‘Lights, camera, action!’: Movie-making techniques make it into hybrid conference rooms
Office designers are borrowing from the movie and TV industries to make meeting rooms more effective for hybrid workforces.
That means filmmaking techniques like using multiple cameras, adjusting lighting to communicate mood and “dressing the set” are making it into conference rooms, according to office architecture and design giant Gensler.
While hybrid working has become the widespread norm in the corporate world, having the best of in-office and WFH doesn’t always translate to meetings themselves. That means that those attending a meeting from their home won’t get a good view or feel for how the meeting is going, which can affect their participation and the meeting’s flow.
The most common way to film a hybrid meeting — with one camera — especially in larger rooms, can entail constant panning, tilting and zooming to capture what’s happening in the room while distracting and tiring remote attendees.
Instead, multiple cameras should be used and positioned in a 180-degree arc relative to those physically attending, so as to not “break the line.” It’s a technique used in filmmaking to better capture the narrative in the room and promote a more seamless connection between those who are physically present and those who aren’t.
It speaks to the issues of meeting equity and presenteeism bias, and is one way to make everyone feel like they’re in the same room and able to engage and contribute at the same level. “We need to create a space that makes that very easy for the people who are there and the people who are not there to witness the dynamic, not just people and faces, but the context between them,” said Steve Woods, creative technology lead at Gensler.
“People have said, ‘Oh my gosh, it is like watching a little TV show,’” he added.
Other camera placement tweaks include moving them to a more human level. “We try to get them at slightly above a normal seated or slightly below normal standing height, so you have this perspective of the space as if you were in it,” Woods said.
Lighting is also key, with some changes that can be made to make lighting more adequate by reducing glare and uneven color tones. The ideal hybrid room also has at least three solid painted walls and one glazed wall — rooms with glazing on two or more surfaces can reflect light in ways that disturb the visual flow for remote guests, according to a Gensler report. Proper lighting helps ensure body language, facial expressions and other social cues are more apparent to everyone in the audience.
And just like on a movie set, the actual conference room set-up also matters. “Space is an important and valuable actor in certain kinds of collaborative stories,” Woods said.
Traditionally, conference rooms typically featured one main screen for presenting, but today’s hybrid meetings are better held with two large screens — one displaying content or documents being discussed, and another displaying the remote audience, said Anthony Land, director of design for office design firm Stylex. It’s important to make space to bring remote workers into the room physically so everyone in the room can see those workers’ faces and remember they too are participants.
Ideally, those key displays are placed in spots perpendicular to a conference room table or seating area. When they’re placed at the opposite end, it breaks the relationship between the participant and the content, and makes it harder for them to know where to look, according to Gensler.
“The equity comes from everyone’s ability to meaningfully contribute, and face size is not equity. Equity comes from people who aren’t in the space being able to witness and directly influence the dynamic that’s happening in the room because the people who are in the room have an advantage. And we want people who aren’t there to have those same contextual cues and have the delight slash terror of having the room turn towards them when they speak, just having that presence,” Woods said.
Visual design elements are an essential part of holding more efficient, engaging and effective hybrid meetings, though recently more companies have turned to certain tools like AI-powered cameras and all-in-one solutions that can actually make hybrid meetings worse, design experts say. For example, AI-powered cameras may focus on the wrong people, random body parts or even birds outside a window that make them even more distracting, Woods said.
But companies will have to find better solutions as hybrid work becomes the most common workplace arrangement and is the expected way moving forward.
“Our ultimate goal is that the word hybrid kind of goes away. That this is just how meetings work now,” said Greg Gallimore, digital experience design leader at Gensler.