Articles Tagged with: Video Production Process

Live Stream Your Event on a Budget

More and more videographers are starting to offer live streaming as a service. How do you know if you need professional live streaming or if you can do it yourself? We offer a professional live streaming service for events and ceremonies all around Victoria and Vancouver Island. We get a lot of inquiries about live streaming events and often, people don’t need or have the budget for professional videographers or broadcasting so we wanted to put this resource together to help.

We acknowledge that we live, work and create (and rent camera equipment) on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations.

Should You Hire a Professional Live Streaming Service for Your Event?

With our live streaming service, we provide multiple cameras, audio mixing, consultation, and streaming. We offer a broadcast-quality live stream and can switch between multiple video sources efficiently while providing professional quality audio to both your in-person and online audiences. There are a lot of videographers out there who offer live streaming but aren’t capable of providing high-quality audio so it’s important to hire a team with experience in this area.

We also provide the added benefit of expertise in setting camera angles, lighting, and logistics of the event (where should people stand on stage, where to enter/exit, how should we light the stage, etc.). We also take care of all the gear logistics, setting up equipment, taking down after the event, and coordinating with any other vendors that you’ve hired for your event.

You might be reading this and thinking that you don’t need any of these benefits, and you might not. Keep reading to help decide if you need a professional live streaming company and if not, how to live stream your event on a budget.

Do You Need a Professional Live Streaming Service?

This is an important question to ask before going further. If you don’t need a professional broadcast, then you can typically do it yourself and save a lot of money. Here are some questions to think about:

Are customers paying to watch this event? If you have a paying audience, then you will want to have a professional broadcast. No one wants to pay for a ticket and not be able to hear or see what’s going on during the event. Hiring a professional live streaming service is a way to ensure that you’re providing a high-quality service and entice your audience to pay for future events.

Do we need multiple cameras? For a lot of ceremonies, a single camera is sufficient. If you’re having a service or a speech where there is just one speaker at a podium or little on-stage movement, you might be able to set a fixed camera and leave it. If you have a speaker on stage and you want to show the stage as well as the emotion on their face, then you’ll want multiple cameras. If you have a ceremony with a speaker and recipients receiving an award then you probably want a closeup and a wide shot of the stage. If you want to show shots of the audience or have a feed of a presentation/videos during the ceremony, you’ll likely want a professional service. Having a professional broadcaster can help to manage multiple live feeds and cut between the appropriate video sources.

Do we need a camera operator? If you don’t have paying customers and you don’t need multiple cameras, you then want to think about camera movement. If your event will have a moving subject, then you’ll probably want to hire someone to operate the camera. Some events have a single stationary speaker or if you’re okay with only streaming a wide shot of your wedding, then you can probably set up a single camera and leave it to stream your event.

Are there multiple audio sources? This is one of, if not the most important aspects of a live stream and it’s also the most overlooked aspect. How are you going to mic the speaker or speakers for your event? If you have one speaker who will be speaking at a consistent volume or if you’re okay with sharing inconsistent audio with your viewers then you’re probably okay to use a single audio source and run the stream yourself. If you have multiple speakers, instruments, or music that you want to share then you’ll want an experienced team to mix the audio for your online audience.

Are you projecting audio for the in-person audience? If you want to have a subject on stage who is speaking with one mic and you want to use the same sound for in-person PA speakers and online, then you may want to consider hiring a professional sound mixer to manage the two outputs.

If you’ve read all this and think that you’re okay with a single stationary camera and a single audio source then we have some steps for you to host your own stream.

How To Live Stream Your Own Event

Option 1: Live Stream from Your Phone (Under $100)

This is the easiest option for most people. You can live stream directly from your phone to many different apps including Facebook or YouTube. With YouTube, you’ll need a minimum number of subscribers to access the feature from mobile so we’re not going to include it here. If you have 50 subscribers on your YouTube Account you can live stream from mobile using the steps here.

To set up a live stream on Facebook, you’ll need to create an event (which can all be done on your phone). Go to the menu, select events, and you’ll see an option to create an event at the top of the screen. Make sure you select ‘Online’ for your event type and then follow the prompts to create your event name, date, and privacy settings. You’ll want to make sure that you select a Facebook Live event (and not a messenger room).

Once the event has been created and shared with your audience, select ‘Start Live Video’ from your phone and you’ll see your camera come up on the screen. Note that you won’t be live until you press the ‘Start Live Video’ button.

