Vienna Video Production
A senior English-speaking cinematographer producing executive interviews, conference coverage and corporate films in Vienna for international communications teams. Thirty years of work across Europe and the US, for clients including Google, Pfizer, AWS, Merck and Boston Consulting Group.
Who you're hiring in Vienna
I'm Theo Solnik, founder of Haikai Media and the cinematographer on every Vienna shoot we deliver. I trained at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb) and have been shooting corporate, documentary, and cinema work for over 30 years.
My first feature, Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin, won the Prize for Young Film Art from the German National Gallery and the German Film Academy — presented by Bruno Ganz and Iris Berben — and was exhibited daily over four months in a dedicated room at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart museum in Berlin. My work has since screened at festivals and museums in more than 25 countries and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
I hold Italian and Brazilian nationality and a U.S. O-1B visa as an Artist with Extraordinary Ability. I speak seven languages including German and English.
When you book a Vienna shoot with Haikai Media, you're hiring a director of photography who has personally lit, framed, and delivered the work — not a booking agent passing the job to an unknown freelancer.
My full portfolio is at theosolnik.com
Full biography and credentials at About Theo Solnik
Video production services in Vienna
I produce corporate and institutional video in Vienna with a compact, senior setup. Typical engagements are executive interviews and leadership messages, corporate films and case studies for global teams, conference and event coverage with a stage audio feed, on-location testimonials, and brand or documentary-style pieces with controlled visuals — through to a finished, graded edit with captions and deliverables for web and social.
Case study: EU PVSEC — conference highlight film in Vienna
EU PVSEC, the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, is the largest international gathering in the solar sector and ran its 41st edition at the Austria Center Vienna in September 2024. The conference is organised by WIP Renewable Energies, with its scientific programme coordinated by the European Commission's Joint Research Center. WIP commissioned the highlight film, with me covering the entire five-day event single-handed.
The brief was a promotional highlight cut that carried the scale and energy of the conference — something WIP could use to represent the edition and draw the community back for the next one. Covering an event this size on my own is the core of the job: EU PVSEC fills the Austria Centre with hundreds of exhibition stands, parallel plenary and oral sessions, poster areas, a prizes and awards ceremony and continuous networking across five days, and I had to be in the right place across all of it.
The main challenge was coverage and pace. A floor this dense, running parallel sessions on a packed programme, gives you one chance at most moments and no second takes. I worked light and fast to move between the exhibition hall, the tiered conference rooms and the evening venues, holding a consistent look across very different lighting — bright exhibition halls, auditoria lit only by stage screens, the frescoed galleries of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien for the conference dinner and the vaulted cellars of the Rathauskeller for the committee dinner. Coverage ran beyond the Austria Center too, including the PV Academy sessions held in the Festsaal at TU Wien. The cut is built around the event's own rhythm: the research on show, the speakers, the awards, and the sense of a global industry gathered across the city.
The final highlight film was delivered for WIP's promotional use, cut to music with themed captions guiding the viewer through the exhibition, the scientific programme and the networking.
Executive interviews in Vienna
Executive interviews are the most common corporate format for international companies. They're typically filmed in offices, conference venues, hotels or controlled rented locations that allow clean sound and consistent visuals across multiple speakers.
My standard setup is two cameras — a wider primary and a tighter secondary — on a RED Komodo 6K with Zeiss Standard Speed primes. Audio goes to a Sennheiser MKH-416 or Sanken COS-11 with an independent 32-bit float recorder as backup.
For teams coordinating remotely, I structure interviews around a clear briefing beforehand and fast review links after filming, so stakeholders in different time zones can review and approve efficiently.
Example work:
Corporate interview video production in Vienna — see selected projects:
https://www.haikai.media/projects/corporate-videos
Conference and event coverage
Conference work needs consistency, intelligibility and reliable coverage of speakers and audience. I structure filming around locked-off cameras on the stage and speaker, with additional coverage for questions and context, and — where the venue allows — record a feed directly from the audio desk alongside independent on-site recording for redundancy.
Deliverables can include full session recordings, a highlights edit and shorter social versions, planned so key content can go out while the event is still current. My Vienna conference work includes the highlight films and stills for EU PVSEC, the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, and EuroPerio, the European Federation of Periodontology congress.
Corporate films
Corporate video usually combines interviews with contextual filming that shows the people, environment and processes behind an organisation. I plan filming around real operational schedules to keep disruption low, gathering B-roll of workspaces, meetings and establishing shots that give the edit structure. Post is handled in staged review rounds — assembling the narrative, integrating brand elements, balancing audio and preparing formats for each platform, from a primary cut to vertical and captioned versions.
Deliverables and turnaround
Deliverables are prepared for your intended use: master files for internal distribution, compressed versions for web, and shorter edits for social. Interview-based productions deliver a first cut within 24 to 48 hours of wrap, with the final corrected video within 24 hours of your feedback. Conference and multi-day productions follow a schedule agreed in the quote. Final exports are ProRes masters, H.264 web versions, 9:16 social cutdowns and burned-in or sidecar subtitles on request. Colour grading, sound mix and original music are handled in-house where required.
Pricing
Every project is quoted individually on crew size, shoot days, deliverables and post scope, with travel, insurance and contingency itemised separately so you see exactly what you're paying for. Payment terms are 50% on booking, 50% on delivery. I operate under Italy's regime forfettario, which means clean IVA-exempt invoicing for EU and international clients.
Do you speak English on set?
Yes. English is my default working language for international clients. I also work in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Norwegian.
Can you deliver both video and stills from the same shoot?
Yes. For conference and event work in Vienna the deliverable is often a finished, graded highlight film for the organisers alongside a set of usable stills for press and partners, produced from the same shoot.
How fast can you deliver?
First cut within 24 to 48 hours of wrap for standard interview projects. After your feedback, the final corrected video is delivered within 24 hours. Same-day or next-day turnarounds are possible for event highlights with advance planning.
Do you charge VAT?
No. I operate under Italy's regime forfettario (Art. 1, c. 54–89, L. 190/2014), which exempts my invoices from VAT. This simplifies international billing for EU and non-EU clients
