Scaling Video Production 101: A Guide for In-House Creative Teams
How Lightswitch Produces Thousands of Projects and Tens of Thousands of Deliverables With a Team of 10 - And How You Can Too
Every week, new tools promise to help creative teams do more with less. But the truth is, tools are only as effective as the systems, people, and habits behind them. At Lightswitch, we produce thousands of projects every year - with a core team of just ten. That output isn’t the result of hustle culture, “rockstar” editors, or AI magic. It’s the result of structures, relationships, and patterns we’ve built - and refined - for over a decade.
If you're an in-house creative team trying to scale your video efforts without overextending your people or compromising quality, here's how we do it - and how you can too.
How Did We Learn?
Lightswitch was born out of a VC firm trying to conquer the video production world with the classic 2010s business model of:
charge lower prices > do a ton of work > ???? > profit!
The model didn’t work but it landed us a deceptively simple project: film 500 “Built with Groupon” testimonials across all 50 states. We had almost no formal structure at the time, so we built it on the fly (making a ton of mistakes along the way).
(It helps that our parent company at the time was also Groupon's.) Forgiveness is easy within the family.
That trial by fire shaped everything we do today. Our early project with Groupon helped us build a rough structure - how to vet crews, schedule across time zones, deliver footage consistently - we used to operate a mini UPS, shipping out dozens of hard drives every night, and how to keep it all (somewhat) organized.
Our next major growth moment came through a national insurance provider, where we produced over 1,300 agent videos in two years.
Yes, 1300.
That partnership helped us refine the system: create repeatable templates, build a reliable freelance network, and establish our project management framework. It also taught us much of what we’ve learned about managing strict compliance requirements across a lot of work.
We continue to refine year after year. It’s how we’re now able to film high production work globally, across dozens of languages and mediums, using a wide variety of tools and platforms such as Adobe Workfront, Frame.io and Worksuite.
Today, we break our approach down into three pillars: planning, process, and people.
Pillar 1: Planning. It isn’t Just Pre-Production (It’s Culture)
When we say “planning,” we’re not talking about a checklist. We mean internal alignment around expectations, stakeholders, and outcomes - before anything gets made. It starts with our kickoff call, where we ask questions like:
What is the actual goal of this project?
Who are the stakeholders?
Where will the video live, and in how many formats?
Who needs to weigh in, and when?
This may sound simple, but the ripple effects are massive. We’ve seen time and time again that a 30-minute planning call can save ten hours of post by defining goals and managing expectations. It also builds trust and transparency. If something doesn’t seem doable on the proposed timeline, we say so. If we can’t determine why our client is producing something - we might tell them not to do it.
Our goal is to find the version that is possible and get everyone aligned before we commit to it.
(CLICK HERE to download our Pre-Production Call Guide)
Takeaway for in-house teams: Build planning expectations into your culture - not just your process. A good plan sets boundaries, creates clarity, and saves your team from burnout and scope creep. This also means saving time by putting a stop to work that doesn’t have a clear goal, or is not possible. You can do more work that matters if you nip the bad stuff in the bud sooner rather than later.
Pillar 2: Process Is What Makes Creative Sustainable
Creativity gets all the attention - but process is what makes it sustainable at scale. Our goal isn’t to make every video look exactly the same. It’s to make everything we do repeatedly feel repeatable.
make everything repeatedly feel repeatable.
We build project structure templates for every major type of project: testimonials, webinars, short-form content, culture videos, you name it. If we know we’re going to be doing the same type of video frequently, we don’t want to be doing it for the first time, every time.
These templates are not about what the end product will be like, but what steps we know are necessary every time to get it done. They live in Adobe Workfront, our “one source of truth” platform, and include tasks, timelines, dependencies, roles, and approval flows. They’re modular, so we can strip them down or build them up depending on project complexity.
Because of that structure, a producer can spin up a project from concept to kickoff in minutes - not hours. Things can also happen concurrently or not start until they’re ready, but regardless the video process will be prepped to launch as soon as everyone is ready to get started.
Takeaway for in-house teams: Create templates for the repeatable 80% so your team can focus on the creative 20%. Standardize what doesn’t need to be creative, so you have more bandwidth for what does. Your editors shouldn’t be reinventing file names or folder structures, producers should know what budget they have and where to start. Stakeholders should know how long things take - 80% of the time.
Pillar 3: People Make the Process Work
Even the best workflows fall apart without the right people. Our team has grown slowly and intentionally - prioritizing ownership, flexibility, and empathy over resumes or titles. Most of our full-time team has been with us for over seven years. That stability is a superpower.
Because our team feels trusted, they take ownership of their projects. They flag issues early. They protect timelines and push back when expectations aren’t realistic. And they support each other in a culture built around balance - not burnout. They know we’re all on the side of getting good work done and will have each other’s back in support of that goal.
We also rely on a network of over 4,700 vetted freelance crew members both across the U.S. and internationally. We’ve built relationships, reviewed reels, tested crews on small shoots, and built systems to quickly match talent to the job. Out of that 4,700 we hire about 200 on an annual basis.
If you name a city and ask one of our producers who they’ll hire, they can likely list someone by name off the top of their head. This only works when you have a trusted way to vet crews, and a team of producers who stick around long enough to get to know them.
Takeaway for in-house teams: Invest in people so that they’ll stay. People who can think critically and know how to get things done vs. just follow directions - but who can also provide them directions. When you can’t hire a full-time team, hire a producer who can help you build a network of reliable freelancers who understand your standards.
So How Do You Get There?
Here are five things to steal from our playbook:
Standardize your project types. Identify your top 5 recurring formats and build lightweight templates for them.
Centralize your knowledge. One source of truth beats scattered Slack threads and folder chaos.
Hire a producer first. Not a shooter, not an editor - a producer. They’ll make sure everything else works.
Build a trusted freelance bench. Find a few go-to creatives in key markets and test them on small jobs, eventually creating a network of trusted individuals wherever you need a project filmed .
Plan like it’s part of the creative. A great kickoff call is just as important as a great concept.
Lightswitch didn’t get here overnight. But the systems we’ve built are replicable. If you're an internal team trying to scale video without burning out, this model works - and it works better than relying on overworked generalists and ad hoc processes.
Or of course, you can just hire us.
