Filming for your ads, without a studio.
Most of the video we run for you is filmed by you, on a phone, in about fifteen minutes. This page covers that, what happens when we bring a videographer instead, how to get the footage to us, and how the finished edits get approved. Read the section you need. Nothing here needs a call.
Filming the short clips yourself
We write the scripts, word for word. You film them on your phone. We edit, add captions and branding, sequence them and run them as ads. Video converts several times better than a static image, so most of what we run is video, and this is the fastest way to get it.
Do not film before the scripts are approved
The scripts are written from your onboarding answers and sent to you for approval first. Film only the approved version. If the offer, the price or the guarantee changes after approval, the automations and landing page change with it, so tell us before you film, not after.
What you need
- A phone from the last four years, on a stand, a tripod or a stack of books at eye level. Back camera, not the selfie camera.
- A clip-on microphone (any lavalier that plugs into your phone). This is the one piece of kit that matters. Phone audio from a metre away is not usable.
- A window in front of you. No ring light, no studio. The wall behind you is enough if it is tidy.
- The approved scripts, printed or on a second screen placed just under the lens.
- A quiet fifteen minutes. Phone on airplane mode, door closed, aircon and fridges off if you can.
The procedure
- Wipe the lens with your shirt. Most bad footage starts with a smudged lens.
- On iPhone, open Settings → Camera → Record Video and pick 4K at 30 fps. Then Settings → Camera → Grid ON. On Android, open the camera settings and choose the highest resolution at 30 fps. Film vertical (9:16).
- Clip the mic a hand's width below your chin, cable tucked inside your shirt. Record ten seconds, play it back with headphones. Crisp and close means go.
- Face the window. Frame head and shoulders: eyes on the upper third line of the grid, a small gap above your head, nothing growing out of your head behind you.
- Read each script out loud three times before you press record. Then say it to the lens like you are explaining it to one client across a desk. Ten percent slower and twenty percent louder than feels natural.
- Press record and keep rolling for the whole script. If you fumble a line, pause for two seconds and start that sentence again. Do not stop and delete. We cut it.
- Stop after each script. One clip per script, one script per file. Do not film all the scripts in one long recording.
- Film the whole batch in one sitting: six to eight clips of 30 to 45 seconds each takes about fifteen minutes. A bigger batch of ten to twelve takes around forty. Same shirt, same spot, all the way through.
- Upload the original files to the shared folder we sent you, following the footage section below, and reply to our email with the number of clips.
How you know it worked
Play one clip back on your phone with headphones. You can hear every word clearly, your face is lit and not in shadow, your eyes are near the top third of the frame, and the file is vertical. If all four are true, the batch is good. Send it. We do not need perfection, we need clear sound and a real person.
If it fails
If the sound is echoey or faint, move to a smaller room with soft furnishings and check the mic is actually selected (unplug and replug it, record ten seconds again). If your face is dark, you have the window behind you. Turn around. If you are still unsure after one clip, send that single clip to us before filming the rest and we will tell you what to change. Do not film the whole batch and hope.
A shoot day with our videographer
Some campaigns need more than phone clips: a founder story, a two-person conversation, portraits for press, product and premises footage. For those we bring a videographer and, where needed, a photographer, and we run the day from a written run sheet. Here is what to expect and what we need from you.
Before the day
- Give us two or three days you are free. A weekday afternoon is ideal. We book the crew against one of them and confirm in writing.
- Pick the location and send us photos of the room. Somewhere that feels like you: an office corner, a workshop, a sofa in a family home. Not a boardroom and not a boat. Send three or four photos and the address so we plan the setup and lighting before we arrive. Mains power and somewhere to park are the only requirements.
- Read the questions. We send them in advance so you can think, not so you can memorise. Each question comes with a short list of points worth landing. Cover three of five naturally and it is a good answer.
- Decide who is on camera and who is not. Everyone who speaks needs to be there for their block, and someone with keys needs to be there first. Nobody else is needed. A coordinator on your side who is reachable by phone but not on set is ideal.
