R093 TA3: Work Planning and Workflow

1 Identify three things that should be included in a work plan. 3

One mark for each of the following, to a maximum of 3.

• Tasks
• Durations or deadlines
• Dependencies, milestones, resources or contingency

Model answer. The tasks to be completed, the duration of each, and the dependencies showing which tasks must finish before others can begin.

2 Explain why dependencies must be identified when planning a video production. 3

One mark for each of the following, to a maximum of 3.

• A dependency means one task cannot start until another finishes
• A relevant example from video production
• The consequence of getting it wrong

Model answer. A dependency is a task that cannot begin until another has finished, and in a video production the chain is strict: the script has to exist before the storyboard, the storyboard before the shoot, and the footage before any editing. Identifying these means the schedule puts them in a workable order and the resources are booked for the right days. If they are missed, an editor is booked for a week in which no footage exists, which wastes the booking and pushes the whole project past its deadline, because every later task sits behind the delay.

3 A student has four weeks to produce a two minute promotional video for a local business. Filming must take place on location at the business. Describe two risks to this project and give a suitable contingency for each. 4

One mark for each of the following, to a maximum of 4.

• A genuine risk is identified
• A specific, workable contingency for it
• A second, different risk
• A specific contingency for the second

Model answer. One risk is that the business turns out to be too busy or too noisy on the filming day, so usable audio cannot be recorded. The contingency is to agree a reserve date before the first one and to record a clean voiceover separately, so the project does not depend on usable location sound. A second risk is losing the footage to a corrupted memory card, which would be unrecoverable within four weeks. The contingency is to copy the card to two separate drives on the day of the shoot before the card is reused, so no single failure can destroy the only copy.

4 A small agency has six weeks to deliver a campaign consisting of a printed poster, a 30 second social media video and a landing page. Discuss how the agency should plan and sequence this work, and explain the consequences of planning it badly. 8

One mark for each of the following, to a maximum of 8.

• Tasks are broken down across the three deliverables
• Dependencies between tasks are identified
• Parallel work is identified where possible
• A shared asset or brand decision is recognised as coming first
• Milestones or client sign off points are placed
• The print deadline is treated as fixed
• Contingency is included and justified
• Consequences of poor planning are explained with a judgement

Model answer. The first move is to separate the work into tasks per deliverable and then look for what they share, because the three products are not independent: all of them need the same palette, typography and photography, so the brand decisions and a single photo shoot should sit at the front of the plan and feed all three. That turns one shoot into assets for the poster, the video and the page instead of three separate pieces of production. After that, dependencies set the order. The poster cannot be artworked until the images and the headline are approved, the video cannot be edited until the footage exists, and the landing page cannot be built until the copy and assets are ready, although the page's structure can be wireframed in parallel with filming because it does not depend on the footage. Printing is the hardest constraint in the whole plan: a printer needs files several days before delivery and will not accept late changes, so the print sign off milestone has to be set roughly a week before the campaign date and everything upstream of it scheduled backwards from there. The video and the page are more forgiving, since both can be updated after publication. Milestones belong at the points where a mistake would be expensive: brand sign off before any artwork, image approval before artworking, and a final client review before the print file is sent. Contingency of three or four days should sit immediately before the print deadline rather than at the end of the project, because that is where a delay cannot be absorbed. Planned badly, the likely failures are predictable: a shoot run after artwork has started, so the images do not fit the layout; the page and the poster using different colours because the brand decisions were made twice; and most seriously the print file arriving late, which cannot be solved with extra effort because the printer's schedule is outside the agency's control. That is the consequence worth emphasising, since the video and the page can be fixed after release and the poster cannot be fixed at all once it is printed.