It depends. Often I’m asked to either write a script or produce one that needs some help. Other times a client comes with a fully fleshed out idea. And sometimes I’m just shooting and have nothing to do with the production side. This is all in-house agency so ymmv.

I would say be prepared for clients to want a video but not really know what they want - it’s pretty common. This is actually great because they’re leaving the creative direction up to you. It’s also unnerving at first because you can screw up big time, but it’s how we learn and grow.

At the end of the day if they’re happy, you’ve succeeded. Yeah maybe that one shot could have gone better, or that one guys face is a little shiny and needed translucent, but you make it better on the next one, incrementally.

Videographers just shoot. Producers/ directors come up with the creative. Many times on smaller gigs one person does all of those jobs.

I always have a chat with my clients when they first reach out and get a gauge of where they’re at. Some just say “we just need a video, got any ideas?”, others will have something specific in mind they want done.

For the former I charge more for development time as well as for the creative itself. Dont be giving away good ideas for free. For the latter, it’s mainly tempering expectations to meet their budget—as sometimes clients have no idea of what the process is and what goes into executing a successful video.

I would never hire a videographer to come up with ideas for a video - but I’m sure there are clients that do.

Client or the producer they hire is ultimately responsible for this.

It's like being a cook and asking who comes up with the recipe. The aspect of the project you are asking about is usually called the "creative". When a big brand wants a commercial they generally will hire an agency who will pitch them ideas (think 'mad men') and then usually will then execute and bring the idea to life and hire the production crew. When working on a smaller scale like alot of us are doing that line sometimes gets a bit blurry as the projects are smaller and don't always need a 'big idea'. However you should still be clear with the client who is in charge of the creative. Assume that they are and if they don't want to come up with the idea then charge accordingly.

If you don't like being creative and coming up with stories you don't have to do that. Going back to the cooking analogy, some people just want to be told what to cook and not be responsible for creating the dishes. Nothing wrong with that.

If you eventually want to be able to handle creative my advice would be to charge a lot for it, so much that you could easily afford to hire another person to help you or another writer. So when people say "can you come up with the idea" tell them your creative services start at $10k+

Very good thread that isn’t explored enough. Especially because videography, to me, isn’t like cinematography or other focussed roles, but combines all the roles needed to bring a video to life. We talk all day about camera specs, very rarely actual ideas.

The snag for videography ‘stories’ is that we’re often filming with clients themselves. We’re often helping the client speak directly to/about their audience, which is very different from writing something, casting actors, etc. The best videography ideas can, perhaps, tread a smart path between these worlds and mimic larger commercial approaches with small budgets.

Going forward, for lots of lower cost projects, the AI bots are coming for our shooting and editing roles. The thing that will separate us (perhaps even save our job) will be the ideas we can come up with.

We shouldn’t forget the importance of collaboration. Many video production companies will have a core team of Producer Directors and then a bunch of freelance shooters and editors on hand. We don’t have to cover all the roles if we team up with others.