- Wardrobe. What you would wear to meet a client. Plain colours. Avoid fine stripes and small checks, they strobe on camera. No jacket unless you would normally wear one. Bring one spare top.
- Gather the extras. Old photographs (the older the better), products, tools, anything that reads as real work. If the campaign uses a signed statement or manifesto, bring a pen: we capture signatures on the day.
- Usage rights, agreed in writing before the shoot. We confirm what the footage and photos may be used for (ads, your website, social, press) and who appears in them. Anyone on camera who is not a director of the company signs a short release on the day. If press use is planned, we say so beforehand, because it is broader than marketing use.
On the day
| Time | What happens | Who is needed |
|---|---|---|
| About 13:00 | Crew arrives and rigs. Lighting and the first setup are tested before anyone is on camera. | Whoever opens up |
| 14:00 | The most important shot first, while everyone is fresh. If it is a two-person piece, that pairing goes first. Photo and video on the same setup. | Everyone on camera |
| 14:45 onwards | Interview blocks. Five or six conversational questions, two to three minutes per answer, answered like a chat. If it is flowing, we let it run. | One person at a time |
| Last hour | Portraits, hands, the premises, cutaways. No talking needed. | As scheduled |
| 17:00 to 18:00 | Wrap. The crew records thirty seconds of room tone per setup and offloads the cards before leaving. | Nobody |
Four to five hours in total, never more than a day. An hour of interview footage becomes ten to twenty minutes of usable clips, which is normal and expected. You are not performing. Say it however it comes out, and if you fluff a sentence, start it again. We cut around it.
What we bring and what you bring
The crew and the kit
Cameras (two on every interview where possible), lighting, two microphones per speaker, the run sheet, the questions, and someone from our side directing the whole day.
Yourself and the room
The people on camera, keys to the location, the extras listed above, water, and a clear diary for the block. No preparation of answers beyond reading the questions once.
Pickups
A pickup is a short line we ask you to re-record after the edit starts, because a fact changed, a number was not confirmed, or a sentence was lost to a passing motorbike. They are normal. We send the exact line, you film it on your phone in the same shirt against a similar background, and upload it to the same folder. Five minutes, no crew.
How long until edits arrive
For a phone batch, the first cuts land in your inbox within five working days of the footage arriving in the folder. For a full shoot day the run sheet states the delivery date, usually one to two weeks after the shoot, because the footage is transcribed and a selects sheet is built before any editor touches it. Edits arrive as a preview link, not as an email attachment. What happens then is in the approval section.
Sending us footage and photos
This is the step that most often goes wrong, and it is always the same three mistakes: sending through WhatsApp (which compresses video to mush), zipping everything into one archive nobody can open, or uploading to your own Drive instead of the shared folder. Follow this and it works first time.
- Open the shared Google Drive folder we sent you by email. It is a link, and the folder name carries your company name. If you cannot find the email, ask us to resend the link. Do not create your own folder.
- Upload the original files straight from the phone or camera. No trimming, no editing, no compression, no zip. On iPhone, share to Google Drive from Photos, or plug into a computer and copy the files. On Android, use the Drive app or a cable.
- One clip per file. Name each file by script number if you can:
Script-01-Take-1.mov,Script-02-Take-1.mov. If you cannot rename on the phone, leave the names and tell us the order in your email. - Photos: full-resolution originals, not screenshots and not images that have been through WhatsApp. If a photo came from a photographer, ask for the exported JPEGs at full size.
- Wait until every file shows in the folder without an uploading spinner. Then reply to our email with the number of clips and the date you filmed. We check that count against the folder.
What to expect on size
A 45-second 4K phone clip is roughly 150 to 350 MB depending on the phone, so a batch of eight lands around one to three gigabytes. That is fine for Drive on a normal connection; leave the phone on Wi-Fi and plugged in. A full day on professional cameras is 100 GB or more and only ever travels by Drive or a hard drive handed to us. Nothing video should ever go through email or WhatsApp.
If you cannot use Google Drive
Send a WeTransfer link to stephen@thegrowthbully.com instead. Free transfers expire after a few days, so send it the day you upload and tell us in the email that it is coming. Dropbox and OneDrive share links also work, as long as they are set to "anyone with the link" and contain the original files, not a zip.
