Making a Video of your Conference or Seminar When you have invested so much time and effort in a conference or seminar, particularly if high profile speakers have come from overseas or if many of your potential audience are unable to attend, it's quite normal to want to create a video record of the event.

But, typically, a 2-day conference or seminar will contain between 12 and 16 hours of presentations.  Will anybody actually want to watch a video even half that length?

The dynamic of a conference or seminar is completely different to that of a video.  The two media work in different ways.

So there are a number of key questions you need to ask:

• what will your audience be interested in?
• will different sections of the audience be interested in different parts of the conference or seminar?
• what do you want to achieve by making a video?
• what are the key messages from the conference or seminar?

We can then help you devise a approach for your conference or seminar video that will succeed.

Preparation

• we'll work with you to plan how the material from the conference or seminar will be presented:
  • which speeches and sessions are important?
  • how many people will be speaking in the same session?
  • will there be simultaneous translation?
  • will this end up on a DVD or an interactive CD-ROM (which will allow you to include documents, Powerpoint, interactive exercises ...)?
  • will you want a trimmed down version for streaming over the internet?
  • will your key speakers allow you to record them? (an important issue if they are management gurus or celebrity speakers and not your employees)
  • will there be sessions running simultaneously, in parallel?
  • will we have access to the audience and/or the speakers and organisers to be able to film their thoughts and reactions, so we can put the event into context?
• ideally we will check the venue for your conference or seminar for any technical issues, for example:
  • lighting
  • external sound (traffic, aircraft, etc)
  • location of windows, doors, pillars, etc. which may interfere with our sight lines
  • low ceilings
  • whether we will get a feed from the PA system or need to provide radio, clip or lectern mics

The Day of the Conference

• normally we would provide two cameras, which will be synched together.  This allows us to provide a variety of shots in the finished video DVD, CD-ROM or web streaming video.  It also provides safety cover in case the presenter moves suddenly or something else happens to spoil the main shot.
• if the conference or seminar is illustrated with Powerpoint slides or a software demo, we would capture that separately, using a screen-grab application such as Camtasia.  This will provide better quality than shooting the screen at the event.

The Finished Production

• we put together a rough cut for your approval, which will tell the story.  Once you approve this, we add titles, voiceover links, cutaways and other elements to provide a polished production.
• we have known conferences where the organiser required the material to be edited overnight, so that the video would be ready for the end of the event.  This is quite practical, but does incur an extra cost for overtime and extra crew and equipment.  You have to ask yourself whether that would be worth it.  Will the speakers or delegates be desperate to see the video as soon as they get home from the conference?

Converting a seminar or course to e-learning, interactive  CD-ROM or interactive video DVD is a rather different process.

Assuming the speaker is available and won't be flying back to the US or wherever, our scriptwriter would attend the course or seminar as a delegate.  We might also provide a simple video camera to record the event, but purely for reference.  We would also ask for a copy of all the Powerpoint slides, handouts and other course material.

We would then write a script, which would show exactly how the interactive multimedia CD-ROM or e-learning would work - how we would convert course activities into interactive exercises, which elements we would ask the speaker to present, which sections we would replace with animated graphics or new documentary or drama video, voiceover narration and so on.

Once the speaker / course leader and yourself are happy with the concept, we would video the speaker in a neutral location.  This could take the form of an interview or pieces to camera, for which we could provide teleprompt if necessary.  This controlled situation, away from a live course or seminar, allows the speaker to redo their shots until they are 100% happy with them.

We then build the rest of the e-learning or multimedia material around this core.

Please contact us for a quote.

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01695 727555

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Enlightenment Interactive

East End House

24 Ennerdale

Skelmersdale

WN8 6AJ

Winner, "Interactive Media Project

of the Year", National AudioVisual

Awards