Enhancing events through video production—in conversation with Phil Platt of First Sight Media

Mikey: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, aka the Storyteller Study Club. This is co host Mikey Meduski, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications, a presentation design agency. And I'm joined by my co host, your favorite, straight out of Inglewood, Colorado, Molly Gagan. Molly, what's up?

Molly: Woohoo! Presentation Nation, how's it going?

I'm super excited, Mikey, because today we have a It's always a special guest, but this time we are breaching many, many time zones and talking to someone who is innovative storytelling. There's so many ways to tell a story, but First Sight Media, a very cool company for video streaming and events production.

[00:01:00] We have none other than Phil Platt. Joining us there, uh, business development manager, Phil, welcome to presentation thinking.

Phil: Hello. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks so much.

Molly: I know that this is a connection via you and Mikey. How, how, how did you find yourself here?

Phil: How did I get here? So, um, we, we met over in Vegas.

So we were at event tech live Las Vegas. Earlier in the year, and I know you guys were there too. So I met Mikey over our stand and we were actually covering a lot of the events. So we were doing streaming from one of the main stages there, as well as some sort of interviews with keynote speakers. It's something that we've done over in, in London.

So event tech live as an organization is UK based, but the last couple of years they've been doing a US and Canada show as well, starting off virtual, which we ran for them first time that they did that. And yeah, first time for us going and exhibiting over in the US we, we do lots of virtual stuff. So we thought, you know, we know the ETL guys really well and [00:02:00] would make sense for us to go and get our name out there over in the US.

Mikey: Yeah, I was super impressed walking over and just started mingling with the first site media group over there and they were just telling me about their approach to virtual events and hybrid events and Their take on it and that it needs to, it can't just be the same old webinar, basically. And so I think we'll get into that with Phil cause I don't want to spoil the lead and the angle, but just, you know, as presentation thinkers, as people who want to make better presentations.

It really like does help us to think a little more broadly about the environment, the context. And so, yeah, if you're making presentations at some point, you're going to end up at an event. And the more we know about how these events are pulled off, and especially now these The virtual, the hybrid, what goes into it, I think that'll just fundamentally help us Molly become better presentation thinkers for that more holistic view.

So I think we're going to learn a lot with Phil here today.

Molly: I love it. It's such a unique storytelling [00:03:00] platform. So very, very excited to get into the nitty gritty. Phil, what is, what was your background and journey leading your career to First Sight Media?

Phil: Funny. So I did a degree in film and film and cinema technology.

So I'm a, I'm a production person, really. And straight out of university, I actually started at First Sight Media, so summer, like a summer job, um, and then sort of stayed on, worked my way up through the production team. I actually went away for a bit and then came back. Um, very recently. So this role for me as business development manager is quite new.

Basically what I do is, you know, talk to customers new and old about their projects and how we can help and the best solutions for them and scope all of that out, including the budgeting, exactly what the provision might be and help to sort of steer, steer how they're going to approach their event. Or if we're just doing a promo video, we do that stuff too.

So, you know, just have to be that helping hand to deliver what they need. A bit of expertise and [00:04:00] knowledge because I have been in production for so long. I started at First Sight in 2010. So yeah, 14 years worth of making videos, streaming video and event production as well.

Molly: That's so cool. Well, did you have like a favorite, like pathway, lighting, the, like holding the camera, editing?

What was your, what was your jam?

Phil: Ah, the camera stuff. Yeah. So the cinematography. Yeah. So when I was, seems like such a long time ago, but when I was at university, my final project was a film. So, and that was like half of the year's worth of credit. So. Yeah. Heavy, heavy leaning on the film production side of things.

So I made like a, like a horror movie, basically a short one.

Mikey: Is it out there? Can we get a, put a link in our show notes? It was, I've pulled it. Okay. Okay. It was

Phil: student. Do you know how old I am? It was on tape. Can you believe it?

Molly: That's pretty epic though. That does so much work to film on tape as well.

Phil: Yeah. It's so many other variables that you have to [00:05:00] think about that no longer a thing anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's easy to have a whole bank of memory cards. You don't have to sit there in real time capturing the footage anymore, you can just copy and paste stuff. Perfect. .

Molly: Yeah. Okay. Well now we know to ask favorite horror film or favorite film in the spice cabinet, so we'll save that for Oh, okay.

Mikey: Yeah,

Phil: go for

Mikey: it. .

Molly: Yeah.

Mikey: Alright,

Molly: very cool.

Mikey: Can you tell us about just the day-to-Day for First Sight Media? Like, I'm curious to know what type of clients you work with and events and you know, what's your sort of sweet spot?

Phil: Yeah. Funny enough, a lot of the, the guys in the production team, so there's, there's 20 of us.

But not everyone's in production, but most of the production team have come from a film or video sort of background as well. And then we've cross skilled people as they've sort of joined. So everyone does a bit of everything. So camera lighting, editing, multi camera directing, live streaming, plus the AV side of things.

