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Do you have to get your company’s corporate events filmed?

One thing in business is for certain – more and more material is required for the same investment and sometimes even less.

Nowhere does this apply more than in the marketing department. Here’s one way of tackling that problem head on; film your company’s events, especially the ones featuring clients and experts.

With just a reasonable amount of planning and some common sense, you can easily film enough bite-sized pieces of video to create a mini-series that can sit aside blogs, articles, social media posts, whitepapers, Twitter, guest articles, Youtube et al.

Here are some of the types of events you might regularly be involved in:

  • Seminars
  • Conferences
  • Award Ceremonies
  • Product launches
  • Team building days (but know when to hit the pause button)
  • Charity dinners

With a camera and a plan, almost all indoor or outdoor corporate events can be filmed for later use. For example:

  • On your Website, e.g. the news section, at the centre of a landing page campaign
  • Intranet to be used a training collateral, general information for all
  • Your company LinkedIn pages
  • Your company Youtube channel
  • Across your social media
  • As a company presentation available for download.
  • To share on social media

Example event scenario:

You’ve arranged a half-day seminar/client engagement forum. There will be existing customers there and many others who your are courting or are interested in what you have to say.

The agenda starts with general milling of guests until the presentations start. You’ll probably have a coffee break at 10:30 and a planned 60-minute wind down at the end, perhaps with some lunchtime canapés.

You might reasonably expect to film:

  • 3 or 4 presentations, totalling perhaps up to 2 hours
  • Perhaps 4 separate expert interviews and the same for attendees.
  • Altogether maybe up to 12 pieces of video to accompany 12 blogs and so forth.

The no.1 starting point is to have a good idea of how you will use the video in your marketing. This doesn’t mean knowing all the exact specifics, but being clear about the type of content you want for your different channels.

This might mean 6-second Vine videos, but is more likely to be individual pieces from 30-seconds to 3 minutes in duration that make a playlist on your YouTube channel or a mini-series, made available in return for an email address.

Filming the corporate events presentations

It’s worth spending some effort here to provide your filming crew with the best conditions to get a clean capture of the action (which means their line of sight and lighting) and a good audio feed, directly from the sound desk managing the speakers. Do not leave this until the day. Your video team will need to know the layout and where all the electrical outlets are for lights. Sensible filming teams visit the location prior to the event.

Interviewing the experts – Many won’t have been able to present but are closely associated to event, from your partners and (of course) your own in-house experts. This is best by agreement beforehand, rather than springing it on them on the day. Have some questions ready and be prepared to lead interviewees through a short chat.
Showing people in the throng at a busy event does wonders for credibility, but isn’t always best for those less used to cameras in their face. If at all possible, find a space away from the crowd where you can set up for these interviews in a calmer way, where you can manage the light and audio more predictably.

Interviewing attendees – You’ll have to be at your fleetest of foot to maximise these opportunities. A lot of people shy away from the camera but there are only a few who can’t be coaxed with a little charm and assurance. Your job is to identify likely interviewees and bring them to the interview area. You will only need 3 or 4 questions to get enough varied responses. If someone gets into the flow, let them go for it, but be aware there are very few people who can spontaneously be ‘that interesting’ for more than 5 minutes.

The questions you need to discuss with your film crew

Whether you want a 1 or a 2-camera set up? A 2-camera set up provides you with a lot more flexibility, greater choice of filming options at the event and in the edit suite.
Who will be in charge of the sound desk / PA system? It’s well worth putting the film crew and sound engineer in touch beforehand – they’ll come up with the most efficient solutions that way.
When filming an audience, you should make the attendees aware you are filming. An announcement can be made at the beginning of the event and notices displayed at the entrance.

The edit

Because you planned what was to be filmed, you know your starting points for the edits to be created. You will have to sit down and review all the footage to find the gems that missed you on the day. This is a crucial investment of time, so take some good notes, referencing the time-code.

If you have the time and resources you could consider investing in some in-house video editing services. There are now plenty of low-cost and simplified video editing packages available online or for download. They do require effort to learn, but if your main requirement is for captions and titles over the video – well that really isn’t hard to learn. I know.

The alternative is to work with your production company to create the edits. If they were involved from the outset, they’ll know what to do and will probably even be able to quote you a firm, fixed price from the outset.

The key Ingredient is your frame of mind and approach.

If you are striving for perfection, you may find this way a bit fraught. People aren’t as predictable as you like and might not always say things in the way you prefer. You may not be able to get rid of all the background noise and the lighting could be less than perfect. The chances are your viewers are not half as fussy. Keep it natural and keep it real. Your viewers will appreciate the authenticity.

Check out this corporate event we filmed for Trap Media as an example of how we turned this function into interesting video content.

London based Video Content Production company

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