What a Production Company Needs From You to Do Their Best Work
Hiring a great production team is only half the equation. The other half, often overlooked, is what you give them to work with. Even the most skilled crew produces weaker results with a vague brief and no context than a less experienced team working from a clear one. Here's what actually helps a production company do their best work for you.
A Real Run-of-Show, Not Just a Start Time
"The event starts at 6pm" tells a production team almost nothing useful. A real run-of-show, even a rough one, tells them when the moments that matter are actually happening: when the keynote starts, when there's a break, when the CEO is speaking versus when it's open networking. Without this, a crew is reacting to your event instead of planning for it, and the moments that matter most are the ones most likely to get missed.
What to actually share: timing for each segment, who's speaking when, any surprise moments you can flag in advance (even confidentially), and where simultaneous activity is happening that needs separate coverage.
Clear Priorities, Not Just a Wishlist
Most events have more happening than any crew can fully capture, a stage program, a networking area, sponsor activations, VIP moments. If everything is labeled equally important, a production team has no way to make good decisions when they can only be in one place at a time.
What to actually share: rank your top 3-5 priorities. If the CEO's remarks matter more than general crowd shots, say so directly. If a specific sponsor relationship is high-stakes, flag it. Clear priorities let a crew make smart tradeoffs in real time instead of guessing.
Context About Who's in the Room
A crew that knows who's who, key executives, VIP guests, important clients, board members, can recognize and prioritize capturing them without needing to be told in the moment, which is often too late anyway. This is especially valuable at larger events where a production team can't reasonably know every attendee on sight.
What to actually share: a short list of names and, ideally, photos of a handful of people who matter most to capture, along with any context on why (a major donor, a keynote speaker, someone being honored).
A Single Point of Contact on Event Day
When something changes, a schedule shift, a room change, a speaker running late, a production team needs one clear person to communicate with, not multiple people giving conflicting instructions. Without this, small changes turn into missed shots or confused crews trying to figure out who's actually in charge of updates.
What to actually share: designate one person before the event, make sure your production team has their direct contact information, and make sure that person knows they're the point of contact.
Honest Feedback, Especially Early
If a production team's early photos or footage aren't hitting what you want, the wrong tone, missing a specific type of shot, an angle that isn't working, saying so early in an event or project gives them a real chance to adjust. Waiting until final delivery to share that feedback means the moment has already passed and can't be recaptured.
What to actually share: if you're on-site and something isn't matching your expectations, say so directly and specifically in the moment, not just in a review email weeks later.
Realistic Expectations About Timeline
Editing takes real time, often 1-3 hours of work per finished minute of video. A production team does their best work when they're not being rushed into cutting corners to hit an unrealistic deadline that wasn't communicated clearly from the start.
What to actually share: your real deadline, as early as possible. If there's flexibility, say so. If there isn't, say that too, a team that knows the actual constraint can plan around it properly, rather than discovering it's a rush job midway through editing.
Access to Brand Guidelines and Past Work
If your company has specific brand guidelines, colors, fonts, tone, things to avoid, sharing these upfront saves real time in revisions and helps a production team's creative choices align with your brand from the first draft, not the third one.
What to actually share: brand guidelines if you have them, and examples of past content you've liked (or didn't), reference material removes a lot of ambiguity that words alone often can't.
Trust, Once the Groundwork Is Laid
None of the above is about micromanaging a production team, it's about giving them what they need to make good decisions without you. Once a crew has a clear run-of-show, priorities, context, and a point of contact, the best thing you can do is trust their judgment in the moment. The most experienced production teams are making dozens of small creative and logistical decisions throughout an event that no brief can fully anticipate, that's exactly the expertise you're paying for.
The Bottom Line
The quality of what a production company delivers is rarely just a function of their skill, it's a function of what they were given to work with. A clear run-of-show, honest priorities, a single point of contact, and realistic expectations cost you very little time to prepare, and they make an enormous difference in what a talented crew is actually able to capture.
Working with a production team on your next event?
Parish Mandhan Productions builds a detailed planning process into every project specifically to get the context we need to do our best work for you. Get in touch to start planning your event.