Your live stream will automatically use the microphone from your phone unless you have a microphone plugged into your phone. If the speaker is going to be far away from the phone or if you just want better sounding audio here are some options:

- - Plug a lavalier mic into your phone. Here is a cheap wired lav that works well if the speaker is going to be within a meter or two of the camera.
  - Set up a wireless Lav mic. Rode makes some great wireless options that can be used with your phone. Note that if you’re using the newer system that can have two mics, the only caveat is that you won’t have any control over the balance of the sources. If two people are speaking at the same time or if one person is coming out as too quiet, then you won’t be able to adjust this while you’re streaming.
  - Run a handheld mic into your camera. You can easily rent a handheld mic (or buy one with an aux output) and run a cable up to the speaker of the event. If you go this route you may need to get an xlr to aux converter so that you can plug the mic into your phone.

Aside from that, we would advise you to get a tripod for your phone and make sure that you test out your live stream beforehand to make sure that the audio and video both work properly. If you’re looking to rent, make sure you check out the vendors that we usually work with on our recommended Video Equipment Rental Houses in Victoria.

Option 2: Live Stream Using a DSLR or Mirrorless Camera ($100-$1,000)

For this step, you’re going to want to get a camera with good autofocus. Most newer cameras will suffice but both Canon and Sony are particularly well known for their constant autofocus. You will also need a laptop or computer to send out the live stream from the camera.

If you’re streaming on Facebook, use the same process described above to set up your Facebook Live event. If you’re using YouTube, you’ll need to verify your account in advance and then schedule the stream. You can do it following the steps here or there are several YouTube videos on the subject. When you are setting up your stream, make sure that you are setting it up to use a webcam. Although you’ll be using a separate camera, the following steps are going to have you set up your camera to work as if it were a webcam so you’ll need your live event to be set up to use a webcam.

When you’re setting up your camera to be used as a webcam, there are a couple of options. Some camera manufacturers have applications that allow you to plug your camera into the USB of your laptop. Newer Canon and Panasonic cameras (and likely other makes as well) for sure have this feature. If you have a cable that plugs into a micro-USB, USB-c or USB 3.0 Micro B on your camera and can plug into the USB or USB c on your laptop, then give this a try. This process will be different depending on your camera, so we recommend searching on Google ‘Using XXX Camera as a Webcam’ where XXX is your camera model.

If this doesn’t work, then you can still do this using the HDMI or Mini-HDMI port on your camera. You’ll need to buy something called a video capture card. This will allow you to plug your camera into your computer. If your laptop or computer has an extra HDMI port, you can not use this. Any HDMI ports on your computer will be HDMI output, not HDMI inputs. You’ll need to get a capture card if your camera does not have an app to use as a webcam.

Once this is set up, test a live stream or Zoom call and see if you can set your camera to be used as a webcam. This may take some troubleshooting but there are lots of YouTube videos showing you how to do this if you need.

If you’ve been able to set this up properly, your next step is to sort out the audio. You can plug a microphone directly into your camera and this will be used for the live stream. Have a look at the audio options that we recommended for the ‘live streaming using your phone’ section, as the same will work here using this camera.

From there you can go to your event on Facebook or live stream on YouTube and start the stream when you’re ready.

Go Live!

We would recommend testing out the stream a couple of times to make sure that you’re confident setting up the stream without issues. There’s always an added excitement when you know people are watching your broadcast live and it’s easy to make mistakes so it’s important to feel comfortable.

If possible, you might also want to monitor the stream during the event to fix any issues that come up. If someone bumps the camera/phone or the mic has come unplugged, it could ruin the stream for your audience.If you feel like you want a professional team to take care of this, we’re always happy to help. You can see an example of some of our live streams here. We understand that not everyone has a budget or need for a professional streaming service and hope that this resource has made live streaming more accessible for you!

Surf and Stone Studios: Our Video Production Process

We put a lot of consideration into our video production process to ensure that your brand is properly positioned. We need to be intentional with what we include in our videos and our process helps us achieve that.

Many times, people don’t realize all of the steps that are involved in the process so we want to be transparent about all of the work that goes into making a successful video.

Keep reading to the bottom to get an idea of how much our video production packages cost!

We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ nations.

Learning About Your Brand

When we first meet, we’ll have lots of questions. Our goal is to learn as much as we can about you, your business, brand, and challenges. An effective branded video will align your business with your brand values in the eyes of your customers and allow you to position your business in such a way that can overcome your organizational challenges.

Most of these questions fall into the following categories:

Your Business: Who are you?

Telling us the basics of your business gives us a platform to move forward from. When we know what products or services you offer, where you offer them, and who your customers are, we develop an understanding of the industry and space that your business is operating in. When we’re developing a video or series of videos for you, this helps us to build a framework of what’s common in your industry and what can we do differently to help you stand out.

Your Brand: What makes you different?

