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Creating a Project Rationale
One of the very first elements created for a video is the project rationale.
The rationale serves as the official “roadmap” for the project. The rationale summarizes the agreed upon goals and objectives for the project, defines audience(s), identifies message(s), outlines overall campaign strategies and potential collateral media, and suggests possible creative themes and approaches for the finished piece(s).
Since the rationale is your roadmap, it serves as an important reminder about the “problem” that the video will solve, as well as how the video will, specifically, address and solve that problem. It is especially useful to review the rationale document from time to time during the production process (ie. scripting, shooting, editing, etc). This prevents the project from becoming derailed by the lure of superfluous special effects, music, and scripting. In short, the rationale keeps you on track, on time, on budget, and on message. This is imperative.
The Client Pre-Production Checklist is a list of foundational questions that the narrative of the rationale should answer. The answers to these questions define your “problem” and outline its solution. In essence, the answers explain your reason(s) for making a video in the first place and describe what you envision the finished product to look, sound, and feel like.