So screens, audio, that sort of thing as well. So everyone's multi skilled here, which makes us flexible and also. If you [00:06:00] ring up with an inquiry, everyone's got a bit of knowledge about everything, which I think is helpful for the customer initially. But in terms of who we work with, loads of different people.

So there's a few sectors that we're more prevalent in. So pharmaceutical and medical stuff. So healthcare and med comms agencies, we work with a lot. I think once you find yourself within a niche, it's quite easy for that to snowball and become a bit of a USP for you. So. Lots of that. And veterinary, which is sort of a parallel market in many ways, the way that they approach content is quite similar, but also we work with a lot of universities, so higher education over here.

So as a company started off filming things and the first events the company did back in the nineties were university events. And I think the earliest contract we had was 96 and we still work with them now. No way. Yeah. So we've been going for 30 years, not me within the company, but the company itself.

Yeah.

Molly: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like schools are one of those things, once you're locked in, they're like, perfect. We need you as a partner. [00:07:00]

Phil: Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot within that as well. So it's like we do graduations, promotional video, public lectures, there might be some educational pieces for very specific subjects or, you know, different units within a university that need help.

And we do all of that too. So. We try and branch out and help as much as we can.

Mikey: How about in terms of scale, like what's a small project for y'all and what's, what's a big one?

Phil: Nothing's too

Mikey: small

Phil: or

Mikey: too

Phil: big, which sounds really cliche, doesn't it? Anything from take it all. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're quite adaptable.

We're not a huge, huge business, but we're not small either. So I think that has a lot of benefits for us and that we can be agile and we can send. a single person to film something that's, if that's all you need, then that's absolutely fine. Equally, we'll send 20 camera operators to your multi room, multi spoke event and do all the production for that as well.

So yeah, I mean, I think 2021 cameras is the biggest measure of scale. Probably there's a few events a [00:08:00] year that are six or seven rooms simultaneously. And then the, yeah, everything down to a small promo for a local company, if they, if they, if that's what they're after, we can help.

Molly: And has there been, like, obviously events have evolved so much over the last, even just a couple of years.

How do you handle when you guys have maybe a new capability or a new offering to kind of integrate it into the packages, show people what it can do? And like, I just watch like, you know, my partner's cousin's graduation on a live stream, which I was like, I didn't think that was thing, but there's so many ways to integrate, you know, video into a production now.

Yeah. How does that work?

Phil: Yeah. It's interesting. You may mention the, the graduation live streams. I think the first graduation that we live stream was probably nearly 20 years ago. So we've been doing it for a while. I think, yeah, I mean the, the world's getting smaller and people's expectations are changing as much as anything else.

So people expect a live stream of certain things. It's great for a graduation setting. For example, you've got. Yeah. Yeah. Um, if you're a, you know, [00:09:00] a student from overseas, your family might not be able to make it. Your friends might not be able to make it. So it's just, uh, giving that piece of engagement that helps elevate the event for, for those people.

They're like so glad to see that their family have been able to watch along. But I think it's becoming an expectation more than anything else. So that's where the, where things are heading is that people are expecting more and more of that sort of engagement and to be able to do things without having to physically go to a location.

And it's the same for all presentation work that we do. We always now offer like a remote dialing solution, even if it's a plan to be a completely physical event. I think people, you know, throughout, you know, the pandemic era, certainly people are used to having virtual presenters being able to join financially.

It's got benefits. You don't necessarily need to fly someone from the other side of the world for one hour or something like that. You can just dial them in. And also just people are more mindful of contingency planning, I think. So your presenter gets sick, what do they do now? Maybe they're [00:10:00] still okay to present, but they don't want to travel and having that in the locker, just ready to go.

is something that we tend to do a lot. But to answer your initial question on how we sort of integrate new things for people, we try and try and test it first. So here you go. Here's a case study where we've, where we've done that. So event take live London's a good example. I think that's the first show that we implemented sort of an interview stage.

And that's incorporated into the live stream element. So when there's a break in the program, we actually stream content throughout anyway. And that's interviews with keynote speakers. You can even bring in sponsors there, you know, return on investment for those guys to have a slot. And we'll stream that out so that there's no dipping content where your online audience might go away and forget to come back.

There's always something to be watching, which helps keep Uh, people on the end of the line.

Mikey: I'd love to talk, yeah, a little more about that approach too, because I think this is that hook that, that got me thinking y'all have a different take on what it means to provide like engaging virtual content. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because I think you mentioned [00:11:00] like you're borrowing kind of from broadcast.

Phil: Yeah, absolutely. I think that Again, that lends itself to where the experience of the team comes from. So we all think about every event like a TV show. So we try and encourage people to schedule it in that way. So if you think about advert breaks on TV, there's psychology there that dictates why they're like they are every 15 minutes or so, because that's an attention span.

And I think actually that's only getting shorter, uh, in the modern age. Um, but yeah, we try and approach things in that way where you might mix up your material. So You don't want a full program of just lecture after lecture. People will quickly be disengaged with that. So we try and get people to mix up the type of content that they've got.

So a lecture from a keynote presenter, fantastic, that's a really good thing to have, but then you might have the next session be more of a workshop. Or at least a Q and A session and, and, you know, in the current day and age, the importance really is to get the audience as involved in that as they can be.

