delivery.
If you have never commissioned a video, the process can feel like a black box you hand money into. It is not. Here are the six stages, what happens at each, and what we will need from you.
Every good video, from a one-day shoot to a full brand film, moves through the same six stages. The size of each stage changes with the project. The order does not.
Discovery & strategy
Before anything creative, we pin down the result: what this video has to achieve, who it is for, and where it will live. This is the stage that decides whether everything after it works. Skipped or rushed, you get a nice video that moves nothing.
You provide: the goal, the audience, any brand guidelines.Concept & script
We turn the strategy into an idea and a script or outline. You see the angle, the structure, and roughly what it will feel like, and you approve it before a camera is rented. Changing a sentence here is free. Changing it on set is not.
You provide: feedback and sign-off on the concept and script.Pre-production
The unglamorous stage that makes the shoot work. Locations, scheduling, casting or speakers, shot lists, gear, permits, and a run of show. By the time we shoot, almost nothing is left to chance.
You provide: access, availability, any internal approvals.Production (the shoot)
The day everyone pictures, and usually the shortest stage. Often a single day. A director and crew capture everything the plan called for, plus the unscripted moments that make it feel real. Your job here is mostly to show up and trust the plan.
You provide: the location, the people on camera, a point of contact on the day.Post-production
Where the footage becomes the film. Editing, color grade, sound design, music, and any motion graphics. You review a first cut, give one consolidated round of notes, and we refine to final. This is where most of the calendar time actually goes.
You provide: consolidated feedback on the first cut.Delivery & versions
The final film, plus the cutdowns and formats you need: a sixteen-by-nine for the site, vertical for social, a short teaser, captions. One shoot, sized for every place it has to live.
You provide: the list of where it needs to run.The shoot is one day. The result is decided in the stages around it.
How long it takes
A focused corporate video is usually two to four weeks from kickoff to delivery. A larger brand film with heavier pre-production and post can run six to eight weeks or more. Notice that the shoot is almost never the bottleneck. The time lives in the planning before and the craft after.
Why one studio matters
When strategy, direction, and production live under one roof, those six stages connect cleanly. The person who defined the result is the same person directing the shoot and steering the edit, so nothing gets lost in a handoff between three vendors. That is the whole reason we built Mshati the way we did. If you are at the very start, it helps to know what a corporate video even is and how to brief one first.
Ready to start one?
Tell us the result you're after. We'll walk you through exactly what your project's six stages look like, and what it costs.