CASE STUDY JAMIE RAE
SHOOTING LIVE EVENTS
Jamie Rae traded in his freelancer title for a full-time spot at corporate events company, BCDMeetings & Events. We talk to him about that journey and what it’s like to shoot live events for big clients
WORDS CHELSEA FEARNLEY
F or a solopreneur, making the decision to work for someone else can be a daunting prospect, but if you consider company culture, a traditional working week could offer more fulfilment. Jamie Rae is someone who recently made the move to work in-house after ten years of working for himself. He graduated from Lincolnshire University in 2008 with a degree in Contemporary Lens Media, and from there worked with local businesses to create videos that promoted their products and services. Although Rae says he did work on some projects for larger organisations – such as the Open University, Network Rail and the NHS – the payment terms were, at the time, “horrific and far less rewarding”. Now, Rae celebrates one year working as a video producer at BCD, which is a company dedicated to designing and orchestrating events for clients that are similar in size to those mentioned above,
assignment: a huge conference for a leading soft drinks brand, where he was tasked with creating a series of videos that would coincide with key topics discussed at the event, as well as a highlights reel of the two-day event, which would later be played at the after-party. Rae was given the artistic freedom to play around with these topics, and he recalls when the brand wanted to discuss how it overcame the CO² shortage that could have caused production to cease in the summer of 2018: “We pitched an idea of recreating the ‘war room’, which was a real-life scenario that took place, where ten of the company’s most senior employees were locked in a room for 72 hours until they came up with a solution.” He continues: “We drew upon themes from the TV series 24 and used multiple shots and multiple camera angles of the same scene, which were then put onto a split screen – similar to the opening
but he says the full-time position enables better compensation. Rae works in a small team consisting of himself, Nick Hamilton – who is the video editor and animator – and Dan Umney, their creative director. “We’re a facet of a large company that is an events company first and foremost, and it employs 1000 people worldwide who are involved in making events happen – think catering, venue sourcing and entertainment,” explains Rae.“I was apprehensive before deciding to work full- time, because I feared I wouldn’t be able to create what I wanted to create, or that the environment would prohibit me from doing so. I was also worried about what the teamwould be like, having worked on my own for a decade.” Things go better with pop Those thoughts were immediately squashed after Rae was given his first
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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2019
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