Apr 04, 2011
Posted by Mike in Tips,Video Production
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5 Tips to Make Your Business Event Videos Rock
Whether you’re an association meeting planner trying to document your speakers at a conference, or a marketing professional trying to capture the sales meeting, video is a great tool to share an event with people who could not attend an event in person, or to use on your website to attract attendees to future events. I’ve produced a number of live event videos for trade associations and businesses, and have a few tips to make your event video rock! (OK, maybe that’s a little strong, how about make your event video a success!?)
1. Book Your Videographer Early
We all hated being the last kid picked for the team in gym class, so don’t do that to your videographer. It goes beyond just making the videographer feel better, it allows them to get a good idea of what you are expecting of the video, and make an assessment of the location, and plan accordingly. Not only does this give the video crew time to assess the situation, it gives you ample time to meet with the producer and discuss what you want from the video. Are you planning for a series of videos of each speaker for your website, or do you want DVD copies of everything? Will there be PowerPoint slides or other visual aids used? Is this going to be used for continuing education or just a record of the day’s events?
Hiring a videographer late in the process is the best way to assure your event video’s mediocrity; the camera crew will be scrambling to set up in an unfamiliar space, they’ll be chasing you down to intercede with the hotel staff, not a fun prospect for anyone. A stitch in time…
2. Meet With Your Videographer & Hotel Event Coordinator
Since many meetings happen in hotel ballrooms and meeting rooms, this is perhaps the most important tip in this post. Meeting with the videographer on-site along with the hotel staff allows everyone to be on the same page the day of the event. What does the room look like, large, small, bad acoustics, next to the ice machine? Ideally there should be 4 people at this meeting: you, the videographer, the hotel meeting planner, and the rep from the A/V provider. This will allow for details of the room setup to be discussed, the type of equipment that will be used, and a whole host of other questions that may come up as the meeting progresses.
Seeing the actual room in which the event will take place gives the videographer so much information on the kind of equipment they will need for the day of the shoot.
A quick anecdote: I was hired by an association to tape the speakers at an annual conference at a local hotel that I had never been to before. In the initial phone conversation with the meeting planner, they described the room that the event was in as a small meeting room. We met at the hotel a few days later to take a look at the space and discuss the event, but when I arrived, we toured a cavernous 200′ x 100′ ballroom with 20′ ceilings. Suddenly the shotgun mic on my single camera was laughable for covering the event. The meeting planner had been in the business for many years and to her, this room was small compared to some of the places she had done events in. We had to revise the plan and add a second camera, as well as a number of wireless mics to properly capture the speakers at the event.
3. Snag All of the Slides
These days is unusual for a speaker at an event NOT to have a PowerPoint presentation of some stripe for their speech. As a videographer, this is the number 1 determining factor in how I frame my shots for the video. Since these presentations are often given in darkened rooms so attendees can better see the projected slides, the difference in the light levels on the speaker and of the projected slides can easily ruin the video. If you try to get both the speaker and the slide in the same frame, the speaker’s face is often too dark, and the slides are completely washed out, and unreadable.
I always bring an empty thumb drive to events so I can grab the PowerPoint presentation from the speakers at the event. This saves on trying to hunt down the speaker to have them email me a copy of the presentation, and hoping that they haven’t changed anything in it since the event. Once I have the files, I can bring them into the video during the editing process, and concentrate on getting footage of the speaker during the event.
4. Plan on Watching This Over & Over
I’ve helped run trade conferences in my past life, and I understand the sheer, blissful exhaustion that comes at the end of an event. There are hundreds of little details you have to wrap-up with the hotel, the speakers, the attendees, etc. The last thing you want to do is watch the entire event all over again, right? This often leads to delaying your review of the first cut of the video, and drags out the entire video process. Know up-front that once the event is over, the video will be coming in a few days, and the quicker you review it and make suggestions on it, the quicker it will be done, and ready for your website or archives.
Take the video home, and watch it from the comfort of your couch with a glass of your favorite beverage. Once it’s out of their hands, the video editor will move on to another project, delays in getting your changes to them just increase the likelihood that they will need extra time to reacquaint themselves with the project, and add to the time it takes to get the video done.
5. Let the Speakers Know They Will be Recorded
This may seem like a small detail, but it’s an important one. I’ve been in a situation before, where the meeting planner assumed that the speakers would be OK with being taped, and you know what’s coming: they weren’t. The keynote speaker refused to go on with my equipment in the room, so I broke everthing down, and moved out of the room for an hour during the keynote. This delayed the keynote by a few minutes, and when I returned to the room to set up for the next speaker, it delayed that speaker while I scrambled to set everything up again.
Make sure your speakers know that they will be recorded, and how the video will be used as part of the negotiation process with them. Check the contract and make sure it specifically states that their presentation will be recorded, and that the recording will be used on your website, or archived, or used as part of a continuing education program. One less on-site headache is worth it.
Bonus Tip: Don’t Serve Lunch
There is a reason there is no such thing as the Eating Channel: watching people eat is kind of, well… icky. From a videography standpoint, there is nothing good about shooting a speaker during a meal; you hear a din of silverware scrapes, glasses clinking, people coughing, and there’s nothing to shoot but the speaker. It’s amazing how you can filter out these noises when you are in the room, but as soon as they are the background sounds of a video, they become intolerable. If you do have a speaker scheduled during a meal, make sure they don’t go on until after food service has ended. This will minimize the distracting clinks and scrapes, and also allow your attendees to concentrate on the speaker. Your speaker will thank you, as will your video editor.
What are your tips?
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