Event videographer case study
Working as a freelancer, I am frequently commissioned as an event videographer. The previous events I have worked on range from large conferences at exhibition centres to awards ceremonies in hotels. In this case study, I explain the details of delivering a video explaining the ‘Exploring Spaces’ concept commissioned for the Great Charter Festival.
Commissioned by Digital Drama
I was commissioned by Digital Drama to film and record the sound of the dance performances at a day’s festival events. Surrey Dance Collective were to perform a series of five new works during the Great Charter Festival at Royal Holloway University in Egham. In addition to the filming, I was commissioned to deliver a film of each entire dance performance and an edited 2-minute short highlights film to help explain the project potential funders and supporters.
Filming on location
Upon arriving at the festival with Producer Alison Ramsey, we first toured the site to recce the performance spaces and location. We had a selection of dance performances to capture as well as general views of the festival in progress. Over the course of the day, we also needed to film an interview with each of the dance choreographers. Alison had scheduled the filming so we would be able to capture everything we needed.
Event videographer filming challenges
Every event I film is unique in some way, and I make sure I am always prepared to overcome and potential challenges. I soon encountered several challenges on this one-day shoot. One of these was capturing the dances that were performed over a very wide area. To manage this, I used my monopod as a handheld supporting device so that I could move around with some of the performers.
Another one of the challenging dances that I needed to film was performed in a narrow tungsten lit dark corridor that also moved into bright daylight lit rooms. The dance was performed around a headphone-wearing public audience invited into the space by a guiding soundtrack. To gain a clear shot of this performance, I hand-held my monopod above head height with my camera screen twisted down so that I could still monitor the shot. Given that I was editing the films I took the decision to white balance the camera for the tungsten light and left the colour correction for the move into the daylight rooms to post-production.
Video editing
The day’s events were filmed in 4K, and the project was to be delivered at 1920 x 1080. Once I had copied all the camera files onto my Raid 5 (and backed this up) I AMA linked the media files in a new Avid 4K project and then transcoded all the camera footage at a 4K resolution. The transcoding of the camera .mov files progressed without any problems. After the footage had been transcoded I created a 1920 x 1080 Avid project and then opened up the 4K media bin within that project. During the editing of the 2-minute highlights film, I was then able to use Avid FrameFlex to resize some of the shots without losing any resolution.
A link to the edit was sent to the producer and after some detail changes signed off and delivered.
If you would like any hire me as an event videographer or help you with your video production, please get in touch.