So making sure that they're able to engage with anything that's [00:12:00] technology wise being used on the show floor. So is there a Q and A portal? Can you poll everybody, not just the people in the room? And also just referencing people. So we, we often use like word clouds and stuff. So before the session starts, you might post something like that and you can say, Hey everybody, what's the weather like where you are today?

Or where are you joining us from today? And then the, the host on site can reference that and just draw everyone together a bit more. And again, that's similar to, you know, uh, almost like a phone in on radio. So you, you know, you might, yeah, do your, do your shout outs from a message from a message board or whatever.

It's the same sort of approach just to keep that sort of, uh, flow and energy up for everybody, not just the people in the room. Um, but yeah, absolutely. You've got to break it up. I think that's our main takeaway. Yeah. The days of hour and a half sessions of lectures are probably over.

Mikey: Molly. I love that bringing in the audience too, because my family listens to Disney radio on Sirius XM or whatever.

And these families will call in and you get to [00:13:00] like four people get to submit their favorite Disney song and why they like it. And they're like, we got to do that sometime. And like, yeah, we've made a point. We want to hear ourselves on there. And you see it at sports games too, when you can submit. And, you know, to instagram with certain hashtag and you're up there and it pulls you in, even though you might be in the nosebleed seats, right?

Yeah, classic kiss camp. We don't

Phil: do that at conferences. They normally, exactly.

Molly: But

Phil: no, you're absolutely right. Yeah. Anything you can do to engage the audience is great. And it's the same. Yeah. So many conferences that we might do, they'll have a hashtag. They might have like a, well, it used to be like a tweet deck or something like that, but.

So a way of, you know, displaying that on the big screen is just to keep people over break times, any downtime, just to keep people engaged with the event.

Molly: Yeah. I think people like tend to think maybe just video production or even production is just video or like you're taking photos and stuff, but there's the, all these amazing ways with like, Yeah, you're putting up the presentations and these really cool tools that [00:14:00] are like, it's kind of like a soft hook Mikey is the word cloud thing where it just gets the people on like a human to human level engage kind of like taps in engages.

You see it in webinars a lot where people have polls pop up, you know, so that it can be like, Oh, like someone's asking me a question, like I'm actually part of this. And then they share the answers and stuff. And yeah, we experimented with doing that in real time with PowerPoint has a way to take in polls now.

Just really, it's cool to see how things evolve. And with that, I'm curious of like, for your own experience, what has been as the, you know, business development manager, what's your, you know, sales and pitching experience like on, on the other, on the flip side of, um, you know, video and media production.

Phil: It's funny.

I don't find myself pitching that much in a traditional sense. We tend to approach everything is quite a case by case basis and it tends to be more conversational. So, you know, we'll either reach out to people that we think we could, we can help or they'll get in touch with us direct and we'll have that conversation.

[00:15:00] The main thing is just trying to figure out why they're trying to do what they're trying to do and, you know, what that actually looks like. So. Yeah, we always start from a listening point of view if we can, however, that being said, we do have a pitch deck, but that we can happily send to people and that's sort of templated.

And then again, we would tailor that to whatever their needs are. So if we know it's a conference event, if we know it's a webinar series, if we know actually it's just a promotional video that people are after, we'll just, you know, chop and change that. But there's very little words on it and I'll just talk.

over it and try using rather than having the presentation as a crutch to sort of lean on and using it as a script. I mean, we've, we've all had death by PowerPoint experiences where someone's literally just reading prose from many, many slides. We keep it under 10, under 10 slides.

Mikey: Yeah.

Phil: And very few words on there.

We actually have just illustrative video rolling. So rather than having, you know, just stills, hopefully we don't think it's distracting, but it just illustrates what I'm [00:16:00] talking about when I'm talking about a particular area. So we've got a reel of webinar footage that we might use if I'm talking about webinars.

So yeah, we try and approach it in that way, but normally it's conversational. So a quick zoom call with somebody just to get their, you know, What are their motivations? Get that down. And then from there, we sort of build together what the solution might look like, ending with some sort of costing and we'll go back and forth on what works for them.

And you know, we're super flexible, so you know, we can work to any budget. That people give us and find something that works to achieve their aims.

Mikey: Ah, we would buy from you. It's just a conversation. Yeah. Did I do my job well?

Molly: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Well, we've said before, like Mikey pitching presentations, it's different kinds of conversations.

The less you can make it seem like this is a sales pitch, you know, and you're going through like, this is the product slide, you know, that's when it can become like, yeah. So robotic and less and you're less likely to reach someone on like a human level. Um, I heard you say like you're always looking [00:17:00] to find their why do you guys at first sight and I do, I tend to see all the video like an artistic people do this a lot better than than like someone from a writer perspective saying like I need to have all these words on there.

But how do you go about finding their why and have you at First Sight Media ever had any training or like any conversations around around those strategies?

Phil: Do you know what? Formally, no, I think it's just experience. So even though I was in production before, I would still be scoping projects for people.

