As remote work has become our new reality, creative processes such as video campaign production, that once involved several people on set, turned remote almost overnight.
A challenge for creative teams everywhere – and for us too at monday.com. Our video production team was tasked with producing a video campaign right at the start of this crisis.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Ari Kuchar, video creator here at monday.com, to hear about how he and his team created the latest company YouTube ad completely while WFH.
Ari, how did the team first feel about this creative process change-up?
As the world went into lockdown and teams found themselves scattered and working from home, we were initially in two minds about the whole thing. At first, we wondered how this was ever going to work, as we were so used to in-person collaboration on these types of projects. Soon we then realized that this type of challenge may be just the thing that pushes this type of creative forward.
We knew we would be limited to shooting at home and most likely without any actors – so It helped that Noam Locker, incredibly talented designer and stop-motion artist, and Ran Daskal an amazing motion designer could both handle the challenge and improvise without having a traditional set and actors.
Producing this ad remotely, I’m sure you looked to external resources. How did this change your process working remotely, and what tools did you use?
We were (obviously) already using monday.com, so planning the production was relatively straightforward. In-person meetings were replaced with Zoom, spontaneous thoughts or ideas happened via WhatsApp, and we also used Figma for storyboarding the production.
The bulk of the workflow however happened using monday. This was important for us because it gave our team a central place to continuously see the actual progression of the work itself. There are so many elements involved in video production that if we can all have access to every little part, it makes the whole process way more cohesive.
Time is usually of the essence in these projects, did the process take more time or less time than typical?
It took around two weeks to produce this Youtube ad – this was actually way faster than our typical process time! I believe our constant communication mixed with the fact that we were relying heavily on ourselves and each other, were the cause of this.
Usually some pretty crazy projects happen when people get together and bounce ideas off each other. Did you feel your creativity was limited by working remotely?
I believe the opposite happened. I think we were actually more creative during this time because we were feeding off this strange energy of uncertainty felt by everyone around the world. The implications of this new WFH normal were huge for us – It introduced a new set of needs that our platform was perfectly suited to handle. This was an important opportunity not only for us but also the company as a whole.
Sometimes we do need some extra help – did you and your team use any specific monday tools/templates/integrations during the process?
We integrated Google Docs into monday.com to share ideas, collaborate, and receive quick feedback on the script. We set up an automation on our monday.com board to notify us when key stages of the production process had been completed. This let the relevant people instantly know when the creative assets they needed to work on were ready for them.
Looking back, were you satisfied with the overall process and outcome?
Yes, mainly because the designers hit this project out of the park! The ad had such high production value that it’s hard to believe it was made from within our respective homes. The ad is also performing quite well which means that the messaging also hits home… Literally!
Heading back into the office may not be a far-off fantasy. Was creating the process remotely something you would only ever do again if WFH continues?
As I said, we were already using monday.com and this experience has only further validated the need to have a central workspace for managing our projects. The second you start incorporating a bunch of different tools, things get lost, and then you start wasting time trying to find the missing pieces of information.
What advice would you give to other creative teams working on ads or other video production assets remotely?
Although the initial shock of quarantine has now worn off, people should still look at the challenge of video production from home as an opportunity and not as an obstacle. You can rewrite the rules because these are not normal times, take advantage of WFH language, and the blurring of our work and home lives. A lot has changed in our lives and this “new normal” offers a new creative vessel with endless ideas to explore.
In terms of the actual process – It’s imperative to keep everything in one place so you have one destination when working with multiple people. It’s the most logical way of working and because video production usually follows a pretty standard process you can manage and track that easily using monday.com.
To plan your own videos, check out our Production Calendar.
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