Tag Heuer is an internationally recognised Swisse watch maker. They create premium luxury products and have built a marketing image to support this. When football heavy-weights Real Madrid took on Manchester City at the MCG in Melbourne, Tag Heuer organised a team of champion football freestylers to warm up the crowd. Dream Engine were given the challenge to create an event video and edit it that night so that it could hit Tag Heuer’s social media channels the next morning.

Event Video Pre Production

Knowing we needed to deliver the final product on the same day meant we needed to get everything in place before the shoot.
We started by setting up our editing project on the computer, selecting a music track and animating the Tag Heuer logo. This meant that when we stepped into the edit suite at the end of the shoot day, our only job would be to lay down the footage we’d shot. The client had requested two edits, one that would be 30 seconds in total and another for Instagram that would only be 15 seconds. By setting up our timelines before we started we knew exactly what we had to work with.
Planning gear for an event video can be difficult because you never know exactly what’s going to happen and how it’s going to unfold. Part of our pre production for an event like this is to be ready for anything. We filled the car with backup equipment that might come in handy but at the same time we kept our bags as light as possible so that we could be agile all evening.
We decided to use our Sony A7s camera with the Shogun external recorder. This was for two reasons, firstly we wanted to utilise the brilliant 4K resolution in the edit. This gives us the flexibility to crop images if we want to concentrate on details (click here to read more about shooting 4K). Secondly, because it was a night shoot, we wanted to take advantage of the amazing low light capabilities of the A7s. This is because we wouldn’t have the time or the space to set up our studio lights so we needed to work with any light we had.

 The Shoot

Filming took place outside the MCG just as the sun was setting. Arriving early meant we could get some exterior shots of the stadium and the crowd before we lost all of our natural light. It also gave us some time to meet the team that would be performing, and map out how we would cover the action. This was important because it allowed us to plan our approach. We needed to get as much footage as possible and with a live event, you don’t often get a second chance if you miss something.
The performance was taking place a number of times so it gave us the opportunity to cover it from many different angles. We also made sure we shot audience reactions from different perspectives to show how they were reacting. The aim was to give ourselves plenty of footage to paint a picture of the excitement of the evening.

Post Production

With the shoot out of the way, we re-fuelled at SpudBar and headed straight to the editing room. 
Because the final product needed to be no longer than 30 seconds it meant that we could only put in the best footage we had. We went through all the footage and shortlisted only what looked great. Then we cut this down even further so that it fell into the 30 & 15 second timeline. The final result was exported into dropbox so that the client had a copy that night.

The Results

Our camera crew were able to supply a video to Tag Heuer that night. This meant that they were able to release it on social media while it was still relevant to viewers. Are you organising an event video like this one? Take a look here to learn more about hiring a Melbourne camera crew to shoot your video.