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Multi-location corporate video: how I coordinate shoots across several cities
How I organize a corporate video when the company has offices in several cities: shared art direction, shooting order, a crew that travels and visual consistency across locations.
When a company has offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, the corporate video stops being a shoot. It becomes a logistics operation that happens to involve a camera.
Coordinating several locations from a single brief is different from repeating the same shoot three times. The staff available at each office changes, the light in each space changes, who can sit in front of the camera on that particular day changes. And even so, the final result has to look as if it was shot by the same person on the same afternoon.
What it is and why it matters
A multi-location corporate video is any piece that needs footage filmed at more than one of the same company's sites: different offices, different plants, different countries. I'm not talking about filming outdoors for a day, but about repeating the whole process (lighting, sound, interviews) at each site without the final edit giving away the jump between cities.
It matters because more and more companies want videos that represent the whole organization, not just headquarters. An employer branding video that only shows Madrid when the company has 200 people in Barcelona falls short. The same goes for culture videos, annual results videos or investor videos: if the company operates in several places, the video has to reflect that or it loses credibility.
The real risk isn't logistical, it's visual. If each location is filmed with different lighting, different framing and a different interview tone, the viewer notices the seams between sections even if they can't explain why. That's where you can tell whether there was art direction planned in advance or whether each stop on the trip was figured out on the fly.
How to do it well
A single art direction document
Before booking the first ticket, I lock in a short document with the color palette, the interview shot type (framing, camera height, focal length) and the list of core questions. That document travels with me to every location, and it's what lets me make quick decisions when the real space looks nothing like the photos I was sent.
I plan the order of locations by logistics, not importance
It sounds obvious but it's often ignored: the order of the cities is decided by the flight or train, not the org chart. If Madrid and Valencia can be chained together over two days with a short journey, they go together, even if the Valencia office is smaller. Leaving logistics until the end is the fastest way to end up rushing the shoot on the last day.
A small crew that travels, not different crews in each city
For 3 locations I usually travel with a crew of 2 (camera and sound) who repeat at every site, instead of hiring local operators in each city. It costs more in tickets and hotels, but the visual consistency you gain makes up for it: the same person who set the exposure in Madrid knows how to replicate that decision in Bilbao without having to explain it in writing.
Common mistakes
- Hiring different film crews at each location without a shared art direction document.
- Not accounting for real travel times between locations on the same shoot day.
- Filming each location at a different color temperature and counting on fixing it all in post-production.
- Adapting the script on the fly at each office instead of starting from a common structure.
- Not confirming the local subjects' actual availability before buying tickets.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to film a corporate video across several locations?
It depends on the number of cities and whether you need to fly or can take the train. As a guide, for 3 locations in Spain with day trips, the extra budget over a single-location shoot is usually €800 to €1,500 in travel, per diems and crew accommodation.
How many days does it take to film at 3 locations?
With 4 hours of actual filming per location and short journeys between cities, I usually plan 3 or 4 full days, including a buffer day for flight issues or subject availability.
Can I use local film crews in each city to cut costs?
You can, and sometimes it's the only option if there are many locations or the budget is tight. The risk is visual consistency: you need a very detailed art direction document and a coordination call with each operator before filming, or the final edit will look disjointed.
How do I keep visual consistency without traveling with the same crew to every location?
By setting the non-negotiable technical parameters in advance: the same camera or an equivalent model, the same color profile, the same camera height and distance for interviews, and the same 2- or 3-point lighting setup. The more tightly defined that document is, the less the result depends on who's holding the camera.
If your company has several locations and you need a corporate video that represents them all without showing the seams between cities, tell me how many locations there are and what timeline you're working with via /en/contacto.