Case studyCorporate

British Airways Flight Ops Summer Fly-In

IMAG screens and a highlights package for British Airways at their Flight Ops Summer Fly-In in High Wycombe. Live bands and air displays through the day, covered by a crew of four.

Client: British Airways
Location: High Wycombe
Sector: Corporate
Services: IMAG and screens, filming, highlights edit
Crew: Four. FOH operator, RF operator, vision, graphics
On the bill: Scouting for Girls, The Hoosiers, air displays

The main stage at the British Airways Flight Ops Summer Fly-In with IMAG screens either side and a High Flight charity banner

The brief

British Airways’ Flight Ops team run a summer fly-in for staff and families. Outdoors, a full day, with live music on the bill alongside air displays through the afternoon.

dwmedia supplied the IMAG screens and filmed the day for a highlights package afterwards. Scouting for Girls and The Hoosiers played, and the aircraft flew between sets.

What made it challenging

Corporate work is usually a room. This was a field with aircraft in the sky above it, and the screens had two entirely different jobs on the same afternoon.

Air displays are the tougher of the two. A band plays for forty minutes and you can find the shot. A display happens once, it happens fast, and it is over before you have finished deciding how to cover it. By the time the screens catch up, the crowd has already stopped looking up.

That changes how the rig works. The RF camera roams and stays ready rather than sitting parked on a position, because the interesting thing is not where it was thirty seconds ago. And whoever is cutting has to be watching the sky as well as the stage, which is not how a music cut normally runs. You are anticipating an aircraft’s line rather than a chorus.

Then the display finishes, a band comes back on, and the screens return to faces and guitars. Tight shots, performer close-ups, the ordinary discipline of a music cut.

Two completely different jobs, the same afternoon, the same four people.

dwmedia camera operator on the riser at the British Airways Flight Ops Fly-In

What was deployed

One front of house camera operator
One RF camera operator, roaming
Vision mixing
Graphics

IMAG feeds to the screens throughout, with the day filmed for a highlights edit delivered after the event.

The highlights package is worth noting as a deliverable in its own right. A staff day is a communications asset as much as an event: the footage carries the day to everyone who could not attend, and to next year’s audience. Capturing it properly on the day costs almost nothing extra when the cameras are already there for the screens. Recovering it afterwards is impossible.

dwmedia camera operator filming a keyboard player on stage at the British Airways Fly-In

Why this matters for corporate work

Not every corporate event is a boardroom. Staff days, family events and away days carry the same expectation as an AGM: the client’s name is on it, and it either looks right or it does not.

The useful thing about a day like this is the range it demands. A four-person crew covering unpredictable aerial action and a band set within the same afternoon, without a redesign between the two, is the same discipline that keeps an AGM or a town hall running when the agenda changes on the day.

Hands on the vision mixer at the British Airways Flight Ops Fly-In, camera two on the control screen

dwmedia operator with a Ronin gimbal on stage beside the drummer at the British Airways Fly-In

Corporate events have no tolerance for technical failure, whether that is a boardroom, a conference suite or a field with aircraft over it. We bring our own crew, our own kit and our own connectivity, and we work to a minimal footprint.

Corporate events › IMAG and screens › Recording and highlights › Town halls and internal comms › Country and outdoor events ›

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