I've edited enough of these to know where they go wrong, and it's nearly always a decision made before anyone touched a timeline.
Decide what the video is for before you shoot a frame
"We need a video" is not a brief. A recruitment video that has to make someone want to work at your company is a different film from a sales video that has to explain what you do in forty seconds. They need different lengths, different pacing, a different tone, and different endings. When a business tells me the video is for "the website", I ask which page and who's landing on it, because that answer changes basically every decision I'm about to make.
Your first fifteen seconds decide everything
Nobody owes your video their attention. The version where you open with a slow logo animation and a wide shot of the building is the version people close. Open with the most interesting thing you have: a claim, a problem your customer recognises, a face talking directly to them. Save the logo for the end, where it belongs.
Cut it shorter than feels comfortable
The single most common note I give Calgary businesses is that their video is twice as long as it needs to be. A homepage explainer should be sixty to ninety seconds. A recruitment video, two minutes at the outside. A case study, ninety seconds. If someone genuinely wants more, they'll click the longer version. Making them sit through it is how you lose the ones who were nearly convinced.
One video should become five
This is where most companies leave money on the table. You paid for a shoot day. You have hours of usable footage. Don't walk away with one four-minute film. Ask your editor for the main cut plus a set of vertical clips for social, a fifteen-second version for ads, and a handful of quote cards. It costs a fraction of the original edit because the footage is already organised and graded, and it turns one asset into a quarter's worth of content. If you only ask for the hero video, you're paying full price for a fifth of the value.
Captions are not optional anymore
A serious share of your audience watches muted, on a phone, somewhere they can't turn the sound on. If your video only works with audio, it doesn't work. Burned-in captions on social cuts, proper caption files on YouTube and your website. It also helps you get found, because search engines can read the words.
Consistency is worth more than polish
A company whose videos all look like they come from the same place beats a company with one gorgeous film and eleven that look random. Agree the look once: the font, the colours, where the lower thirds sit, how the intro and outro work, which music library you're pulling from. Then every video after that is faster to make and cheaper for you, and your brand starts to feel like it has its act together.
What to actually ask for in the deliverables
When you brief an editor, ask for the horizontal master, vertical and square versions, a short cut for ads, captions burned in on the social versions and as a separate file for the master, and the stills. Getting this agreed up front costs you nothing. Going back for it in three months costs you a re-edit.
Want this done for you?
I work with Calgary businesses who have footage and a goal and don't particularly want to think about codecs. You tell me what the video needs to do and who it's for, I come back with a flat price, and you get a set of files ready for every place you'll actually post it, not just one long cut for the homepage. Send me what you've got and I'll tell you honestly what I'd do with it.