One of our clients produced a very impressive event that incorporated an array of impressive production elements, perhaps most notably a 50 foot long LED wall that displayed graphical content during the entire presentation not only to the in person audience, but also within the video frame of the live webcast.
Locations:
The specific event was an annual town hall meeting. The primary venue was a hotel ballroom but there were remote cameras in 4 additional client office locations.
Cameras:
In the primary location there were 3 cameras used. The first camera was a stationary camera that was at the back of the room. This camera could be used for wide shots and remotely controlled to pan around the room. There was a second camera set up for the mid-shots and the final camera was a handheld camera that would rove around the room to be in the ‘right place at the right time’. The remote locations used handheld cameras.
Stage:
The back of the stage had a HUGE LED wall. The LED wall would rotate graphics with different presenters and was regularly moving. The screen graphics would rotate from showing an office space to an open field with a gentle breeze blowing leaves to different written quotes floating across the screen.The graphics on the screen were dynamic and constantly rotating.
Production:
While most town hall meetings are well planned out and rehearsed, this event was was completely scripted and blocked out. Every step taken on the stage, every word spoken was completely choreographed. The event itself was on a Thursday. The production team went into the venue Monday morning to start setting up and testing. Rehearsals and walkthroughs for the event started Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday, some of the presenters were present but stand-ins were largely used to make sure that the blocking worked as designed. Wednesday’s rehearsal was with the actual presenters and the entire production was run through multiple times during the day. Thursday morning an additional run through was done before the actual event was run.
Challenges:
One of the first things that had to be worked through was training of the production company on their encoders. This wasn’t difficult but it was needed. Video encoders settings had been provided but the configuration that had been entered into the encoders was found to be incorrect when the work was double checked. One of the encoders had been configured with a different key frame rate than the other – this caused failover to not work properly. The problem was quickly identified and the fix quickly implemented. Lesson learned.
Another issue that was worked through was with the really amazing looking LED wall. LED walls can cause havoc for the cameras at times. This can be true in productions at any level. The video below is from the TV show Eurovision and shows pixelation from the LED wall behind the musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44t24wGdlA0&t=2750s
During the walk Tuesday walk through, some of the video shots were falling apart graphically. The issue was caused by the presenters being too close to the wall itself. Simple solution – have the people move closer to the front of the stage. Also keeping the hand held camera just slightly further back from the LED wall paid large dividends. Minor changes made during the rehearsals resulted were able to address all of the technical issues with the pixelization found.
The client invested heavily in this event. They invested in the venue, production crew and graphic design for the show. They invested in the employees time to take the information they wanted to convey to the employees and polish it into a high quality script and polished presentation. They invested heavily in pre-event testing and walkthroughs and the coordination of efforts. Essentially, the client treated the event like their own corporate Super Bowl. At the end of the event, the client team won. The event came off incredibly well and with zero issues.