If a professional videographer is delivering
Give them this. It removes a week of back and forth.
- Camera originals, untouched. The files exactly as they come off the card, with the sidecar files (XML or similar) alongside. Do not rename either, the pairing is by filename.
- Tell us the picture profile. If it was shot in a log profile (S-Log, D-Log, V-Log, C-Log) say so in the delivery note. Log footage looks flat and grey until graded, which is correct, not a fault.
- Audio as separate files where a recorder was used, plus a full-length untrimmed audio-only export per camera block if we ask for one. Mono is fine. This is what we transcribe from, so timecodes must match the video.
- A one-line map of which files belong to which block of the day (for example, "C0001 is the conversation, C0002 is the founder interview").
- Delivery to the shared folder we provide, or by drive hand-over for anything over 100 GB.
How you know it worked
Open the shared folder link from our email (not your own Drive) and you can see every file listed with a size next to it. The count matches what you filmed. We reply within one working day confirming receipt and the delivery date for the first cut.
If it fails
"I uploaded them but you say you cannot see them" almost always means the files went to your own My Drive, not the shared folder. Open the link from our email again and upload there. If an upload keeps failing, send us a screenshot of the whole window with the error, and the file sizes. Do not zip the files to make them smaller, and do not send them by WhatsApp as a fallback. We will send an alternative link.
Your VSL
The VSL is the one longer founder video that warms up a lead before they speak to you. It has its own guide, with the framing and delivery rules that apply to a single long take rather than a batch of short clips. Film it landscape, not vertical, and send it the same way as everything else.
How to record your VSL
Setup, framing, sound, the structure of the video and what good delivery looks like. We write the script and edit it; you talk.
The Filming Guide
The one-page illustrated version of the short-clip procedure above: kit, setup, frame, delivery and the pre-record checklist.
How edits are approved
Every edit reaches you as a preview link before it goes anywhere. Nothing publishes with your name on it until you have seen it and said yes. The full rules, including what a launch plan is, what counts as approval, revision rounds and what happens if you do not reply, live on the approvals page. The short version for video:
- One line is enough. "Clip 3 approved" by email, or a comment directly on the preview, is a yes. No signature, no form.
- Tell us what is wrong, not how to fix it. "The price is out of date in clip 2" is a perfect note. We make the change. Revision rounds are as set out in your agreement.
- Previews are not the final size. A design preview can look enormous or oddly bordered in the browser. Judge the words, the facts and the framing. The ad platform sets the final crop.
- Deadlines are real. An ad batch that needs to go live in two weeks needs your approval within a few days of the preview landing. The preview email states the date. Silence past that date is handled as set out in your agreement and on the approvals page.
- Regulated businesses are the exception. If your industry needs compliance sign-off, nothing goes live without written approval from your named contact, whatever the deadline.
Common questions on this page
Is the script a mood board or do I read it word for word?
Word for word. It is a full script, not a theme, and every line is there because it does a job in the ad. Learn each line well enough to say it to the lens rather than read it stiffly, but do not rewrite it on the fly. If a line does not sound like you, tell us before filming and we adjust the wording.
How many clips do I film, how long is each, and how long does it take?
A batch is six to eight clips of 30 to 45 seconds each, filmed back to back in about fifteen minutes. A larger batch of ten to twelve takes around forty minutes. Film one or two first, send them, and we give feedback before you do the rest. After launch, two or three new clips a month is enough to keep the ads fresh for most businesses; product and shop brands run a bigger monthly batch as set out in your agreement.
Who should be on camera?
Whoever is comfortable talking to a camera, ideally the founder or the person clients actually deal with. Start with one face, the most natural one, and add a second person later if it helps. Showing a real person outperforms a voiceover over images, so if you can be on camera, be on camera.
Can I do a voiceover or on-screen text instead of showing my face?
You can, and we will run it, but it converts worse. People buy from people. If you are nervous, film one clip, send it, and see how it looks once we have edited and captioned it. Most clients relax after the first batch. If there is a genuine reason not to appear, tell us and we build around product, premises and text.
