HOW WE WORK – CREATIVE AGENCY AND VIDEO PRODUCTION
Unleashed Productions is a commercial production company in San Francisco, with an additional film production office in Sacramento. Although our media production office is in the Bay Area, we are sent to work on projects all over the world, creating commercials, documentaries, and educational media that entertain, attract, inform, enlighten and power forward positive change.
An ethical creative agency and video production house for conscious companies, non-profits, brands and broadcast outlets, powering forward messages for do-good companies. Our office and video production methods are environmentally sustainable and cruelty-free. We love and welcome all animals, and if the humans are house trained we welcome them too. Animals, creative freedom, and popcorn are great things to have in abundance.
Our videos have won awards, changed policies, raised funds, launched products and started movements. We keep things simple and friendly, never lacking on ideas or enthusiasm for cool stuff. Unleashed Productions is headquartered in San Francisco, but you just might find us working with all sorts of creatures in strange places, especially if they are nice.
How we work
First, you send us an email and tell us a little about what you’re working on. What it is, how it’s a good thing and how you see us helping. We actually will get back to you a lot quicker than you’d expect. Next, if we like the project, members of our team will set aside some time to talk and hopefully get a better sense of your product, project or service. We will want to know why you’re excited about it, why you think other people will be and how it create goodness in the world. In other words, it has to disruptively create a positive impact on our health, environment, and well-being.
So we’ve had a great heart to heart talk, we like each other and totally dig the idea of working together. What happens next is we’ll spend some time researching, looking at your target markets and competitor markets, and fully understanding your users. Once we have a pretty solid idea of who the video will be for, we begin developing and writing up what’s called a treatment. This is a fancy word for a short piece of text, usually less than a page, where we describe to you how we see the video. It will include the concept of the video, why we feel it’s the best idea, and what resources we will need to achieve it. If you don’t like it at all, that’s cool too because it is all part of the process, we just take your notes and create a new treatment, until we are all happy and feel the treatment or draft script will definitely obtain the objective for the video.
Now that we are all giggling with excitement to execute this wicked video, we will sign a ‘creative engagement’ also called ‘project agreement’ which will detail the exact budget, timeline, and deliverables in regards to the project. Then the next step is pre-production. Pre-Production means all the steps necessary to get everything aligned for the execution of the project. Pre-production takes loads of love, time and sometimes money to do this right. Then we have the day of magic where we film the project. This day is as much intense as it is fun and creative.
At the end of filming, we take the raw footage to post-production, which means it goes to an editor, a color designer, a graphic artist, sound technician, and music producer for all to put their artistic stamp on it. Then we send you a private link to watch the compiled edited video and fall in love with it. Once you are happy and want to share it, only then we ask for payment. Then you get your video ( and raw files if you choose) to share with the world.
Keeping it simple, Good Faith and Guarantee
As a creative agency and video production company in Los Angeles, Sacramento and the Bay Area, we love what we do, putting our best in every step. We work on good faith, with a trust system, because it is nicer to work with people you trust, and if we don’t trust you we probably won’t take your project. What does this trust thing mean? It means only once you love your final edited video do we ask for full payment. Pretty simple. If you don’t like it, you don’t pay for it- and that is fair. Some large projects that have many moving parts and a lot of heavy lifting, may need a small portion of the total budget to get the pre-production done properly. Smaller projects, we work on your project all the way to the point of having an edit for you to review without requesting any monies. We want to make sure you love what we make for you.
How long does a video take? We get asked this a lot. On average, a video will take approximately 6-12 weeks from inception of the idea to final delivery depending on the scope of the project. Obviously, this number varies. If you’re in a super rush, your product is incredible and you’re launching it in 3 weeks and you have a lot of money, then anything is possible, right? In true honesty rushing a video isn’t a good idea, no matter the money. If you are launching, do it right.
Documentary-style videos are a different story, they can be shot quickly as documentaries don’t have a script, storyboard, set and other parameters to prepare. They can be edited pretty swiftly unless we are talking about a long form documentary with tons of footage, then this can be time-consuming. Each project is different and your best bet to get an accurate quote is to email and tell us in detail about your project. We are always super happy to answer any and all questions.
Speaking of quotes, how much does a video cost? A tribillion dollars.
Not really, because tribillion isn’t even a word, but without knowing a whole lot more about your project that’s the best answer we could come up with. The price of a video depends on a number of things, like the nature of the creative concept, the resources available to you and the timeframe in which it needs to be delivered. It may come as a shock but it costs some money to make these things properly. You need a talented crew that knows what they are doing, locations, wardrobe and art design are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to good video production. The amount of people that work on each project can go from five to a crew of fifty people, all brilliant talented superheroes that do it with love. We operate like a lean startup, and that spirit pervades our work.
What do you get for your dollars? Great question. We act as a creative agency and video production facility in one, meaning we produce the videos we conceptualize. This streamlines the process and lowers the cost. When we create /produce a video, all the assets we create belong to you and are yours to use as you see fit. It is a good practice to let us know in advance, where your video is intended to be seen, because the people who make and appear in TV commercials, work for different rates than people who make videos for the web.
So who does the creative and what is their story?
Shira Lane started Unleashed Productions by making documentaries on tough issues, like Got the facts on Milk? – The Milk Documentary. After that film came out she was asked by numerous do-good organizations to create content for them. From that point on, Unleashed Productions became the most eco-creative commercial production company in Los Angeles. We have been working with some very cool companies and organizations. By operating as a creative studio and production house we are able to work with incredible companies doing incredible things while keeping budgets reasonable.
The last thing you should know is that you can be as large or as small a part of the process as you like. Some clients enjoy brainstorming creative ideas and others want no part of that. Some clients nitpick every piece of text, and others would rather leave it to us. We’re here to work with you and make a positive impact in this world.
With kindness 🙂
Your commercial production company in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the Bay Area