We were very privileged to have been commissioned by 614 Group to film their very first Brand Safety Summit event. 614 Group is a leading digital advertising consultancy group. The event addressed some of the most pressing issues faced by the digital advertising industry, including viewability, fraud, and transparency. The event attracts some of the industry’s senior-most decision makers for a day of seminars, panel discussions, and Q & A’s.
You can watch the video here:
The Purpose of the Video
The Brand Safety Summit video was filmed in Soho, London, at the boutique Soho Hotel. Our goal was to reflect the importance of the summit, the information that could be gained by attending, and to document how the day went. Since the event was held in such a beautiful location, one of our secondary goals was to portray the elegance and of the location.
To capture the event, there were two main elements. One was recording the actual presenters. Given the caliber of these speakers, the client naturally wanted to make sure that all of the important presenters were recorded. To achieve this, we filmed throughout the day. The second element was interviewing attendees and speakers outside of the main lecture room.
Brand Summit Filming Method
For the panel discussions, Q & A’s, and key-note speaker we used the Sony FS camera7, which also recorded the audio feed from the in-house AV board. This way, whenever the speakers or participants spoke into the microphones, we had a clear feed of their voices. This method was by far more efficient and easier than equipping everyone involved with a lavalier mic, or trying to swing a boom mic around the room to capture everyone speaking.
The AV sound was sent through an XLR cable into the primary FS7. We had a second camera on the opposite side of the auditorium, a Sony A7S2. We also had a third camera, which was the Sony A7S Mark 1, situated in the projection booth. This captured a full view of the auditorium from above.
Why a 3-Camera Setup?
In short, we used a 3-camera setup in order to capture the optimum amount of content at once. We placed our FS7 at the front, because it was our highest-end in-house camera. So not only would the quality be the best, it also has several features that distinguish it from most smaller digital cameras. The FS7 has the XLR input, which was necessary to capture the audio feed. This meant we did not have to use a separate recording method (such as a recorder), and could stream it directly to the camera. We selected the A7S cameras as our secondary equipment, because they work very well in low-light settings. That made them perfect for situations like shooting in the lecture room, where there’s no natural daylight.
Using a Servo Lens
One other interesting aspect of this shoot was the use of a Servo Lens on our primary camera. This meant we could do slow zoom-ins and zoom-outs using a button, rather than manually adjusting with your hand, where there’s more margin of error. The button-zoom allowed us to achieve the same look you would see on the BBC and on sports shows. We usually do not utilize the Servo lens, because using a zoom at all is slightly less filmic in quality. However, we were in need of a constant feed and wanted to be able to capture a variety of frames, so the Servo was ideal in maintaining focus on our speaker.
Talking-Head Interviews
We had a third cameraperson film our talking-head interviews. This took place outside of the main lecture hall. We utilized a Sony FS7001 camera for this footage. Due to the interviewees being right in front of the camera, we were able to use a boom mic to record sound. Additionally, since this part of the shoot was able to be controlled by our cameraperson, we were able to equip each speaker with a lavalier mic. This ensured we had a clear stream of sound throughout.
Lighting Setup For The Brand Summit Safety
Lighting is always a bit tricky when you are not filming on a controlled set. The auditorium where we filmed had two high-end Park Lights. These were used to illuminate the speakers on-stage. We were unable to set up any additional lights on-stage, due to their presence being distracting for the audience and also the fact that they would appear in the footage. We adjusted our camera settings to adjust to the low-light settings.
For the talking-head interviews, we used a Dedolight DHL4, with the addition of a Dedo Toplight. This ensured we had a flattering light on our subject, while not washing out the background.