Behind the Lens – What Makes Great Event Video

With the growth of hybrid events, webinars, and general re-purposing of event content online, video is becoming a critical part of the event plan.

While the lighting and camera angles are very important (more on that later), according to Emily Timmerman, Senior Solutions Consultant with Adobe Connect, the most critical decision that needs to be made is the quality and resolution of the video.[Tweet "Behind the Lens: Event video tips from Emily Timmerman with @AdobeConnect #GovEventsBlog"] You need to be knowledgeable about your online audience. What is their bandwidth? What level of resolution can they best view and can you best produce? If they cannot clearly view HD, there is no reason to spend money on getting high definition footage.  You also need to be aware of the bandwidth of the location you are shooting, make sure the connection can easily handle your video feed.

Emily also cited that in planning for the event, decide how best to capture the speakers. If there is a panel, one constant shot of the whole stage may make for smoother footage rather than zooming in and out on each speaker.[Tweet "In planning for the event video, decide how best to capture the speakers. #GovEventsBlog"] Know how much your panelists will interact and talk amongst themselves so you can decide if a static position, zoom in and out, or multiple cameras would be the most effective (and be the least likely to cause motion sickness).

Once these decisions are made, lighting can be set up to provide the best visual, and speakers can be advised on clothing choices (no busy patterns, nice pants for full body shot webinars, etc...).

When videoing speakers, concentrate on people not slides. Viewers want to see the speaker and their body language, not the slides on the screen (which will be out of focus or blurry even with the best camera).[Tweet "When videoing speakers, concentrate on people not slides. #GovEventsBlog"] Find a way to feed the slides to your online viewers, either through an additional window or as a separate link or follow-up post.

Finally, make sure there is a way for your online audience to interact with speakers -- be it through text questions sent into a moderator or a video or audio feed of online participants into the live event. Deciding how to involve the online audience also comes back to knowing bandwidth limitations.

In an upcoming post we'll share some success stories Emily shared of how the government is using video to expand and enhance training and collaboration.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on how to get quality video of live events. Let us know what is working for you.