Company Retreat
Capture The
Moments That Matter
There is something magical about taking a break from the daily routine to forge strong bonds between colleagues. But you don’t have to leave that experience behind. This Playbook will guide you through how to capture that experience to maximize its value.
(created entirely using the VidLoft platform)
Step 1. Decide On Deliverables
“Let’s just go capture it and see what we get.” is a terrible idea! Being flexible is great, but as the saying goes – if you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. Knowing this will also dictate the rest of the planning.
For a typical retreat, we like creating 3 types of videos:
- The Family Photo Album – This is typically a longer (4-5 minute) video, created for the people who were on the retreat. It’s an incredibly powerful tool to relive the experience.
- The Humblebrag Reel – A high-energy, 60 second sizzle cut with two main goals in mind. Showcase what an amazing place you work, and most importantly, make all your friends jealous.
- Topical Content – Retreats are a wonderful time to capture little snippets. Whether you want to highlight certain core values through the retreat activities, or tease upcoming announcements. With the rise of more virtual and remote teams, they can also be a wonderful time to shoot a company culture video.
For a killer example of Topical Content, check out this amazing video by Wistia. They used footage from a couple retreats, along with a simple voiceover to create much more than a montage.
Step 2. Assemble The Team
This is going to be crucial to the success of your retreat video. Someone needs to own it, but you don’t want them spending the whole retreat working on the video, so delegation is key. If everyone pitches in a little bit, it’s a piece of cake.
The key to success here is a modified content triangle. Not familiar with the content triangle? It’s one of the most valuable insights we can share here at VidLoft. Here’s a quick explanation of it:
Here’s the approach we’ve seen work best:
- Strategist – This is usually someone like the head of people. Their job is to lead the decision on the deliverable goals in step one.
- Producer – During the actual retreat, the producer is the big enchilada for all things video. It’s their job to make sure things get done.
- Director(s) – The directors are in charge of actually shooting the footage. If you have more than 10-15 people going on the retreat, it’s best to appoint more than one director, so no one person is working the whole time. The producer should assign certain activities and times to different directors so they know when they have to be “on.”
Step 3. Tricks Of The Trade
Now that we know the what and the who, it’s time to start focusing on the how. Here is Nick’s Top 6 Travel Tips:
Just taking 15-20 minutes ahead of time and googling for great photos from locations you’re planning to be at is a great way to build a shot list. Even with a team of great cinematographers on staff, that one trick raised the quality of our internal travel videos immensely. So often you’ll find a new perspective or vantage point that you would have totally missed during the shoot.
Step 4. “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
Turns out the Beatles had retreat videos figured out ages ago. Time to crowdsource that content. No matter how good your directors are, they can’t be everywhere at once. Most people on the retreat will be willing to contribute a few shots, you just have to ask them to do it and also make it easy for them to share it back with you.
The Ask:
I like to communicate that we’ll be making a retreat video and would love to include their videos both ahead of the retreat and during the opening address. Some of our customers even make a game out of it and offer prizes for best clips (funniest clip, most epic clip, clip that best captures the retreat, etc). There’s four key things you want to communicate for this.
- Whether you want it horizontal or vertical.
- Shoot short 10-15 second clips. No need to let the camera roll for an hour.
- Watch for the smiles. The best crowdsourced content comes from those candid moments when everyone is having a good time.
- Here is how you share it before the end of the trip.
Make It Easy To Share:
There’s a ton of ways to share content these days, and which one you choose is going to depend on your own internal tech stack. It doesn’t really matter which one you choose. Just pick one and communicate it. Here’s several of our favorites:
- Apple Shared Photo Album – You can share videos too. If everyone is on iPhones, and you have everyone in your contacts, it’s by far the easiest for people to use.
- Google Drive or Dropbox – Create a link to a shared folder (we like to create subfolders by day to help keep things organized) and have people drop their clips in there.
- Airdrop and Android Nearby – This is an easy way for the producer to get a handful of clips from an individual.
Again, the key here is communication. Communicate it early in the trip, or even before the trip. Then remind people towards the end of the trip to get all their videos in.
How to Use Airdrop
Apple Shared Photo Album
Google Drive
Step 5. Spice It Up A Little
One of the best ways to open any travel video is with a quick b-roll montage. Here’s a 1 min video where Nick breaks down how to do just that.
Also, here are three more two minute tips that especially apply to retreat videos:
TIMELAPSE
CAMERA MOVEMENTS
SLOW MOTION
Step 6. You’ve got this.
The good news is that you have the entire VidLoft editing team in your corner. Just be sure to capture plenty of clips, and we’ll make something awesome for you.
As always, if you have any questions, or just want a sounding board for ideas or inspiration, just reach out to the VidLoft team on your slack channel. We love retreat videos, and we’re always happy to share ideas.
Speaking of ideas, here are a few other retreat videos we’ve created to help inspire you: