Get faculty and communications agreed on event video

At a university, the person who organises an event is often not the person who publishes its video. A short agreement between the two, made before filming, saves delays and rework afterwards.

What goals should faculty and central communications agree?

Start with why the event is being filmed. The faculty may want a record for students and staff. Central communications may want clips for the website or social channels. Both are fine, but they need different videos.

Write each goal as a plain sentence, for example “a full recording of the lecture for the faculty archive” or “a short highlight for the university’s channels”. Use the video goal planner to turn goals into things you can check afterwards.

If the goals differ, list them separately. We can then quote each video on its own and tell you what each one needs.

Who decides what?

Most delays come from unclear sign-off. Before the brief goes out, name one person for each decision:

This table is only an illustration, and your university may split these roles differently. The video decisions and approvals planner gives you a blank version to fill in.

What should the brief include?

Keep the brief short and specific:

1. The event, date, venue, schedule and expected audience.
2. The goals, and which outputs serve each one.
3. The moments that must be recorded in full, such as a vice-chancellor’s address, an award or a panel.
4. Language needs, captions and any translation. The caption and language specification planner lists the choices, and the W3C guidance on planning audio and video media advises specifying accessibility at the planning stage.
5. The named contact and the named reviewer.
6. Who keeps the raw footage and the final files, and for how long.

Automatic captions usually need correction, so ask who will check them. See the W3C note on captions and subtitles.

What happens after the event?

Plan the review path before the day. Decide who sees the first cut, who may request changes, and who has the last word. Our post-event video asset planner lists the finished files a university usually needs, and the video archive and handover planner helps you agree storage.

Some events carry extra requirements. For a graduation, see university convocation videography. For research talks, see the guide on video for a research symposium. Open days, alumni events and lectures have their own guides under universities and higher education.

Student societies that need a simpler workflow can read event videography for student societies and clubs.

How do we work with both offices?

• One contact. We work from a single named contact, so two offices give one set of feedback.
• Venue rules. Tell us the venue and we ask what notice or approval it needs for filming.
• The quote. Each film and file is listed, and anything extra is marked as extra.
• Review. We agree how many rounds of comments there will be and who sends the combined feedback.
• Separate files. The faculty and the university can each receive the files they need.
• Handover. Raw footage and final files are handed over and stored as you agreed.

This is where we help: our event videography service can be set up around both offices’ needs. A livestream, hybrid setup or same-day edit is available on request, confirmed for each event. If you are collecting quotes, put the supplier question list to every videographer so the answers compare fairly.