Knowing why your customers choose you over your competitors is what allows you to connect with your customers on a deeper level (aka. your Unique Value Proposition). Any videos that we produce will need to enhance your branding, so we need to know what values are integral to your business.

Your Future: What challenges lie in your way?

Whether you’re trying to get more sales, promote a new product, or increase brand awareness, you’ll need a unique approach that’s customized to your brand. An effective branded video campaign will position your brand to overcome an organizational challenge in the eyes of your customer.

Pre-Production

Concepting an Idea

We ask ourselves several questions at this stage. We want to make sure that the idea we land on is going to effectively convey your message to your target audience. Sometimes this is a single video and sometimes it’s a series of videos or a combination of different types of media. In the concepting stage, we try to define what the core messaging is going to be and create a vision for how the video should look and what emotions we want to convey. We take these as a guideline for the rest of our production process.

Scriptwriting & Generating Questions

Since we have a specific goal for your video, we will often write a script to guide the production process. Even if we’re conducting interviews, it helps to have an idea of what talking points we need and the accompanying visuals that we want to capture. This is an opportunity for you to get a glimpse of where we’re going with the process and allows for you to give input and verify the direction that we’re headed. We want to make sure that you have a clear idea of what the video will look like so that we can minimize any possible misrepresentations.

Once we have this approved, we put the structure into a series of questions. We word these based on the points we’ve outlined in the script and structure the interview into a casual, conversational tone. It can be a delicate process to get the stories that we need with an authentic tone sometimes and we put a lot of thought into how we can achieve this.

Storyboarding

This is not always required, but for heavily scripted concepts we find it beneficial to construct a storyboard for our projects. As the script focuses more on what will happen in the video and what shots we need, the storyboard solidifies how each shot is going to look. If we’re going to use a lot of graphics or text in your video, we likely need to plan each shot so that there is enough space for the copy we’ve approved.

Location Scouting, Casting & Recruiting Crew

For most people, this is the biggest barrier to producing their own videos but we have an extensive network of creatives, creative spaces, and talent to draw from. We often visit locations in advance and evaluate them based on the space, lighting, location, accessibility in addition to how well it aligns with the vision for the video. We have strong relationships with local talent agencies to source models or actors and we can source a crew to fit the needs of each project. If we need an additional camera operator, stylist, hairdresser, photographer, etc. we can bring them on to help bring your video to life.

Shot listing

This is a crucial part of the process that happens behind the scenes. Our team goes through the script, storyboard, and plan for the day and writes down all of the necessary shots that we need. This ensures that when we’re in the middle of production we don’t miss a crucial shot and sacrifice any portion of your messaging. As a creative agency, we still love having the freedom on set to pursue other shots but our shot-list serves as our creative safety net and allows us.

Production

Call Sheet

During the week before our production date, we’ll send out a call sheet to everyone involved in the shoot. This has all the information that might be needed by anyone involved on the day. Who is needed, when to show up, where to go, what the weather will be like, where to park, what times are we shooting different scenes, and what the vision is for the day. This ensures a smooth schedule on the day of and reduces the need for last-minute coordinating.

Arrival and Set-Up

For directed scenes and interviews, we like to have an hour to set up. This allows us enough time to decide on the backdrop and lighting style. Once we have that, we’ll add or remove different items from the frame to make sure we add depth and character to the environment. It’s always good to have enough time to try out some different options because we want to go with the best-looking setup and sometimes it can be hard to know without trying different options.

Arriving early also allows us enough time to test our audio. If we’re recording an interview, we want to know that we’re getting a clean feed and might need to try some different microphones if there’s any noise in the background.

Depending on the size of the production, we also like to have some time to chat with the crew, talent, and your team members to create a friendly and fun atmosphere. We’ve found that a more enjoyable culture on set directly translates to better performances on camera and that’s exactly what we want for your video

Directing

The director is responsible for creating and achieving the vision set out in our pre-production process. Onset, this can vary quite a bit depending on the scope of the project. It could be working with actors to get the performance that we want or it could be asking questions during an interview to get the talking points that we need. Sometimes we run a tight crew to meet your budget and the director may even be operating the camera.

Interviews

Although we like to have control over where we’re shooting, sometimes it’s necessary to work within the space that we have available. When we set up an interview, we like to tweak the appearance of the background and make sure that everything comes across great on camera. We prefer a natural approach to lighting, we often will use the existing natural lighting in the space as a base and use our lighting kit to complete the look that we’re going for. If we’re running a multi-cam interview, we find that it helps to ‘light the scene’ rather than light a specific angle so that both cameras have a beautiful shot. Typically, we’ll use one camera to show the subject in their space and the other camera as a close-up to show more of the emotion on their face.

