Big events these days are incomplete unless there is a big screen at the venue showing activities, interviews and trendy people. One company that is increasingly in demand is Wedovideo, which creates multimedia and audiovisual contents with high artistic highlight for events, television, Internet, cinema and all new media.

Wedovideo was founded by Frenchman Alexandre Bartholo who formerly worked as chief editor at the communication agency at Elysee Palace for French President Jacques Chirac from 2002 until 2005. Since establishing Wedovideo in June 2008, Bartholo and his team have already worked on events in Japan, China, Hong Kong and Korea for several brand-name clients, including Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Chanel and Cartier.

We sat down together with sister site, Japan Today, to speak with Bartholo and hear more.

What was it like working for President Chirac?

It was interesting, doing daily reporting, but after a while, it became very repetitive. So I left and started doing some directing for a year. I made short films, TV commercials and corporate movies.

When did you come to Japan?

At the end of 2007. Until that time, my main interest in Japan had been animation and video games. I brought all my cameras and equipment and planned to be here for about three months making music and promotional videos. Then I met a friend from France who was well connected with the former president of the French Chamber of Commerce in Japan in January 2008. They were running a company called Emotion, doing events for fashion and corporate brands. They asked me if I would be interested in video production and together, we established Wedovideo in June of 2008.

Was it difficult getting started?

Not really, since one of our investors was and still is a major client. The difficult part was to accommodate Japanese teams who were not used to working with foreigners because the workflow involves a different process.

What are your main services?

We are a creative agency and specialize in video for various purposes, such as projection, television, cinema, and of course, the Internet. One of the main strings to our bow is 360-degree video production for events. We can also do live shooting of guests arriving and on-the-spot interviews. Besides events, we provide services for commercial and music videos, work on special video projects with green screens, steadicam, large scale motion graphics and website design.

How has business been this year so far?

We’ve had a good year, averaging about 2-4 jobs a month. Our services enable clients to reduce their costs when they hold a big event, which is an important point in the recession. Another plus factor is that a lot of our work is overseas. I’d say about 50% of our income is generated form overseas events. For example, we recently did a very big event for Cartier in Shanghai, the launch of a new watch, and we’ve done events in Hong Kong and South Korea as well.

How do you market your company?

We don’t need to advertise. Rather, we work a lot with event organizers, and through them, we get introduced to clients. Little by little, they start to ask for our services other than events. Now we have many repeat customers like Cartier, Chanel and Dior.

Finally, how is technology changing the business?

Video technology is becoming more and more accessible. Before, doing a 360-degree video would have been a logistical nightmare and expensive. Now you can produce it with a laptop. Whenever we go abroad, we travel lightly with small cameras and laptops.

For more information, visit www.wedovideo.tv