What kit do I need? Do I need a studio or a ring light?
A phone from the last four years, a clip-on lavalier microphone, and a window. That is the whole list. No studio, no ring light, no videographer. The microphone is the only purchase, and it is the one thing you cannot skip: bad audio is the one fault we cannot fix in the edit.
Can I start filming before the scripts are approved?
No. Film only the approved scripts. The landing page, the follow-up emails and the ads are all built from the same approved offer, so a clip filmed from a draft script usually has to be refilmed. Approving the scripts takes you ten minutes; refilming takes a morning.
Where do the scripts come from?
From your onboarding questionnaire and, where you have them, your sales calls. The questionnaire is thirty to forty questions on who you sell to, the pain points, the objections you hear and the results you have delivered. Sit with whoever actually deals with clients when you fill it in. There is no such thing as too much information at that stage; every strong hook in the scripts traces back to a specific answer.
Why do you ask for our sales call recordings or the objections we hear?
Because the exact words your prospects use are the best script material there is. If you record your sales calls, share the recordings or the transcripts. If you do not, write down the objections you hear each week and send them over. The top five objections end up answered in the scripts and on the landing page, which is what lifts the booking rate.
Can you send the filming brief as a video instead of a call?
Yes. Everything on this page and the illustrated Filming Guide is the brief. If you want it talked through, ask and we send a short recorded walkthrough you can watch in your own time rather than booking a meeting. Reply with your questions after watching it and we answer in writing.
What sizes and formats do the finished clips come in?
We deliver each ad in vertical 9:16 for Reels, Stories and TikTok, and in 4:5 for the feed. Square 1:1 and landscape 16:9 are added when a placement needs them. Static images follow the same set. If you or a team member will publish in your own Ads Manager, we send the exact sizes with the files, so you never have to guess.
Can we give you our own photos and videos instead of generated images?
Please do. We only generate images when there are no real ones. Real product, premises, team and vehicle photos beat stock and generated images every time. Put everything in the shared folder, full resolution, and tell us any rules we should know (for example, products that must never be shown in a certain state). We rotate your assets in whenever the ads need refreshing.
How do I send the footage? Can I WhatsApp it?
Not WhatsApp, ever. It compresses video to a fraction of the quality. Upload the original files to the shared Google Drive folder we emailed you, one clip per file, no zip, no trimming, then reply with the number of clips. If Drive will not work for you, a WeTransfer link to stephen@thegrowthbully.com is the fallback.
I uploaded the videos but you say you cannot see them.
They went to your own My Drive, not the shared folder. Open the folder link from our email again, drag the files in there, and wait until the upload spinner clears. Then reply with the count. If the link asks you to request access, you are logged into a different Google account from the one we shared with; tell us which address to add.
What do you need from a professional videographer?
Camera originals with their sidecar files, unrenamed; the picture profile named in the delivery note; separate audio files (and an untrimmed audio-only export per block if asked); a one-line map of which file is which part of the day; and delivery to our shared folder or by drive hand-over above 100 GB. The full list is in the footage section of this page. Forward them the link.
How long until the edits arrive?
First cuts of a phone batch land within five working days of the footage arriving in the folder. A full shoot day takes one to two weeks because we transcribe it and build a selects sheet first; the run sheet gives the date. Edits arrive as a preview link. If a pickup is needed you hear about it in the first two days, not at the end.
What should I wear, and where should a shoot happen?
What you would wear to meet a client: plain colours, no fine stripes or small checks, no jacket unless you normally wear one. Location: somewhere that feels like your business or your home, with mains power and parking. Send us a few photos of the room and the address a week before so we plan the setup. We bring the lighting.
How do I approve an edit, and what happens if I do not reply?
Reply with one line ("clip 3 approved") or comment on the preview. Tell us what is wrong rather than rewriting it. The preview email states the deadline; what silence means after that date is set out in your agreement and explained on the approvals page. Regulated businesses always need written sign-off from the named contact before anything goes live.
Stuck? Email stephen@thegrowthbully.com with a screenshot of the whole window, or one test clip, and we tell you what to change.