During the questions, we like to create a conversational tone. This helps get the soundbites that we need without having them feel forced. Sometimes we’ll ask for an answer to be reworded and other times we’ll wait and circle back to a topic when we feel there’s a natural point in the conversation. Being an interviewer requires a lot of awareness to direct the conversation while being cognizant of the responses that we get.

If you’re going to be on camera, we’ve put together these tips to help you prepare for your interview!

B-Roll

Here is where a lot of the creativity gets to come out. We capture all of the pieces we need to visually portray the story that we’ve outlined in the script and try to capture it in the most appealing way. We like to rely on the eye of our DoP or other camera operators during this stage. For any processes or actions, we break it down into steps and capture different angles for each. For new environments, we try to capture any features that represent the atmosphere and experience of the space. In a kitchen, this could be the delicious fresh plate of food or on a beach, it could be the wind blowing through blades of grass. We check all the safety shots from our shot list and then get as creative as we can.

Clean Up and Departure

We always like to leave locations in the way we found them and this means taking care of the space throughout the day and cleaning up after ourselves. Once we pack up all of our equipment, we do a walk-through to collect any garbage and make sure that any props or decorations have been put back in their places.

Post-Production

Editing Footage

This is the most time-intensive stage of our whole process. Our editors receive all of the footage and creative notes that we created in pre-production. From there, they categorize and sort all of our clips and get to work.

Audio and interview footage has to be lined up and reviewed. Sometimes we have several sound bites that will fit and they need to select the best. Often, we will have 8-10 minutes of usable footage and will have to trim it down to 1 minute for a 2-minute brand video that breathes. We have a structure that we’re going for, but how that structure takes forms is largely up to the interpretation and creativity of the editor.

We add in audio and some graphics before delivering the first draft of the video. At this stage, we’re looking for feedback on the structure of the video. We don’t pay too much attention to the sound design or colour of the video, because any structural changes will mean that it all has to be redone in the final cut.

Revisions

We like to use FrameIO to deliver our projects. It allows you to share the video with your team and everyone can make notes with timestamps on the video. Our standard video production packages will include two rounds of revisions. We don’t limit the number of revisions within a round but typically these are fairly small given the planning and communicating we do in pre-production.

If additional changes or revisions are needed after the second round, we’re happy to help but the pricing may need to be adjusted to reflect the additional work.

Approval & Picture Lock

After revisions, we go through a ‘picture lock.’ This means that the clips won’t change after this step. It’s important to have a picture lock because we can send the video off for sound design and colour correction/colour grading without worrying about any changes. Even a small change, like extending a clip may require a lot of changes to line up the music and make sure appropriate sound effects are timed properly. Any changes to clips or framing could also significantly change the colour grade for the clip.

Sound Design

Attention to sound design is the difference between an attractive video and an immersive experience. First, we adjust the interview audio to remove any noise and then we tweak the music to match any pauses or breaks. From there, we like to have a lot of fun pulling sound effects for all of the visuals and lay them into the background. If it’s a car driving by, steps on the concrete, or a river in the background, we subtly lay in the sound. This aspect of videos is often overlooked but has a significant impact on the quality of the final video.

Colour Correction & Colour Grading

Colour correction is the part of the process where we go through every clip in the video and make sure they match. We want white to be neutral in every shot, and we need to make sure that colours match every time they appear in the video.

Once we have the colour corrected, we can go through the colour grade. This is a more stylistic approach, and it’s what gives the footage a consistent ‘feel’ throughout the entire edit. We have professional tools that allow us to touch up all of the colours and create custom looks that bring out the best of the footage.

Visual Effects

We leave most visual effects until the end, this is where we can add any atmosphere (like mist, smoke, steam, light beams, etc.) or touch up any graphics. Often, this part is highly integrated with the colour correction process. If we’re adding any overlays, we’ll colour correct the footage first, then add the visual effects, and complete it with our colour grade. We also take this occasion to add the final touch-ups to titles, lower thirds, or opening/closing cards.

Final Delivery

Once the final edit is put together, we will then cut together with any remaining social media spots, highlight videos or website banners, and deliver on FrameIO. We like to follow up with our clients after the videos have been shared so that we can learn more about how the video was received and how effective the results have been. This helps us learn and improve our process when designing future video campaigns.

Budget: How Much Does Video Production Cost?

This is a question that we get often and it’s a fair one. When it comes to marketing expenses, it’s not just a question of how much it will cost but what the return will be. We understand that you need a positive return on investment for any investment and are happy to work with you to ensure that your video campaign is profitable.

The cost of our productions range from $5,000-$15,000 with the average video campaign sitting around the $7,000 mark. Most of our video campaigns will include 3-5 videos, which puts the average cost per video between $1,500 – $2,500.