Questions to ask your media team/ videographer for a successful relationship.

Your upcoming blast/email/print marketing content will have a heavy reliance on your media team and rightfully so, you are paying thousands if not, tens of thousands for said media team to produce.

After 10 years of video production experience in the Las Vegas convention/marketing space with, we gathered some important questions to ask your Media Team/Videographer for your upcoming convention, conference and/or event.

From Our Personal Experience

  • RAW footage: is this provided or extra?

    • RAW footage/files are extremely important part of final delivery for the following reasons.

      • Insures/provides a crucial backup incase ANY accidental damages of hard drive crashes/deletes upon travelling.

      • Provides maximum flexibility for your company to repurpose images/video for any future need.

      • Ultimately, they belong to you - content/data is what you are paying for.

      • In the end, you might NOT know how to edit these incredibly large files - and that’s ok. That is the time to ask YOUR media team for assistance (this is the part we love and charge for our skill, software and experience)

      • Follow up questions:

        • Are you able to help edit additional raw if we see something we like?

        • If we provide you a hard drive, would you be able to give us the raw at end of event?

  • What would you (IFP) need on location during filming days?

    • If your convention/event is taking over an entire convention hall and/or you have additional breakout rooms to spare, these are some important but basic necessities and comforts to provide your media team (The following below are some of our needs)

      • Break out room for gear/editing space (with private keys)

      • Power Cables/Chairs/Water/Snacks

      • Itinerary/breakdown for shoot days

  • How many crew members will be provided on-site?

    • There are many nuances and many machinery when it comes to video production. When booking your videographer/production team, many videographers leave 1 hour before the shoot start (depending on location) to be able to gather their many amounts of gear, store in the vehicle, park and bring it up to shooting site.

      • With Convention Filming, we require a minimum of two person on shoot days (carrying and lugging gear while shooting gets extremely cumbersome)

  • Turnaround time, how do we navigate on bringing up this question?

    • Turnaround time delivery is something all video production agencies strive for, require 2 deadlines (one soft, one hard)

    • Preparation = Execution. to insure fastest and best quality upon delivery, both teams (your company & media team) must be prepped. Have you provided your media team with all required assets/names/titles/brand book? if not, this is a good start of the checklist.

      • As a team, we strive to provide a first rough draft in between 4-6 days, with final delivery on the 10th day.

  • Would you be able to do a walkthrough of the event space a few days before?

    • This is a question i would personally ask you, our future client. Seeing the space (if it’s large/extra large hall) would help us gather, plan and precisely executive our game plan and distribute areas to our team; knowing our location, office, setup space gives us an advantage of not scrambling during the beginning of the show. (we like to be totally prepared going into a large hall)

  • On-site editor, what would that person do, the cost and would you recommend it?

    • If your event has a closing ceremony and would like an end of event edit, i would recommend asking for one prior and not on-site (since it does take considerable effort and time to manage footage/find music/gather assets and most importantly, it will take away the videographers time to actually capture the event.

    • Yes, an on-site editor would be considered a luxury, while we have done many end of event edits (the most recent one, Forescout Global Leadership) i would highly recommend adding an on-site editor to the media team for speed and delivery.

      • (as seen below, Kenny is heavily focused despite what is happening in the background)

  • Do you have any collaborative review platform like frame.io / vimeo etc?

    • If you dislike writing notes while watching a first revision edit, this is an important question to ask. Platforms like Frame.io/Vimeo will shave tens of hours during the review process, as clients, you are able to directly note on the platform (see attached)

How Many Revisions Should We Request?

  • Revisions are an extremely important talking point with your media team and should be solidified prior to signing a contract, please make sure that your future media team should have a minimum of (3) revisions on their proposal.

  • To have the smoothest first revision, these are some needs/points of discussion before first edit of project.

    • Music: Are we looking for something more up-beat with faster cuts or something slower to build a story?

    • Assets: If your company has in-house assets such as Logos, Intro bumpers, Custom graphics and even better, a brand book, providing that to your media team will be incredibly helpful.

      • As video production specialist, we go through many revisions and drafts prior to submitting (our first draft to you) while we try and get it as close to what we feel vibes with your desired outcome, it is not always correct.

Random Things To Take Into Consideration:

  • Planning on scheduling interviews in a hotel room/suite? Some major hotels will require room keys for elevator access.

  • Hotels/convention halls will charge for parking, please make your media team aware into their budgeting consideration.