Event Editing for Tanfield

On the 7th of February, we were invited back by Tanfield Chambers to help film their Spring Conference a ‘Follow Up Day with the BSA’ which they chose to produce at our favourite location, The Royal College of Surgeons, and you can see a glimpse into the whole day in the promo we also made on youtube here!

It has been 8 months since the last conference and BSA event. There’s a lot to cover on the BSA, along with updates on case law and certificates, so this was the follow up! I was able to to use this chance and show off how much I had grown and improved as an editor since then. Just like the blog post I wrote last July I thought to make a follow up piece giving a peek behind the scenes; our process for editing the event footage.

What happened last time?

Last time for the event video edit we were working with about 7 hours of footage, this time we only had 6 hours. The presentations ran shorter at around 20 minutes or less. This helped break up the pace and allow for audience questions in-between, which helped the editing process run a whole lot smoother.

I wanted to try and tweak some of the previous PowerPoint templates I used. I started by improving the assets as I always think they can be improved in little ways to show change and growth of the event. Tanfield has a very minimalist and clean aesthetic, I used their core colours of red, white and black.

I widened the border to allow more on screen and sized down the logo as to not distract from the presentation, and other than some lightening of colours and appropriate brand font changes, I was happy with what I had. It’s as the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and yet I still tried fixing it.

Lighting is your best friend

With an updated cleaner border, I also wanted to tackle the issue of LUTs and colour correction early, as last year, due to the slight off white lighting inside the building, colouring was very difficult to actually do and everything just came off as extremely drab and sanitised. However, thanks to the many warm indoor lights of The Royal College of Surgeons, this year was a lot more vibrant and saturated, and it really shows on all the event footage. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the old and new side by side:

Even for our Event Vox Pops we managed to keep that cinematic flare from last year that I was so proud of, but have added to it by featuring much busy and interesting backgrounds, with warmer tones overall. In turn this helped amplify peoples voices and their respect/trust for Tanfield. We interviewed delegates who really understood Tanfield, and could list certain aspects, experiences or people that made them come to love their work and keep coming to their events/conferences.

The best examples are with the presentations themselves, thanks to our camera men Alex Lesseps & Rob Lewis the Sony FX6 and Sony FX3 capturing every detail in 4K, the image was crystal clear and easy to drastically zoom in whenever needed without fear of pixilation and better yet meant the camera could capture more colours so when playing with the LUT we jump from a dull unfinished shot to something much more expected from a professional event, just see the examples below:

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways I could have played with the shot colours in a more interesting manner. However, there’s only so much you can do with a wood panelled wall and a lot of people dressed in dark tones! I tried to pop colours in their hair, blushed cheeks, and eyes really helps bring the final look together and breathe life in the event footage. It was all made possible thanks to the bright warm lighting inside making up for the grey and cloudy natural lighting outside.

The Audience is important too

With a new venue even came a new room for Tanfield, one wide and long which was great for catching the perfect angles of both the presentation up front, but the people inside watching. Whereas last year we were at an angle and couldn’t entirely capture reactions, this yeah we had full opportunity to appreciate the surroundings and show how many people were interested in the BSA and the updated policy.

This year we made sure to capture a lot more of the audience’s perspective, which really helps give a better insight of the whole day and the little moments that get overlooked, such as a good chat during a coffee break, or audience engagement from an outsider looking in. This exemplifies how good the talks really are and how they capture the audience. It’s also a good chance to see the speakers in a more casual setting and easily approachable if you have any brooding questions that might have got missed in a talk.

We did try our best to use different angles, with the social break room having a lower angle to make people more eye level and keep that casual communication message going. Whereas if everything was shot at a higher angle in the presentation room it would have a very formal feel to the event.

Looking to the future

If you’re curious on the final result and forgot to click that link at the beginning of the page, here’s your chance to see the final promo video I spent the whole time working on;

While Tanfield’s event may have only lasted a day, it lasted around a month for me editing the event footage. It has been a learning experience as always, from how to balance a casual yet formal look, the intricacies that can go into editing a subtle message and painting a picture of character. I hope for the next shoot we can take a similar approach, as with such a fun environment and more examples of b-roll and people, it really sold and elevated upon that cinematic vibe we like to bring to Tanfield.

Be sure to check out the videos on Tanfield’s website, and full coverage of all talks will be made available for those who could not attend on the day and a selection of highlights.