So I've sort of always done that, or at least for the last few years. I think you get to understand. You get to understand how to understand. So, and it is about listening, I think. Yeah, we don't have any sort of formal strategy on that. It's just about, you know, okay, so you've come to us, you've, you're asking about streaming or conference, but what is it you're trying to achieve?

Are you trying to, you know, increase the viewership of your conference. Are you actually wanting to have that evergreen element to it so that you've got content for [00:18:00] later? Is a large amount of your audience overseas and you need to cater for people that can't make it? What is it you're trying to achieve?

Because actually a lot of the engagement stuff that we spoke about earlier is informed by what that looks like for that person. So for example, we might do a webinar series. So there's, you know, there's no physical audience at all. And the important thing is that people are getting their continued professional development points, CPD points.

So in a field such as veterinary or law or something like that, anyone that practices has to continue their training throughout their career. They need an excellent number of points. So actually it's about building a platform where people can get that accreditation. So we, we actually build websites for people to, to house all of the content and, you know, being able to download your certificate afterwards, that's key for them, but it's not useful for someone who's doing a public outreach sort of public lecture.

So it's just, yeah, I mean, to be honest, it's understanding the audience, understanding what they are looking to achieve and with whom. It's typically where we start and then we get into the technical [00:19:00] stuff

Mikey: and all the, all the information hunting, figuring out where they're at. I imagine because you, you came from the production background, you've.

Done so much. And you've seen like every variation and spin. So I imagine like while maybe on a, an initial call, it can feel like you're getting peppered with all these questions, but we would think it's because you're trying to help them, you know, with a similar story and curious if you can talk about like the role of, of storytelling when you are in these, these conversations.

Phil: Yeah, I think it's, it's an interesting point. I think coming from production, I think I probably approach it. slightly different from like a heart sales person from their perspective. I think I tend to think about it as what does the final outcome look like? So it's almost like creating the narrative for the customer as in, you know, where we are right now from this initial call, what the next steps are.

It's quite a linear, you know, it's quite a linear line through to final delivery. So yeah, it's all about for [00:20:00] us, you know, just really working through every stage in that way. So What we do try and do is help to create a program that works as well on the day. So what's the overall aim of the whole event?

Obviously they've probably got some people in mind already that are going to be presenting. Where do they sit within the program? Do we want to maybe reshuffle it? Do we want to think about, we've got all these great people on site that you're using for their lecture. Let's pull them aside for an interview because that's another piece of content that you can use.

It doesn't cost you anything more. We've got everything there already. We've got the people there already and they're. They're not doing anything in the breaks either. Or do you have sort of like a breakout area where we bring people over for sort of takeaway moments? We've done things for webinars, for example, where we're capturing content that is the hook, the driver to their session.

So a little 30 second slot. In 30 seconds, sum up what your talk is about and that can all be done pre event even, you know, we can record things like we're doing right now. We can record things remotely with people, [00:21:00] but I think anything you can do that's extra is helpful. And for us, we're just trying to steer people with, you know, from experience, as you mentioned, yeah, we've done loads of production, loads of different approaches.

So we try and offer up ideas and see which one of those, you know, sometimes you'll see the spark in someone's eye when you mention something and that's then you sort of tailor it along those lines. Obviously, you sent to check everything afterwards before you start, but, um, yeah, I think, um, it's interesting.

There's so many ways to approach anything. We've done online events where none of the talks were live. They were all pre available. And then the only thing that was live was Q and a, so the whole day was interactive. So nothing was. Well, none of the programs about sitting and watching a presentation at all.

You would go, you would go and watch the ones that interested you beforehand and then join the session that you were most interested in, in terms of the Q and a element on the day. So there's so many ways around, you know, it's, it's very [00:22:00] easy to fall into the presentation, presentation, presentation mode, but we try and avoid that

Mikey: on the topic of presentations.

You know, like since you see so many. You must have lots of opinions about what works, what doesn't, you know, from the, both the aspirational or the, you know, like the big lofty stuff to right down to the nitty gritty, like how long should a presentation be in the, in the new age and, you know, do you have any, any takes on this stuff?

Like, we'd love to hear your opinions.

Phil: Yeah, I mean, I think. You know, at the end of the day, we are working with clients and they do come with preconceived ideas. We try and steer. But I mean, the shorter the better. I think if an individual talk is longer than 45 minutes, it becomes a bit of a struggle for attention span.

However, there are certain speakers that can pull it off. So if they know they've got a really engaging keynote presenter who's really like eminent in their field playing for that crowd, then I think you can give them a longer slot. I sort of on a personal level, I like the TED approach where you've [00:23:00] got sort of up to 18 minutes.

We don't often see TED talks going beyond that. And I think it depends on how granular the content needs to be. I can understand that in an educational program, actually, you need that little bit longer. So. In a university setting, a lecture might be an hour, an hour and a half, because you're needing to, to have that information, but perhaps in like a conference or a, you know, a more B2B environment, I don't think that's very helpful.

