Your company has scheduled a pre-recorded online event and you’re the person they task to get it all done. That means wrangling executives’ schedules, finding locations, writing scripts, preparing presentation decks, and most of all, making sure all the videos are produced and ready to stream. And you have 3 weeks to do it.
You wrap up meetings with your agency and the video production company, but still, so many questions….
Picturelab has produced online events for some of the biggest companies including LinkedIn, Intuit, Google and Ducati.
Though there are many variables to each event, there are a few macro-level decisions that can help frame the production.
What level of production do you need?
We had a client who wanted to showcase a new product with presentations from multiple C-level executives. Their initial ideal was to have all these execs recorded on Zoom since it was difficult to bring them all in for a video shoot.
After discussion, we eventually shot all the executives on site with high-quality cinema cameras. For such an important event as a product launch, we agreed that an investment in a higher-level production (and executive time) was necessary.
Conversely, for an employee-only event such as an update on a company policy, it’s perfectly fine to shoot the pre-recorded event on DSLRs or even Zoom. We recommend at least shooting with a phone rather than simply recording on an online platform.
The point here is that given the audience and each case, deciding on the production level at the beginning helps answer a lot of follow-up questions such as scheduling, platforms, budget and talent.
What content will your pre-recorded event feature?
These events will definitely feature talking heads, but what else? Often, it depends on how long the event is. Especially if it’s an hour or more, consider mixing things up to keep your audience engaged. Include fireside chats, animation, engaging b-roll…be creative.
At the very least, be sure to invest in quality presentation decks.
Here’s an example of an online event video that incorporated humor and creativity:
How will you schedule everyone?
This is one of the biggest challenges, especially in the modern work environment. Yes, depending on the event, you will need to fly people in and wrangle a lot of schedules. We also recommend setting aside several days for the shoot to accommodate fluctuating schedules. For several of our shoots, we set aside three to five days to make sure there was enough time and flexibility to cover everyone. The important thing is to remember that schedules will change and shoots don’t always go as planned.
How long will editing take?
If it’s under an hour, just a few days will work. If your event is several hours long, and you have multiple stakeholders, and animation, and etc, etc, then set aside at least two weeks to edit. That includes time for your team to provide feedback. Also remember that for larger videos, rendering alone will take several hours, possibly an entire work day.
And depending on how much time you have, you also want to choose a video production company that has multiple editors on staff, technical capabilities and/or is able to scale up to complete tasks on time.
Every event is different, but these four high-level questions will help you get started and set a framework for who you choose as your partners and how the production will go.
Picturelab is a full-service video production company that specializes in corporate event video production. We are based in Mountain View, California, and Irvine, California, with capabilities all over the United States.
Contact us to learn more about our corporate event capabilities.
