What to film each month when your agency does not shoot
How much raw footage a video first agency needs per month, how to batch it in one sitting on a phone, and how to send it so nothing is lost or reshot.
Short answer
An agency that edits but does not shoot needs raw footage from you on a fixed rhythm, usually one batch filming session per month. Film more takes than you think you need, keep the original files at full resolution, and send them with a short note on which moments you cared about. The volume depends on your package and the number of pieces going live, so agree the count before the first session.
If your agency edits, packages and posts but does not shoot, the deal is simple: you supply the raw footage, they supply everything after it. In practice that means one batch filming session a month on your phone, more takes than feel necessary, the original files uploaded to a shared folder, and a short note saying which moments you cared about.
How much depends on the package, so the count of pieces going live is agreed before the first session and the session is planned backwards from it. What follows is the plan we hand to clients.
Why the input side is the part nobody writes about
Search "how much footage do I need" and you get pricing pages. Search "batch filming" and you get advice for solo creators who film, edit and post their own work, where nothing is handed to anyone. The client to agency handoff sits in neither.
It matters because it is where months quietly go wrong. The agency is waiting for footage. The client thinks they sent it. What arrived was a WhatsApp forward, and by the time someone notices, the schedule has slipped a week.
A fixed rhythm removes most of this. One session, one folder, one note.
Decide the count from your package before you film
Do not film first and see what can be made. Start from the number of pieces going live that month and work back.
Edit, Manage and Full Page each carry an agreed output. Write it down as a list before the session:
- how many short form clips
- whether there is a long form piece, and roughly how long
- how many pieces need a thumbnail with your face in it
- anything with a date on it: a launch, an event, an offer that ends
Then translate it into filming: one answer per short form clip, a real conversation or a run of answers for long form, and a few stills of you looking at the lens for thumbnails, taken in the same setup at the end.
If the count is not fixed yet, fix it on the call. Volume drives both the price and the filming load.
One batch session: how to structure the morning
A morning is enough for a month of short form. Ad hoc filming produces footage that looks different every time and small handoffs that get lost.
- Set up once. Phone on a stand at eye level, daylight on your face, notifications off. Record a ten second test and watch it back with the sound on.
- Answers first. Work through your talking points one at a time, two or three takes of each. Say the question out loud before each answer so the editor can find it.
- Then the doing. Ten to fifteen minutes of you at work: hands, tools, screens, product, the room. Hold each shot longer than feels natural.
- Stills for thumbnails. A few frames looking at the lens, pointing, holding the product.
- Upload before you leave the room. Not later. Later is where footage dies.
Wear the same thing for the whole session, so the editor can mix takes from different points in the morning without a visible jump.
The phone setup that is good enough
A recent phone is enough. What makes phone footage look cheap is not the camera but shaky framing, a face lit from behind, echo, and a lens smeared from your pocket.
Framing. Rear camera if someone can press record, front camera if not. Eye level, with room above your head. Short form is vertical. Long form is horizontal, and if both are on the list, frame wide enough that a vertical crop still holds your face.
Light. Face the window. If it is behind you, turn round. A ring light is fine, a window is better and free.
Sound. The biggest upgrade is a cheap wired lavalier microphone that plugs into the phone. Failing that, a small room with soft furnishings and the phone within arm's reach. A hard floor and bare walls sound like a car park.
Settings. Leave resolution and frame rate at the phone's defaults and do not change them halfway through the month. YouTube's recommended upload settings page asks for content to be uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded, and lists 8 Mbps as the recommended video bitrate for 1080p at standard frame rates. The untouched file from your phone is the closest thing you have to that. A file forwarded through a chat app is not.
Talking points, not scripts
Reading a script to camera produces the flat delivery everyone recognises and nobody watches. Bring a list of questions instead, the ones customers ask you every week, and answer them the way you would across a desk.
For each point:
- say the question first, on camera
- answer in one go, even if it runs long
- if you stumble, pause, and restart the sentence rather than the whole answer
- finish with a clean ending and hold still for two seconds
Pauses and restarts are what an editor cuts around. What cannot be fixed is an answer with no ending, or ten answers so short that none of them says anything.
Original files, not WhatsApp compressions
WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and most email clients recompress video before sending it. The file that arrives is smaller and softer, and sometimes a different frame size. It can be edited, but it will look worse than everything around it on the platform.
Send the original file the phone wrote:
- upload from the phone itself, or from a computer after a cable or AirDrop transfer, into a shared cloud folder
- one folder per month, named by month
- do not trim, filter or "enhance" anything in the phone's editor first
- keep the phone copies until the agency confirms the month is edited
If a file is large, that is correct. Large is what full resolution looks like.
The note that saves a revision round
The other thing to put in the folder is a short note, a line or two per take, written while it is fresh:
- which takes to use and which to ignore
- any line you are proud of, with a rough time
- anything that must not go out: a name, a price that changed, a client visible in the background
- what each piece is for, if it is tied to a date
Editors are good at finding moments, but they are not inside your business, and the moment you cared about most often looks unremarkable from outside. A few minutes of writing replaces a full round of "not that bit, the other bit" a week later.
What happens in a month you film nothing
It will happen. A trip, a launch, illness. What matters is that the schedule is built to survive it, which is what a content calendar is for.
On the agency side that means a buffer: unused footage from previous sessions, long form that can be cut into further short pieces, and text posts or carousels built from things you have already said. On your side it means saying early that the session is not happening, so the month is planned around the buffer rather than discovered empty on posting day.
New talking content cannot be made from nothing, so if the calendar needs you saying something specific, it waits. Agree in advance whether a skipped month rolls over, is replaced by buffer output, or is simply missed, and put it in the contract.
VALORAE Media is a video first social media management agency, and we do not shoot. Clients film on the rhythm above, we edit the short form, long form and thumbnails, then title, caption, schedule and post on their channels under the Edit, Manage or Full Page package. The count per month depends on the package and the volume, so if you want to know what your month would look like before filming anything, book a call.
Frequently asked questions
How much footage does the agency need for one short form post?
Enough to have a choice. For a talking piece that means two or three clean takes of the same answer, each a little longer than the finished clip will be, plus a few seconds of you doing the thing you are talking about. One rushed take gives the editor nothing to cut around.
Can I film on my phone or do I need a camera?
A recent phone is enough for short form and for most long form talking pieces. Steady framing, daylight on your face and a quiet room matter far more than the camera. Send the original file the phone recorded, at the resolution and frame rate it recorded, and the edit will sit comfortably next to everything else on the platform.
How should I send the footage?
Through a shared folder in cloud storage, uploaded from the phone or computer that recorded it. Never through WhatsApp, Instagram DMs or email, because those recompress the file. Name the folder by month and put one short note inside listing which takes you want used.
What if I miss a month?
Say so early. Most of a management package can keep running on footage already in the folder, on cutdowns of older long form, and on carousels or text posts built from things you have already said. What cannot happen is new talking content from nothing, so the buffer you built in previous months is what carries you.
Want us to run the page, not just edit the videos?
We edit short form, long form and thumbnails, then title, caption, schedule and post them. Send one video and we will show you what we would do with it.
Book a free call