Preparing a shoot day at your company: schedule, rooms, staff

One contact person and one schedule

The most important point comes before any room or camera: name one contact person who has time on the day, can open doors and knows the colleagues. This person accompanies the crew, collects interviewees on time and settles small questions on the spot, so nobody has to go looking for the managing director.

The day is built on a shooting schedule that the production writes after the briefing and agrees with you. It sets which location is filmed at what time, who is on camera when and which processes are shown. At Pixer this schedule is part of the concept, together with interview questions and shot list, and you approve it before the shoot day is booked. How to set goal and scope beforehand is covered in planning a corporate video.

If your head office is abroad and the shoot takes place at your German site, the contact person should be on site and able to make decisions. Head office can follow the plan and approve the preview remotely.

How a shoot day runs

An example of a full shoot day with two locations and three interviews:

Half a shoot day (4 hours) follows the same pattern at one location with one or two interviews. Schedule interviews in the morning where you can: people are fresher, and if something has to move, the afternoon still has room. With two shoot days the same pattern is spread over more locations. The second day suits processes that only happen at certain times, such as a shift change, a delivery or a training session.

Preparing rooms and locations

Interview room

• Quiet: no humming ventilation, no phones, no through traffic. A sign on the door.
• Large enough: a few metres between the person and the background, so the background softens.
• Controllable daylight: blinds or curtains, so the crew can set its own light.
• A background that belongs to you: production behind a glass wall, the workshop, a tidy shelf of products.

Work areas for footage

• Tidy, but not sterile: a workplace may look like work happens there.
• Remove personal items, customer names on screens and confidential documents.
• Machines and processes you want to show must run at the planned time.
• Clarify safety rules: protective clothing for the crew, areas that must not be filmed.
• Show workwear, logos and vehicles where they naturally belong.

Exterior shots

• Entrance and façade clean, company sign visible, parking spaces in front of the building cleared where possible.
• Drone footage of the site and building is available as an add-on. Whether a flight is permitted at your location is checked in advance.

Planning and informing staff

Nobody should learn on the morning of the shoot that they are going on camera. Tell the team one to two weeks ahead: when and where you film, what the film is for and who gives an interview. Colleagues who do not want to appear can then say so early enough for the plan to change.

• Interviewees: send the questions in advance, but do not let them write answers. Allow 30 to 45 minutes per person, including the microphone.
• Clothing: what they wear on a normal day. Avoid fine stripes and small checks, which flicker on screen, and large logos of other brands.
• Footage: colleagues simply keep working. The crew asks for repeats where needed.
• Consent: a short written consent from every recognisable person. The crew brings a template.
• Works council: if your German site has one, inform it early when workplaces are filmed.

How colleagues come across naturally on camera is covered in detail in employees on camera.

Checklist for the week before

1. Send the schedule with times to everyone involved.
2. Have interviewees confirm and name a reserve.
3. Book the rooms and prepare a sign for the interview room.
4. Arrange parking or a loading zone for the crew, plus access and sign-in at reception.
5. Organise a safety briefing and protective clothing if needed.
6. Lay out products, samples and workwear.
7. Prepare screens with neutral content or your website.
8. Send the consent template to colleagues so nobody is surprised on the day.
9. Settle the sign-off: who sees the preview, who approves it?

The day before, a short walk through all locations with the contact person pays off. Anything you notice, such as a crowded storage aisle or a broken light, is quickly fixed the day before and costs no time on the day.

What typically goes wrong on the day

• The interviewee has a customer meeting. A reserve person and fixed times in the diary prevent this.
• The machine is not running. Maintenance, a shift change or missing material. Agree with production beforehand.
• Noise during the interview: a vacuum cleaner, a forklift, a drill next door. Inform colleagues nearby.
• Too many spectators: curious colleagues behind the camera make interviewees nervous.
• Last-minute additions: every extra location costs set-up time. Add wishes to the plan beforehand.

Our crew on the day is two or three people with cinema cameras, their own lighting and wireless audio. Your business keeps running; only the interview room is occupied during the conversations. If you exhibit at a trade fair in Düsseldorf, Cologne or Essen, a shoot day at your German site can be added to the same trip, and the same crew can film your stand (booth) during the show. The fixed packages for half and full shoot days are on our corporate video page.

The short version

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