The
Brief
We were approached by Value Retail to shoot an event video and accompanying photography of the Bicester Village annual staff awards, which also just so happened to be it’s 25th birthday!
While previous events have been quite formal, this year was a little different and hoped to create more of a festival/party vibe and a much more relaxed format. So our brief was pretty simple, to capture all of the fun and laughter throughout the evening at the absolutely stunning Stowe House.
With attendees from Balenciaga and All Saints to Bottega Veneta and Aquazzura—this is certainly a big event in Value Retail’s calendar and truly deserving of some high quality coverage.
“Wow—what a turn around! Thank you so much for your flexibility, fun & energy last night. We loved having you work with us! The images are perfect & just what we were hoping to capture. The brands staff & winners are going to love them!!! There are some lovely shots of our HQ team too.”
Our
Solution
As keen event photographers and filmmakers, we knew exactly what was required to capture this level of energy. We needed to commit 100% and not just act as flies on the wall. We needed to get fully stuck in and allow the guests to feel completely comfortable with us being around, allowing us to capture these truly dynamic shots whilst getting up close and personal.
We used a two-person team for this shoot, with only one photographer and one videographer. This allowed us to remain nimble and not be too overbearing on the evening. To provide some level of redundancy and to produce a varied final film, we did set up a few static cameras around the room for the awards ceremony to ensure we captured plenty of video and backup audio.
Almost all of the video was shot on a gimbal with a final editing style in mind during the shooting process. Real-world dynamics, such as guests walking into the building, were used to drive the camera through the scenes and create a film with plenty of dynamism that doesn’t simply rely on the movement of the camera but the movement of the subjects instead.
We pulled together two versions of the final Bicester Village Event Film, one to act as a short ‘teaser’ on an initial email campaign—the second with a longer form version of the film that included more of the awards and all of the winners.
In terms of photography, it was important to balance the real-world ambience of the event with capturing high-end imagery in perfect light at all times. This meant rigging the room with multiple lights and switching between them throughout the event to reinforce the real ambience in the room but pick out subjects with beautifully shaped light. This was especially important for guests mingling and audience reactions, as the speakers on stage were already well lit.
The photos were carefully curated down to a more palatable number that captured all of the fun of the evening and the beautiful location, all whilst allowing enough variation for our contact at Value Retail to pick their favourites and those in the best aspect ratio for future marketing material.
