When Boris Johnson announced another national lockdown on the 4th of January, the country collectively gave an exasperated sigh of resignation as it felt like the clocks were turned back to March 2020. The thought of life being limited again and the restrictions to what we can and can’t do was not how most people thought 2021 would begin. However it is slightly different this time around, we’re not going into the unknown quite as much as before and we have learned ways to adapt to the situation to at least make it more manageable.
One of the biggest issues to come from the lockdown situation is how businesses address communication and engagement with their staff. This has been the same issue whether it’s an SME with a few employees in the same town or a large global company with staff spread out across the world. The development of Zoom and Microsoft Teams has managed to alleviate this situation and allow people to connect and video chat simply through phones and laptops but these platforms have some limitations. They are very much single person based, in other words it’s based around the user sat in front of their webcam with a limited range of scope. The quality can vary from the picture to the audio and very few people pay attention to elements such as lighting and exposure to give the best picture. (We actually produced a short series of videos for anyone looking to address issues like this for home filming.) All in all, it serves a purpose well for communication but anything beyond that and there are many factors that hinder the quality of the communication.
So, as meeting tool or something for a quick chat, online video calls are great. However, what about if you want to launch a new product? Or looking to address your staff with a mass meeting? Perhaps need to inspire staff or need to stage a conference or host the company’s annual awards event to keep morale up? In these cases Zoom and Teams just aren’t going to cut it and a more professional event streaming is needed. That’s where we come in.
We can provide a streaming service that gives you the quality you need to represent your brand to your audience with the professionalism of a slick event delivered just like it was in an event hall or venue. There are a couple of options to do this depending on the nature of your event, the level of interaction from the audience and the event budget.
Live Broadcast
If you are looking to replicate an event that would be delivered live at a venue to an audience then a live broadcast could be the answer. Our camera operators will film all of the proceedings, capture the speeches and relay everything as it happens to your watching audience. This can also include switching camera angles or viewing multiple presenters, incorporating PowerPoint slides and generally showing what would normally be on a stage for everyone to see. We can even include pre-recorded videos in the broadcast to cut to if necessary. The viewer experience is as if they are watching a live TV show with as much additional content, music and graphics as required. We can even manage live chat and social media interaction from the audience and respond and reply as required. We’ve done this type of production for speaker panels, product launches, staff conferences and more. All live with ticketed entry and firewalls to prevent non-paying guests attending if required. Perhaps the best part is that we can do this from almost anywhere. It can be your office location or an event hall, on a stage or in our studio – whatever your budget and your requirements demand.
Pre-Recorded Broadcast
This can be a more cost effective way of putting your broadcast together plus it eliminates the unpredictability of live broadcasting. The principles are the same but the event is recorded beforehand and a final ‘show’ is edited together as required. We still film in the same high quality, all of the graphics are provided as necessary but it’s all edited together well in advance of the broadcast date. There is no need for on the spot vision mixing like in a live stream and you can plan and re-record as much as you like within your shooting day. Presentations can still be edited in along with videos and any other supplementary content. The elements such as pay walls and ticketing can still be set up and managed as can social media and chat options too while the stream is happening. The main difference is that the work is done well in advance of the ‘go live’ date and the technical requirements at the time of broadcast are less meaning that there are cost savings too. We have recently produced this style of broadcast for the West Midlands PA Awards where we filmed the entire awards show before hand at Hogarths Hotel in Solihull complete with full set, band and guests presenting the awards.
We then edited it together along with graphics, musical interludes and more with the end result being a slick show that captured the excitement and enthusiasm of previous awards events for the West Midlands PA community.
The event streaming enquiries that we have had demonstrate just how versatile this can be and is really only limited by your imagination. The West Midlands PA Awards was a lavish and large scale event with many elements that we felt was better delivered as a pre-recorded event video but some of the live event streaming that we have produced include:
Panel Discussions –
where a panel of guests has been located in one venue and we have filmed and managed question and answer sessions with an online audience along with a presenter/host taking the questions and relaying them back to panel of guests
Product Launches –
a presenter has demonstrated a new product from a studio location to an online audience where questions about the product have either been sent in advance or have been asked live via a chat facility.
Staff Conferences –
the CEO of a large business has addressed staff located across the country on key business updates, responses to the pandemic and a general morale boosting, rallying call to the workforce
These are just some examples of the type of event streaming that a business might need but we are also able to offer suggestions on how to deliver an event or activity that a business may have. We are able to work in almost any location from offices to studios and more so we’ll always look to the best option to give you the most professional delivery. We can advise on the level of production that you will need to deliver exactly what you want and how the crew will deliver it for you.
For more information and to talk through your requirements with us, contact us here to get in touch and we’ll be happy to help you get your event seen by everyone that needs to see it regardless of the lockdown situation that we’re in.
Blog writer: Adam Snelleksz is a director of CMA Video and has worked in marketing for over 20 years. He has worked in video production in Birmingham for nine years with CMA Video and has been using video for marketing for nearly 12 years. He also set up the video TV channel Blues TV, the official online channel of Birmingham City Football Club. Some of the projects that Adam has used promotional videos for include the Birmingham Half Marathon, the European Gymnastics Championships and the World BMX Championships.
Our video marketing blogs have been recognised as one of the Top 50 Video Marketing Blogs on the internet. We hope you enjoy reading them and gain valuable insights into what we do here at CMA Video and show that we’re not just another Birmingham video production company but we do more from animation videos to event filming, video strategy to social media video campaigns.
