Video editing is often more than 50% of the final result. An average shoot edited brilliantly gives a better result than a perfect shoot edited too quickly. This is a crucial step that should not be underestimated in the budget.

Here’s how editing works at Productions Go, a corporate video production company established in Montreal for more than 20 years.

What is a video production house, concretely?

A video production house is a company that takes care of the entire video creation process: pre-production, shooting, post-production. Unlike an independent videographer , a company mobilizes a multidisciplinary team — director, director of photography, sound recordist, videographer, make-up artist, editor, colorist, motion designer, audio mixer, casting agent, etc.

In Montreal, there are several dozen, ranging from high-end studios to the micro-structure of a single versatile videographer. The right choice depends on the project: for a national TV commercial, usually the advertising agency will partner with a major production company. For a targeted corporate capsule, an agile team is enough.

Video editing in 8 steps

From the moment the rushes come back from the shoot to the multi-format delivery, post-production follows a structured process. Here’s how it works at Productions Go:

1. 1Save and transfer of rushes — As soon as the shoot is finished, all the files are copied to two separate media (double backup rule). For a day of 4K filming, we are easily talking about 200 to 500 GB of data. Invisible step for the customer but critical: a lost file = a lost plan.
2. 2Rushing and Selection — The editor reviews all the dailies and scores the best takes. For 8 hours of filming, count 4 to 6 hours of classification of the sequences. This is where the quality of the result comes into play: at this stage, a good editor selects the best passages, sometimes within a few seconds.
3. 3Offline editing (pre-editing) — The first version of the edit, with no visual effects, no finalized sound, no color grading. The objective: to build the story, check the rhythm, validate the structure. This is the version presented to the customer for initial feedback and approval.
4. 4Customer Validation and Adjustments — The customer views, comments, and requests changes. At Go Productions, we typically schedule 2-3 rounds of revisions in the production budget.
5. 5Sound design and audio mixing — Sound makes 50% of the impact of a video (movie studios have known this for as long as they can remember). This step includes: cleaning up dialogue, adding music, sometimes sound effects, balancing levels, and mixing final audio.
6. 6Color grading — Color grading gives the video its final visual signature. This is what transforms a neutral capture into an image that resembles cinema. A good color grading takes 1-4 hours for a 2-minute video.
7. 7Visual Effects Motion Design — Animated titles, infographics, transitions, logo overlays. For a corporate video, a minimum of a few hours is required to integrate your logo with a light animation, integrate your typeface into the titles, add visual transitions, etc.
8. 8Master copy, multi-format exports and delivery — A modern corporate video doesn’t have a single final format — it often has 3-4 or more: high-quality master version, optimized web version, vertical format for Instagram/TikTok, square format for LinkedIn, subtitled version, version without music for translation. Each of these versions must follow very strict technical standards set by the platforms.

How much does video editing cost in Montreal?

The hourly rate for a professional fitter in Montreal in 2026 ranges from $60 to $120 per hour. For a typical 2-minute corporate video, the breakdown looks like this:

Common mistakes in corporate video editing

After 20 years of projects, some mistakes come back systematically when the assembly is entrusted to amateurs or delivered too quickly:

Why entrust editing to a production company rather than a freelance editor?

A freelance editor can be excellent. The difference with a production company is the ecosystem : continuity with the film crew, direct access to the director of photography in case of questions about the shoot, coordination with the sound designer and colorist, and the ability to deliver several formats in parallel without additional costs.

At Go Productions, editing is integrated into our entire production process. The same director who is in charge of the shoot oversees the editing, which guarantees narrative coherence between the initial intention and the final delivery.

To go further, check out our 12-step guide to corporate video pre-production and our complete guide to the types, costs and ROI of a corporate video.

Ready to kick off your video project?

Go Productions is a corporate video production company established in Montreal for more than 20 years. We have produced videos for the Montreal Heart Institute, Olymel, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton and the Commission des Droits de la Personne et de la Jeunesse. Each project is set up and supervised by our in-house team — not outsourced.