From Dawn Til Dark!
Posted on Nov 7, 2024 by Pro Moviemaker
For a full-day shoot covering a lively corporate event, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield was up to the job
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Many corporate events demand day-long video coverage of the speeches, seminars and workshops – which generate a lot of footage that all must be safely stored. But when filmmaker John Owen was hired to cover an event that saw him and his crew in action for 22 hours straight, it was bound to be a stressful day requiring careful planning and choice of kit.
The shoot day started before dawn, so his crew could assemble, then drive two hours to the venue and prepare to film the delegates arriving before breakfast. The shoot continued with multicamera recording of the conference all day. Then, it was on to interviews, dinner and a full-on party with entertainers and dancing through to midnight.
“The client wanted so much more than any usual conference jobs,” Owen says. “The whole story of the day needed telling in a series of films afterwards – from almost 500 guests arriving to the speakers, break-out groups and presentations.
“The brief also included talking head interviews requiring proper lighting, as well as video coverage throughout the evening. We captured after-dinner entertainers, a silent disco with a live DJ and then the dancing at a conventional noisy disco.”
“There was a need for still photos of the guests during the day, which had to be edited on-site and projected onto screens at key moments,” he notes. For example, arrival photos were quickly edited and displayed during the welcome speeches, while workshop and presentation shots were shown during dinner.”
Adding to potential issues, there were often several speakers on stage, along with roving radio mics for delegate questions from the floor. The AV was managed via a different company, with a crew running
a sound desk and a full lighting rig.
On top of this, the whole day had to be captured in 4K with perfect sound for a series of films to be made. Nothing could be missed or left to chance.
“It’s at events like these that you really need to know your kit and crew and have plenty of backups in place in case of any technical issues,” says Owen. With the need to safely store large amounts of 4K video footage, audio captured separately on an external recorder – plus stills that required fast editing and storage – there was only one choice for a portable drive:
the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield.
“I have used Samsung portable drives for years, and they’ve never let me down,” reveals Owen, who relies on multiple Samsung portable drives as backups on location, keeps off-site copies and safely delivers files to clients via courier. “I know they can handle knocks and still work perfectly.” Unlike a conventional HDD, which has mechanical discs that can be damaged or wear out, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield has no moving parts to go wrong.
The speedy and durable 4TB Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield was the perfect choice for the conference all-dayer. With so much camera equipment, tripods, lights and audio kit, its compact yet sturdy build was key – no worries about drops or spilled drinks.
The portable drive’s rubber cover and IP65 rating for water and dust resistance kept it safe, and at just 98g, 88mm long, 59mm wide and 13mm thick, it fits easily into the set-up. Its USB-C connection plugged straight into the laptop, and with Mac and Windows drivers, there were no compatibility issues. Plus, the Samsung Magician software monitored drive health and customised settings.
But perhaps most importantly for a high-pressure shoot, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield is fast enough to download the files from cameras without any risk of overheating.
“Everything was shot on full-frame mirrorless cameras in 4K in 4:2:2 10-bit for as high quality as possible, and that’s a lot of data,” explains Owen. For the main-stage presentations, one camera was locked down on a tripod for a wide shot of the entire stage, while two others with longer lenses captured close-ups of the speakers. A fourth was mounted on a gimbal as a roving camera, and a fifth was pushed into action shooting stills when needed for another video angle.
During the short breaks, all the data from the memory cards were quickly transferred, as well as audio from the recorder. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield handled it all effortlessly with its rapid read and write speeds of up to 1050MB/s and 1000MB/s – almost ten times the speed of most external HDDs. Its speed is further aided by the latest USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface.
“The stills shots were also stored on the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield. I edited them in Lightroom so they could be shown on the AV presentation,” shares Owen. “At no time was I left frustrated, waiting for files to render or export. With time being of the essence, everything worked without any issues.”
Boasting a tough aluminium body and thermal materials including silicon for heat dissipation, there were no problems with the portable drive overheating, which can lead to performance drops or even device failure. This is aided by low power consumption – a real bonus when using the portable drive on location with laptops.
As the day shifted to night and the energy ramped up, super-slow 200fps footage was put to use for some creative speed-ramping in post. But of course, this consumes even more drive space.
“At the end of the day, we had shot a considerable amount of footage, all of which was safely stored on the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield,” concludes Owen. “I got to bed around 2am, then started the mammoth task of editing the next day. I edited the footage directly off the portable drive as it’s fast enough to handle even multicamera 4K footage, and it doesn’t get hot despite many hours in the edit. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield is a real time saver!”
This feature was first published in the November/December 2024 issue of Pro Moviemaker.