So yeah, we try and try and keep people as, or at least switch presenter or at least do a Q and A before switching presenter, something just to, to help change the content style so that people aren't sort of in a, in a bit of a lull and, you know, to keep the energy up.

Molly: And I feel like that crosses this interesting line where someone's.

Planning an event and maybe they're suddenly asking for your input in how to structure it. And that is kind of that under the, under the table, almost part of the role that becomes you're adding to the storytelling of the event. How often is that happening?

Phil: Do you know what? So [00:24:00] that, that sort of came to the fore again during like the pandemic.

So we, we pivoted pretty quickly to doing pure virtual events. Obviously nobody could go anywhere and yet the messages from companies still needed to get out there. Thankfully for us, with streaming experience, we've done loads of video conferencing and we had all the software already. So we were in like quite a good position to be able to hit the ground running with that.

People didn't really know what a full virtual event looked like. So that's where we were able to initially insert ourselves more fully into the role of helping to curate and program how these events were looking. And again, it was that TV approach. So. It's, it's easy for someone watching miles away on their laptop to wander off to go into the kitchen and, you know, make, make an early lunch instead of, you know, being fully immersed in what's happening.

So, you know, little things like we would have breakout rooms with all participants on there on screen that we could throw to presenters so that they can say, Oh, [00:25:00] hey, group one, nice to see you all. Here's a little wave. You know. Have There's still that human engagement by seeing someone on the other end of the line, exactly having, having that dialogue as well.

So again, making sure there was option for, for Q and a both verbally and on camera and also through, you know, a way you can just literally send a message, um, all of that stuff was really helpful. And, you know, we've, what we were able to, particularly with clients that we work with. Since going back to the sort of more normality in live events in a sort of more traditional sense that they, hopefully they understand that we understand how these things can work in a streamlined way that keeps people engaged with what's going on.

So we'd like to think that they think of us as experts that can sort of at least pitch in with ideas there. There's no obligation, you know, we're absolutely happy to flex on what they want to do, but Yeah, they're always happy to hear what we have to say, which is a really nice place to be.

Molly: Absolutely. I mean, inevitably you become experts and Ghost Ranch Mikey, I feel has [00:26:00] experienced this with the presentation side of things where people are suddenly asking about narrative structure and more of that storytelling core content.

It kind of comes inevitably when you're creating something and you are open to if you don't have an idea quite or it's shifting or something that you need some input in how the story structure comes together.

Mikey: Yeah. And Molly with, with Ghost Ranch, I like the presentations we, we build the question we've yet to come up with a really good answer for is how do you know it's going to work?

And I'm curious, Phil, like. Are there certain KPIs or metrics that you actually can tune into to see, Hey, like this was a successful event, qualitative or quantitative, I guess.

Phil: Yeah. So we always provide everybody with analytics of everything. So as I mentioned earlier, we actually build platforms to stream to.

So that'd be a custom page that's completely to spec, whatever the customer wants it to be, normally it's a jump off point from a page on their website that they, you know, just to keep it all on brand. [00:27:00] By having all of those analytics, we can really see what's working and what isn't because you can look at your total viewers, you can see where people have dropped off and if it looks like there's some sort of trend going on, then that's only useful information for next time and through doing lots and lots of events, we sort of see where where that happens.

I think retention on a stream is one of the key things. You know, you want to make sure that people are watching the full event. If you can, people are obviously going to drop off or dial in at, you know, important times too. That's always going to happen. But the more visibility you have on that, I think is really, really helpful.

It helps everyone plan for the next event. So both our end client, the event organizer, and for us ourselves, when we're offering that advice. But a lot of it's also pre event, like how well in advance are you able to market for that event? So does everyone, does your audience know that it's happening to actually dial in or turn up on site?

Because if they don't turn up in the first place, then there is no drop off either because there's no one to drop off. So yeah, I think [00:28:00] having, having the awareness in the, in your market of the event happening, particularly with online, because there's so few barriers to it. It feels like it should be quite easy to steer people in the right direction if they're interested enough.

So it's about telling them what the event is and when it's happening, but also what do they get out of it, I think is the key thing. So what, what are you going to take away from that day that makes it a valuable exercise to join? We touched upon it earlier, so it might be some CPD points, so some professional credits.

It might just be, you're going to learn everything you need to know about this subject. Or it might be you're going to hear some really poignant questions about this subject to for food for thought for later. It can be as simple as that. But yeah, making sure everyone knows about it is helpful.

Molly: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

The marketing's got to be there for it to. Yeah, it's funny.

Phil: People show up. A lot of people forget about it, though. They go, Oh, I've got this event. I'm going to stream it because they feel like they have to. But then there isn't the push there. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes advising that that should be nearer the forefront [00:29:00] of people's minds is useful.

Molly: And I wanted to ask on that note, kind of like what are some of the common pitfalls you see people make, especially because it's a hybrid world now and online can either be a really new space for people or don't know how to straddle it or convert things. Things don't work the same in person as they do online.

And so What are some recommendations that you give for people? Yeah, so many. Some, maybe some cautionary tales. ,

Phil: maybe I'll start with a positive one.

Molly: Yeah, yeah. , .

