Your AI film is ready — will it play properly at the event?

Ask the venue before the final export

Picture a fictional design studio introducing a new collection at a small conference. The film looks good on the founder’s laptop, but the room uses a wide LED canvas and a separate playback operator. Sending the usual social export could leave empty space, cut important details or put a control bar on the presentation screen. The correct decision starts with the actual destination.

Ask the operator for the content area in pixels, the accepted playback format, how the file reaches the system and whether sound is expected. Also ask when they need a locked copy. Keep their reply with the project rather than translating it into a guessed universal preset. A screen’s physical dimensions and the pixel area available to your film are related questions, not interchangeable specifications.

Make the file usable without a fragile chain

A public video link can be useful for review, but it should not be the only route to an important live showing. Confirm whether the operator will play a local file or a network source. If a local copy is required, deliver it early enough to load and test on the real system. Do not assume that a browser login, hotel Wi-Fi or a messaging-app download will behave as it did at home.

Name the exact approved file and keep a second copy through an agreed route. The backup should be identifiable, not a folder full of almost-final exports. If the event has an alternative playback machine, ask the operator to test that path too. A spare drive is useful only when somebody knows which file to open and has checked that the machine can read it.

Rehearse the first and the last second

Run the full film on the venue equipment before the audience arrives. Check the beginning, any quiet speech, the brightest and darkest passages, the end and the return to the host’s presentation. View it from the back of the room as well as beside the console. Text that seemed comfortable on a laptop can become unreadable across a hall, particularly with a poorly placed screen.

Agree whether the film starts on a cue, repeats between sessions or plays once before a speaker. Those behaviours need different endings and operator instructions. Ask who stops it if the schedule changes. A rehearsal should include the handover back to the live event; an unexpected desktop or a silent pause after the last frame can undo an otherwise polished introduction.

Leave a small, unambiguous show package

The interactive note separates a confirmed screen from an unknown one and an offline route from a network route. It does not certify a codec or predict the equipment’s behaviour. Use it to see what is still missing, then replace the draft answers with the operator’s real specifications. If the screen is unknown, that is a request for information, not a reason to invent dimensions.

For SOLONSKY Films, I would agree the event version as a named delivery with its own approval. Keep the creative master, the venue export and the rehearsal result together. Include the contact responsible for the cue and a short recovery instruction. That gives the operator something they can use under time pressure, while protecting the film from last-minute guesses about fit, sound and playback.

• Get the operator’s actual specifications
• Identify the locked venue export
• Test the complete showing on site
• Agree the cue, ending and recovery route