One of the best professional lessons I ever learned was about holding the line and adapting. A terrific Creative Director once told me that what really marked out a successful Creative was not their work ethic or their talent, their passion or their flair. It was their ability to hold onto a brief, to keep all the ideas up in the air and adaptable in the face of changing circumstances, demands of stakeholders and clients, right up to the last minute.
So you’ve got a big event booked - a conference, an awards night, an intimate breakfast or a trade show. You’ve spent forever arranging all the details, inviting delegates, dealing with the venue, arranging everything from the presentations to the refreshments and you’ve probably spent the GDP of an emerging nation doing it all. Now you want to document and promote it. You may well have an AV team to record the whole thing, which is something we do , but more to the point of this blog, you will be looking for an event photographer - or videographer, the same rules apply to both, and you may even be able to find someone like me who can DO both.
What you want to feel confident about is that they know what they’re doing and that they will deliver the very best for you. So here is a simple list of factors you should know.
I’ve shot a lot of business conferences and networking events across the last year, both as filmmaker and as photographer, and of course there hasn’t been a single one where AI didn’t feature as a prime topic. And while it is easy to see the vast dehumanising shadow of Palentir falling across us like the grim reaper on steroids, it is also very notable that in every single one of those conferences, the audiences were humans listening TO ANOTHER HUMAN.
That is important to remember. If AI were as wonderful as it’s most vocal supporters claim, why on earth would anyone give their time, even their money, to sit in a room listening to another human being tell them so, when technology could inform them quicker, better, cheaper?
I got into photography as a gentle creative release from the pressures I put on myself as a TV creative. The result was that ten years ago I reverse-engineered a happier more successful professional life from doing this is - something I am constantly amazed at and grateful for
But here’s the thing, if you’re a perfectionist, if you pressure yourself too much
You can end up erasing all the joy and value from what you do, from your life.
Imagine arriving at the beautiful Halnaker Wood and Windmill, and instead of just enjoying the beauty of it, you worry about framing and exposure, about whether your shot is a cliche or even worth taking. I mean, crazy, right?
This is a great question, and one, I suspect that will not get you very helpful answers if you ask google/AI or reddit.
Amazingly, I am not asked this question by clients all that often. Understandably, for the most part, they trust that no one would claim to do something for money if they couldn’t deliver, and so they accept that it is possible. Which it is. Other photographers ask me quite a lot, and in fact I run workshops helping them learn how to do it. Because while it is possible, it isn’t easy and it isn’t for the faint-hearted.
Being fairly heartless myself, this last bit isn’t an issue. But there are certain requirements, certain bits of kit, and a certain skillset before you can do this.
Read MoreThe call came in to provide creative assets for this fast-moving Fintech company. In this case, documenting a crucial meeting and brainstorm with event photography, a highlights corporate video and a full transcribable recording of all that went down.
A really nice bunch of people, Acquired.com offer a unified solution combined with highly personalized service, providing its customers with a competitive edge in an industry often characterized by fragmented solutions. The company's mission is to establish itself as a core component of the payment infrastructure for recurring commerce, proactively addressing the evolving needs of its clientele.
Now a lot of people use their phone to do this. Inevitably most come to realise that a really good piece to camera involves good lighting, good sound, great lenses, an autocue, a great camera with a big sensor and lots of resolution, adroit direction.
Read MoreYOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY AND HOW YOU WANT TO SAY IT, BUT WHAT IS YOUR BUDGET?
How much will my film cost? Is inevitably our first question. The unhelpful answer is of course, how long is a piece of string? You may want a simple one-day, one-man shoot with a quick one-day edit, and you can probably get that for under a grand if you’re not too fussy and it really is just a one-day edit. Or you might want an ambitious creative concept, with lots of pre-production followed by a complex week-long shoot, filming on a RED camera, and lots of complicated compositing and animated graphics. And that could be £20 - £30 000. Or more.
Read MoreSo here’s the cruel irony. Even though I know I possess the kind of staggering youthful good looks that make people catch their breath and drop their falafel when they meet me in real life, on camera I look like a laboratory experiment where the mad scientist has injected the DNA of Brendan Gleason and Charles Manson into a old potato
And being self-conscious - oh my crooked smile, oh my seventy-eight chins - means I forget that my delicious eyes are like limpid emerald pools you could drown in, and I project discomfort - In short, I don’t pose well. Maybe you do. Millions of others dont. And some of them work for you.
Read MoreWHY THE BEST WAY TO SELL YOUR PEOPLE IS TO USE YOUR PEOPLE
Back in the mists of time, every corporate video had an ambitious narrative, like a storyboarded long-form commercial, a piece of expensive, styled, authored creative in its own right. These films do still get made and they are great. I make them myself, though more usually I work in short form. Is this always how you want to disseminate your information, your brand, your company? Sometimes yes. Just as sometimes you want to Ronseal it, to say it like it is. But do you want to be that blunt? Again probably not.
Read MoreWHAT VALUE DOES A PROFESSIONAL VIDEOGRAPHER ACTUALLY BRING TO THE PARTY?
Sure so this is where you get sold all the corporate and advertising cliches about brand identity and adding value to your message and blah blah blah. And you may not be thinking in those terms, but rather about just demonstrating something seemingly quite simple.
Read MoreYOU NEED A PHOTOGRAPHER , AND YOU ALSO WANT A CORPORATE VIDEOGRAPHER, BUT YOUR BUDGET PAYS FOR ONLY ONE OF THEM - WHAT DO YOU DO?
The short answer is of course some people can do both. The challenge is finding someone who is genuinely good at both, which is not as easy as it sounds. There are plenty of great photographers out there who can’t really shoot video. There are some good videographers out there, though they are no nearly so easy to find, and some of them are competent photographers too.
Read MoreWHY EITHER EVERYONE OR NO ONE NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT AI
With the announcement that China-based NetDragon Websoft says it is the first company in the world to appoint an AI as its CEO only to see stocks soar, naturally it isn’t just struggling bloggers and graphic designers who are worried about the implication of AI
This is where I’d like to reassure you that climate change ravaging the planet and making the lives of those few who survive the catastrophic flooding, wild fires and raging hurricanes that are predicted absolute hell.
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