Phil: There. There are so many. No, you're right. There's so many pitfalls. Yeah, it's, it's funny, so we work in video production as well as events and you know, sometimes you get the impression that people are thinking, well, I've got a smartphone, I can just make this video myself.

But it's not just the, the technology that goes into it, but it's the know-how, and I think. What we try and do is really guide people away from certain pitfalls. So if you're dialing in for a virtual event or a hybrid event, but you're a remote speaker, we pretty much insist on You joining a tech check, just so you fully understand the context of what you're doing in the program, [00:30:00] who's going to hand over to you, how that works, because there's so many different companies doing these sorts of events like we do, or people running them internally, but you know, everyone's got a different way of working.

So we find it really important, even if it's a really seasoned, amazing presenter, they just need to know what's their cue. Just simple things like that. We, in the early days of pandemics, there were multiple occasions where even though they're being counted in five, four, three, two, one, there's a rat.

There's that slightly longer than me. Should

Molly: I

Phil: go? Yeah. Is it my turn? But we find like a, just a short tech check. You build a bit of a rapport with the person, the presenter or group of presenters. It helps to get rid of that. Everyone hopefully knows what they're doing. We normally get people to dial in a bit early right before the session too.

So we can recap, we can go over anything if they've got any questions. And just make sure that they feel confident because the key thing is to be confident in delivering your presentation. And the same is true of onsite as well. So a presenter knowing where they fit in the program, what their [00:31:00] talk is doing that other people's talks isn't doing, they can then lean into that.

But if everyone's comfortable, In both the technology working and that they know what their purpose there is, they can hopefully deliver their presentation much better if they're not thinking about it. I mean, the key, the key pitfalls though are 300 slides when you've got a 15 minute slot that happens quite frequently.

Molly: Seems seems like I do that. Yeah, that

Phil: does happen. I think what's quite nice is if, if slide, you know, we, we often run a master slide deck for a day. And you can deliver that via, you know, a SharePoint or whatever, where you've got to set up any sort of file sharing platform that the client might want to use.

But sometimes it's nice to have things designed on brand, you know, even if you're an external person, just Having someone's eyes on the presentation to make sure that the graphics and stuff just don't look odd. We get quite a lot of presentations that are still in 4 3 ratios when every screen is always widescreen now or white or super widescreen even.

So just, I mean, I mean, we can [00:32:00] guide with, you know, particular settings on that too. So we can advise if there's an LED wall that is a certain ratio, that's a bit different. Um, we can then remodel their slides for them, or, you know, just make everyone aware of what was expected beforehand, but that's a common pitfall is loads of slides in a slightly odd format, or it's just a white slide with a lot of aerial text on it.

That's never fun for anyone, but I think the biggest thing I think is in terms of presenting in an engaging dynamic way is not just to go straight into your subject without that context that I sort of touched upon a minute ago, so. We, we film lots of really in depth stuff that I'm not an expert in that, but people can still present in a way that speaks to me.

And if you're able to do that for me, then chances are you're engaging your more knowledgeable audience really well. So not just jumping into a slide of algebra immediately, what, what, what is the crux of your talk? Sum it up initially, what are we going to take away? And then you can sort of delve into the content a little bit more.

I [00:33:00] think, I think that's all important stuff and it's really easy just to start talking about that thing that you know everything about without thinking about the audience a bit more.

Mikey: Yeah. Phil, you mentioned liking the TED talk format. Yeah. Molly and I agree. We, we crushed some TED talks, but yeah, it's not only the focus and the concentration of that material.

But to your point here, these Ted talkers have so many random different types of people in their audience who know so far less about what they're talking about. And so the, the good ones, it seems do have that ability to bring people in and just deliver it in that human way, such that it like, okay, like, I don't know anything about neuroscience, but now I do a little, and you know, it's some, um, it's somehow talking to me.

So yeah, I agree. Like that contextual framing upfront and. Knowing that there is that. What do they call it? The curse of knowledge and trying to understand what other people might not know yet. So you can bring them to your, your key points a little easier.

Phil: Exactly. I

Mikey: [00:34:00] think,

Phil: I think what's good about the way people are encouraged to present at TED events is to bring some humor in, in there as well.

You know, that goes such a long way to sort of breaking the ice and to, you know, waking people up a little bit. I think, you know, just that, like you mentioned, that human element. It's really easy, particularly in educational settings, you know, conferences are typically about delivering some information from one person to a group of people, but if you can connect with those group of people right from the bat, then you're going to have them in the palm of your hand for the rest of what you've got to say.

A little joke is fine. I think there's boundaries, of course, but a little joke is fine. And even in the most poignant TED talks, there's often humor in them. And I think that's, that's a really good, big success for the way they curate those, those things. We're really fortunate in that we used to film a lot of TEDx events here in the UK.

So I've seen lots of TEDx talks as well. So, um, yeah, and it's been really, it's been really interesting because We've sort of been part [00:35:00] of the whole organizing committee in some respects for, for, for once down in Exeter. So which is in the southwest of the UK. So we're able to see how they're briefing their speakers and why they've brought that set of speakers together.

Often there's a, an overriding theme. So one year we did one that was hope, but everyone was coming from such disparate angles on it, but that's what tied them together. So that was interesting. And the fact that they, yeah, allowing people to have a bit of fun with that is cool.

Molly: Yeah. Okay. Well, perfect, because this is a great transition into our spice cabinets of the episode where we get to ask just some more, some more rapid fire questions.

And yeah, as Mikey said, we're, we're fans of Ted as well. We often will break down a Ted talk, which is such a good place to learn in that concentrated format, as you said. So from your Ted experience, truly was going to ask, um, favorite speakers, presenters, or Ted talk. Tell us a little bit about your experience and if you've got a favorite.

Phil: Well, I'll give you, I'll tell you what, I'll give you an example from, you know, Here in the UK at Exeter. So a few years back [00:36:00] chap called Alan Cricklow. He gave a really, really amazing talk about, so I think he'd been in prison. I can't remember what, what for, but he basically started a program where parents in prison could read stories to their kids.

And I think at the time my wife is pregnant, I think, so I think I was thinking about this sort of thing in more depth, but his talk was amazing and it did really well. It got picked up by Ted Central just because it's such an interesting story. And you know, it's one of those subjects areas that you don't often think about if, if you're not exposed to that sort of environment in your, in your day to day life.

And, and the way he, you know, explained the program and the good it was doing for people allowing, you know, because it's difficult for kids if their, if their parent is, you know, in jail, it's a way of facilitating some sort of relationship that isn't in that setting. And the way he delivered it was amazing.

And it got loads of views. It did really well. And yeah, there wasn't, I don't think there were any slights in it. Yeah. It was just him [00:37:00] talking. He had some audio, like examples of readings. Because I think there's a place for it, isn't there, where, you know, slides could be illustrative of what you're talking about, but sometimes it's really powerful just hearing someone present.

Yeah. That was a great one. But then, you know, there's some like huge. Names have done TED talks, right? So Brian Cox, do you know him? The, the physics guys, he's from the UK.

Molly: I was like, why does it sound familiar? Okay. Yeah.

Phil: Not Brian Cox from the movies and TV. He's not, not the actor, Brian Cox, but the other one.

So he's a, he's a, he actually, he used to be in like a pop band here in the nineties, but he then, he then did a degree and he's a, he's a, he had some really successful physics TV shows here in the UK and he, he did that for a while. And the reason he got so big is just doing that breakdown of really complicated subject matter.

So he's talking about how the universe was created, but in such a way that gets it across to anyone, kids, kids can get into it. And he did a really great Ted [00:38:00] talk a few years ago, and he still, he does like speaking tours and stuff. So he's super used to doing it and he's got a voice that's really easy to mimic.

And I think, I think that sticks in people's minds as well. I'll say it. The way he is.

Molly: Yeah. Yeah. He's

Phil: like got a very languid style of speaking, very slow, very deliberate, but yeah, I mean, he's been super successful over here. I know he's been on like Joe Rogan a few times, so I think he's made it over your direction too, but.

Yeah. His TED talk was brilliant as well. And I think it was a really famous one by Tim, but it's like one of the most viewed TED talks about procrastination or getting around procrastination. That was really good. And the way he, he, he sort of has like a blog and he brought in the graphic style of the blog into his slides.

I mean, he'd have a few slides. Yeah. But they were there for comedic effect as opposed to, as opposed to actually outlining what he's saying. So, yeah, there's so many TED Talks and so many great ones.

Molly: Yeah, that's fun. Well, now we know you're a TED fan, we can send them back and forth. Oh, yeah. I know. Yeah,

Phil: absolutely.

Molly: And say, the first man's [00:39:00] name who read the childhood stories from, from J. A. M. I think I said

Phil: his name wrong earlier, but it's Alan Crickmore.

Molly: Alan Crickmore, we'll link that, yeah. Just wanted folks to hear it again. Alan Crickmore, Brian Cox, and Tim on the procrastination. I, yeah, definitely, we've done a similar one.

Not Brian, we didn't do Brian Cox as Mikey, but I love when there's a really complex, it was about the creation of the universe, and talking about time, like in space, continuum concepts. And just something super insane and then it's visual, it's visualized in a really digestible way and the person's a funny deliverer and you become like, you can feel like you're tapping into that niche expertise for a little bit.

Phil: Yeah, being able to answer the biggest question ever in 15 minutes. Yeah, that's quite a challenge, but yes, yeah.

Molly: Absolutely.

Mikey: Phil, how about any, like, we always love to hear, not that we want to dwell on a presentation horror story, but any funny speaker stories from the archives that you tend to, to not forget?

Phil: Yeah. I mean, we, I had a, I won't mention the names, but we had a rock star delivering a lecture in a [00:40:00] lecture theater. like a normal school lecture theater, not a huge PA system or anything, but he was very determined on wanting the volume to go louder on his VT over and over and over again. But we were maxed out.

I say we, the in house, we were doing the stream, but the in house team could not make it any louder. So that was quite amusing. I assume being a rock star, maybe the hearing is perhaps failed slightly because he was very loud.

Molly: Right, right, right. Like people can hear you. Okay. Yeah,

Phil: definitely. Everyone can hear down the street.

I mean, it was, it was absolutely funny.

Molly: Well, that's better than the person that I guess is too soft, right? Yeah. I don't know what's, there can be either extreme that

Phil: you need to work with. Well, we at least very much knew what he was, what he wanted, even if it couldn't be delivered. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, the biggest horror stories are when people try and skip out on like a, you know, a little session beforehand.

So maybe slight overconfidence or not fully understanding that that five minutes is the difference between success [00:41:00] and not success. So. Yeah, it's that rabbit in the headlights feeling. I sometimes think it's easier in person because you can sort of maneuver physically someone onto a stage. But when you're in a virtual setting or a hybrid setting where you're dialing in, if you're not sure what's happening because you haven't been able to join a session beforehand for whatever reason, that's when we get the horror stories happening.

So yeah, like a presenter at an online awards who hadn't really rehearsed and just. It could have been slicker. Yeah,

Mikey: that is rehearsal practice. And it pays off. It's hard, but it's, it's real. Yeah. Even

Molly: just experimenting with the LinkedIn live setting. Like you've heard me talk about this for Ghost Ranches webinars.

Like that's the whole process with, I need two monitors. I need someone else to know where their zoom slides are going to be when they, and who's like, talk about who's sharing the screen, like the tech, all. The all hybrid stuff or the all online stuff can often be more stressful because you're not sure people's familiarity with, with a [00:42:00] program or something.

Phil: Yeah. I mean, these events have all run in so many different ways and I'm sure, yes, they're really confident because the last one ran in the way that's in their mind, but perhaps the way the next one is, is slightly different and those nuances are what can trip people up sometimes. So yeah, I mean, being as prepared as possible helps to avoid some of that.

Molly: Fill some like preferred or favorite resources that you've offered out either via your own interest or from first sight for People looking for media or event advice any podcasts to follow or books you've read

Phil: Do you know what? There's some really good sort of like networking groups I think the ones that I'll mention are probably UK based but We're part of one called Delegate wranglers, which is essentially a Facebook group But if you need anything for any event ever, and you can't find it, if you post in that group, someone would have done it.

Whatever it is, there might be the most niche prop that you need for one hour in London tomorrow. Someone will find [00:43:00] it and we'll be able to help you out. So that we found that. Yeah. It's an amazing, amazing. It's such a good resource. Yeah. Delicate Wranglers. Yes. Yeah. It's really good. So yeah. And they're, they're quite popular.

big in the events industry here. So they, they often show up at trade shows and stuff. So they, they've got a really good presence and people trust that when someone is on there and posting, it's a trusted voice back. So, uh, you know, if someone's willing to help you out on there, they've, they've been there and done it.

And you know that their advice is probably worth listening to, but there's lots of sort of trade ish associations that we're sort of affiliated as well. So Uh, there's a conference one here called Abko where, you know, anyone involved in conference industry can join, whether you're an event supplier or straight organizer, you know, it's just a place to network, uh, and they, they put on loads of events as well as online ones, uh, both in person as well.

They like have an award show. Um, but again, it's just finding trusted people that know stuff [00:44:00] that you don't is really helpful because until you come across some things, you might not have thought about a solution for that. So being able to, to lean into those sorts of communities is really helpful. And it also just makes you feel like you're supported, you know, you've got somewhere You're not siloed in your own sort of crew here.

You've got other people that you can bring in to help, which is always a nice feeling.

Molly: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Your community. Yeah. Yeah. Community going. That's it. I know you talked about your production experience earlier and creating your own films and being part of film teams. What are some of your favorite, just Phil Platt's personal favorite films?

Phil: Do you know what? Um, the film I watched most recently was Midsommar. I don't know if you saw that. It's fun. But I've seen it about three times.

Molly: I'm a scaredy cat. So I but I do love Florence Pugh. So in Sweden, but

Phil: yeah, it's an amazing film. Just like the visuals. Incredible. It's sort of it's one of those that's not jump scary in any way.

It's just unsettling in every way. Yeah. [00:45:00] And it's disturbing. Yeah. It builds and builds and builds. But, um, yeah, I think that was a really, really well made film. I like so many different films. Thinking back to doing a degree in film, it feels like a long time since I had dedicated time to just sit and watch things regularly.

So I have to really want to watch it. I think the last, other than Midsommar, I think I watched the Running Man, the Arnie, uh, film the other day, which is weirdly. prophetic in some of it. It's a silly film. It's like a typical 80s Arnie action set in 2017, sort of dystopian vision of the future. But it's all about sort of this reality TV show and how the media becomes sort of this, uh, government controlled entity.

So it is an interesting concept and it's just fun.

Molly: I love it. We'll link them. We'll link them. It's always fun to see kind of where people's, uh, free time interests lies.

Phil: I it says about me, but Yeah, it's a cool film. No, don't worry about it. We know what this next question Not taking the Midsommar same