Project Title: Singapore Fintech Festival Webinar 2020
BACKGROUND
SMBC, a global financial service provider, has worked with us many times before. Recently, we helped produce branding videos for their product demonstrations as well as other separate branding videos.
BRIEF
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) had to be held in a virtual format where panels and presentations were streamed live to the audience in the form of several webinar sessions.
SMBC reached out to us seeking assistance with the webinar production for their segments as part of their SFF showcase spread across three days. In addition to this, they also wanted a separate webinar event held internally to be streamed and distributed to their own employees across the globe.
RESPONSE
Initially, we were to assist with the technical side of the production efforts. However, the format, production of associated graphics and animations as well as technical coordination with the event organisers at this scale was something new for SMBC themselves. Our team eventually stepped in as a bridge between the event organisers, technical teams and SMBC to ensure all things related to the livestream went seamlessly
Overall, our job scope included taking in visual and audio live feeds of senior executives and CXOs from SMBC and mixing those with custom background layouts and animations, switching feeds as per the program schedule, bringing up slides and video presentations and, of course, streaming it seamlessly to the viewers. This also involved sessions with other speakers dialling in from Tokyo, Jakarta and Malaysia.
Here are some of the custom transitions from the webinar:
We also had to grapple with some technical complexities. Since the webinars were streamed on-site rather than remotely, we had to work around the lighting, a separate dedicated internet bandwidth and audio environment at the SMBC offices in Singapore. The COVID-19 restrictions and safe distancing measures made it even more challenging, and we had to house the speakers in two different office spaces that were converted into studios by our team for the webcast.
Furthermore, the webinars had to be hosted on different platforms. Different exhibitors had different types of showcases, and afterwards, we also had to re-stream the panels onto Youtube to be shared with SMBC’s clients. As for their internal webinar on the fourth day, SMBC also wanted the webinar, with custom audience polls, live collage and other bells and whistles to be streamed on Cisco Webex instead of on Microsoft teams.
We had about two test sessions and a dry run with the speakers before the live stream dates.
OUTCOME
SMBC’s panels and presentations all went smoothly both for the SFF events and also for the internal webinar. The client was very much pleased with the end result, despite the minor technical glitches owing to the complexity of the various platforms. It was indeed a project that challenged us technically, but it was an exciting experience nonetheless. With all hands on deck, the showcase was a success.
