Practical tips for filming your next event

posted on Wednesday 21 March

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1. Create a clear brief for the production company

For property the mantra is “Location, location, location”. For any filming it is “Pre-production, pre-production, pre-production”. Help the production company do the best they can by creating a good working brief. Working backwards from how the videos are going to be used (and for who) is how they will determine the number of cameras required, what lenses, lighting and personnel are required.

In the briefing document, tell them about dates, all the event details, include parking, and most importantly, what you want at the end for example, we would like 1 x edit of all the talks, 1x3min promo of the talks and break out sessions/drinks and nibbles, 3x30s social media edits. It would very helpful if you can give them a budgetary range. This will allow the production company to work out what cameras and lenses they use, how many personnel are needed and how many edits are offered. If you can show them a paragraph on style and tone with some examples of videos that emulate what you are looking for then all the better.

2. Choose the right company

Whatever you do, do not watch the show-reel of production companies! They are highly engineered videos for marketing purposes. Choose three to four companies, send them the brief and ask them for video links to the last few events they covered. Speak with the Events Managers to say what they thought of their work – what did they like about them? did they deliver on time and budget? and how professional were they on the day of the event?

Once you’ve whittled it down to two companies, invite them in for a face-to-face meeting and ask them to bring anymore recent examples. Walk them around the venue and ask them to explain where they would position the cameras, how they plan to capture audio and how many personnel they will have on the day. These are all critical as you may need to feedback to the sound desk or the speakers if they need to be mic’d or if there will be lights on the day.

For edits, ask them about revisions and re-edits. Inevitably, there will be managers opinions and potential scope changes. It’s worth knowing what’s included in the price and what isn’t and don’t forget to work out edit timescales and deadlines.

3. Manage the edits

Post event, it is worth having a look at the filmed material itself. If they can send you the link to the talks and/or rushes (or B -roll or montage material) then you will have an idea of what can be used. They may oversee a shot that you know is important. They may oversee a voxpop which has a soundbite that would be great for a social media clip. It’s worth having a quick look to ensure that the best material is used in the edits.

Our thanks to Ignite Creative for this blog post.