One shoot, twenty pieces: how to plan your versions

The days when a brand shot one big film a year and ran the same 30 seconds for months are gone. Ad platforms do not like showing the same creative for long, and neither do followers. Yet a new shoot every month is not realistic for most budgets. The middle path is to plan one shoot for many pieces of content from the very start.

What is a version plan?

A table we put together before the shoot, listing everything the film will turn into. Each row holds the length, format, channel and the scenes it will be built from. Trying to pull content out of a film that was shot without one is like opening the fridge and deciding what to cook. Sometimes it works. Usually something is missing.

What a typical plan covers

• The main film: 30 or 60 seconds, horizontal
• Ad cutdowns: 15 and 6 seconds
• Vertical versions for Reels, Shorts and TikTok
• Short product shots for campaign visuals and animated banners
• Behind the scenes for social media and PR
• Alternative openings for ad testing

A plan like this can easily turn one shoot day into 15 to 20 pieces.

What changes on set

The version plan goes straight into the shot list. A product close-up the main film does not need, but the 6 second cut does, gets added. Some scenes are shot a second time for the vertical frame. One person films behind the scenes all day. This adds a few hours to the shoot. A second shoot day later costs far more.

How we handle the edit

We lock the main film first. Once colour and sound are settled there, the other versions follow quickly with the same settings, so everything looks like it belongs to the same brand. Alternative openings for ad tests are delivered with clear names. The campaign data tells you which one works better.

Who it suits

Brands that run ads regularly, need a steady flow of social content or communicate in more than one country. For the brands we work with from Istanbul and Munich, Turkish, English and German versions from the same shoot are part of the plan.

One last note

A version plan does not shrink the creative idea. It forces you to think early about how the idea will live on different screens. If you want to plan your next shoot this way, have a look at our video production and ads management pages, or write to us.