Event video services with filming and editing for promotion

Event video production

Working as a freelance filmmaker and videographer, I offer a wide range of special event video services. My high-quality video production can help you promote and communicate your event to a wider audience. It’s always preferable to undertake planning for your video production well in advance of a launch date. However, this is not always possible, and I am frequently commissioned with last-minute filming and editing projects. As an independent freelancer, I am often the sole filmmaker on smaller projects and am very experienced in realising a wide variety of clients’ briefs. When commissions are for larger projects, I am also experienced in the management of team-based crews.

Event video services case study

In this case study, I briefly describe my film production process for a launch event which was recently held at the Bishopsgate Institute in Central London. For this project, I was contacted a few days before the event which gave me sufficient time to clarify the client’s aims and to coordinate a plan for the filming and post-production schedule.

LGBT+ archive launch

Professor Sue Sanders, the founder of LGBT History Month, was donating her extensive archive of LGBT+ history memorabilia to the highly respected Bishopsgate Institute during a special event there. To help explain the collection’s origins and importance, I was commissioned to film the launch event, and opening speeches and then to edit together highlights videos from the evening. These two deliverables were to be utilised to help communicate the archives’ availability and extensive nature to a wider audience. Here is a link to view the full-length video of the evening speeches.

Filming

Before the date of the filming, the organisers sent me a programme of events and put me in touch with the venue contact for further briefing. I was then able to confirm that a clean feed of the PA system would be available to me for the sound recording of the speeches. I was also made aware there would be no suitable lighting for the filming and that I needed to provide some additional lighting. As usual, I arrived early so that I could assess the location and set up my kit to be ready to film well ahead of the start time. This also gave me the opportunity to film some additional location shots and external views of the Bishopsgate Institute before it got dark outside which I could then use in the subsequent edit.

To film the presentation speeches, I set up one camera on a locked-off high tripod shot so that I could capture as wide a view as possible. I filmed this event in UHD (3840×2160 pixels) so that I could deliver in high quality whilst also giving me the option of cropping and resizing in post-production given that it was for HD (1920×1080) delivery.

Post-production and video editing

After filming, I then copied over all the filmed media and the external sound recording to my RAID 5 drives and then cloned these to ensure the project’s media security. In addition to editing a short highlights video, the client also requested a full-length video of all the speeches. I first synced up the 24-bit high-quality sound to the visuals and then started selecting the best parts of the sync for the highlights video. I was given creative freedom to select which parts of the speeches worked best. I’d previously been provided with the logos from Schools Out UK, LGBT History Month and the Bishopsgate Institute for inclusion in the video. To help cover the speech edits, I used a selection of shots of people attending the event and images of part of the archive on display. I changed these cutaway shots to black and white which I thought worked well as a contrast to the colour of the main event.