Months of preparation have gone into making your live event a success. You have the location, speakers, entertainment, and activation team. It’s sure to be a hit! Wouldn’t it be great to capture the experience to encourage future successes? How do you communicate the strengths of the event to potential participants? What goes into a video that sticks in the mind? In this series, we discuss the elements that we often use in a live event video.
Timelapses
Live events often feel busier than they look. While a wide crowd shot may capture many people, those people are usually moving little in relation to the whole picture, producing a feeling in the viewer of watching people milling about – not exactly high energy!
Use of a timelapse is one good solution. The increased pace of a traditional video lapse allows us to see much greater movement in a short amount of time. Activity and busyness are effectively conveyed. The following clip is shot from an overlooking building about 5 stories high.
A hyperlapse moves through time as well as space. The videographer takes a little longer to create this effect since he needs to move with his camera as he is filming. In the following clip, we feel as if we are running up to the Multi-Material BC booth at the Golden Spike Days Festival.
We see a bit more of the installation in the next clip, where the camera moves in a circular pattern. People are interacting with the display and having fun. A few leave shortly after arrival, but we see that most stay to look around. Since we also observe the booth as part of a larger event, we get a good idea of the installation in context.
Similar to a hyperlapse is the motion control time lapse. The movement in this case is created through the use of specialized hardware and can operate with minimal minding by the videographer.
Timelapses are traditionally used to illustrate long processes, such as leaves changing over the course of a year or stars moving across the sky. In an event, we can show the building of an important structure, creation of artwork, or changes shaped by contributors. The Multi-Cultural Tree, below, filled out with coloured “leaves” which were placed by event participants over the course of a week. Captured in several one-hour periods, the timelapse of this progression nicely shows the impact of the tree as the central object of the event.
Manipulation of time creates strong accents to a promotional piece. In the case of timelapses within an event video, remember that less is more. All of the above clips are under 15 seconds in length, and in a video of three to five minutes, these additional elements add energy and interest to the entire piece. Like well-placed jewelry to complete an outfit, small pieces of timelapse are often worth the cost of capture and creation.
See our full videos that incorporate the use of timelapses below:
