I was commissioned by Seven Hills PR consultants to shoot a single-shot timelapse video of people arriving for the MADE Entrepreneur Festival in Sheffield on 20th September 2012. The example I was asked to emulate is an existing video of large window graphics being applied to the outside of a building.
However, there was not going to be anything similar at Sheffield City Hall and, because of other events happening in Barkers’ Pool, a similar shot of the main entrance was obscured. So, the brief I had was to create something impressive to communicate the size and energy of the event, and shoot and edit it in a single day so that it could be shown online the following day.
This kind of open brief is both good and bad. I prefer to be given creative freedom, but with great power comes great responsibility, and I had to come up with something.
My solution was to capture the size of the event in terms of the number of delegates, and to end with a bit of a tease as the Oval Hall fills up, the lights go down and the event starts. Instead of a single shot, I used five cameras around the building but only used four in the final edit.
Sheffield City Hall is managed by Sheffield International Venues, and is one of the finest venues in the country with a huge capacity of 2,271 in the Irwin Mitchell Oval Hall. MADE was a sell-out event with a number of high-profile guest speakers including HRH The Duke of York and Dragon’s Den regular Peter Jones.
I’ve over-achieved a bit on this one, and it was a lot to get done in one day, but the client was delighted and it was shown to the audience during the last day of the festival.
hospitality.sheffieldcityhall.co.uk
wearesevenhills.com
madefestival.com
Richard Bolam Digital Media 
Richard,
You did an OUTSTANDING job for the festival. We used the video to open the second day for MADE. The audience reaction was brilliant. Your work is excellent and we will most certainly work with you again. Highest recommendations for anyone considering this sort of work.
Michael Hayman
Chairman – MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival
Hi Michael. Thank you so much for your generous comments. It was a pleasure to be part of an amazing event in such a beautiful venue, and I look forward to working with you again. R-)