When you start to produce live programming you’ll find yourself watching TV in a new and crazy way!   You start to look for every cut, every transition, and every camera position to find the motivation that lies behind each of them.  As a Director, it’s your role to pull everything together to produce a cohesive mix.  The question that I’ve found myself at many times is what makes for great live production?

“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”

Ansel Adams

When you are Directing, your show will only be as good as you prepare!

1. Show prep One of the critical things that I learned during my career in radio broadcasting, the more show prep that I did, the better the broadcast went.  The more prepared you are going into a show the less that can go wrong that you’re not already going to be ready for. You cannot prepare for everything, but for most things. At the height of my radio career I was the executive producer of my own two hour prime-time Saturday night show, “Binary Radio” was a live DJ mixed radio program there was no safety net, no live delay, my one and only line of defense was a prerecorded mix CD only to be used if I needed to re-boot Final Scratch.  Because of this there were times which  it was like juggling five chain saws and 3 bowling pins, and on rare occasion it was like watching a train wreak in revers and in slow motion.  The weeks that I would afford myself a 4 hour session of practice and programing my show it would go so nearly flawlessly  that it was scary.
2. Pre-Flight Checklist
   

   “I’ve got a checklist with 3,200 items on it. At any time, 150 of them are burning.”

   Fred Reid

   When you work from a checklist – it’s like having a silent assistant that keeps you on task, reinforcing your preparation.  (Provided that you make the time to make a worth while checklist that is.) What are things that you need on your checklist? During the course of your show prep you will run into areas that need work – marking a note of things that could go wrong, and what you can do to get around it.

3. Limited Stimulus before, during, and after the show This, honestly is just a personal thing that I’ve done dating back to my live theater experience.  I try to lay low before an event, to reflect and rehearse what’s necessary to execute the show as best I can.  Also during a show – I don’t want any kind of stimulus, and once I even had to spit out my gum as I ran out of things that I could do at one time (which at that time was seven.)
4. Post show exit meeting After you wrap a show, it’s a good practice to strike while the iron is hot and capture as much feedback about the show / event as you can – going over every triumph and tragedy that occurred.  The process of debriefing is critical to growth as a director, if you want to grow you’ll have to learn to take the good with bad.  This often is not a very comfortable meetings (when things go very wrong), and things can get heated – the important thing is to not take it personal, and not to make it personal!

So, What’s the “One” thing that makes for great live production?

Prep, prep, and more prep!

Your show will only be as good as you prepare for it to be.

Twenty (or even five) years ago the broadcast landscape was a vastly different space, the costs for gear was outrageous, maintenance costs, hiring engineers, and means of distribution was heavily controlled.  We now live in a day and age where all of the before mentioned no longer are a factor.  This doesn’t mean that it’s all free but the barrier of adoption / acquisition of necessary goods is way less – than ever before!

Through lower cost cameras that now out perform what was more than double the cost, and new tool sets that are becoming available – you can now not only own your own space for distribution, but produce Live Programming that uses the same tools of Fox, NBA, and many other top level broadcasters! (Awesome video after the jump) (more…)

Picking up right where we left off from the last post, today were going to take a look why non-profits and small profits should add these little devices in their production pipelines.  First I want to stress that I’m not talking about using these as your only camera – there’s a real reason that I call these things devices and not cameras (please go back to read “Why I want a Fake Camera“)

Why Small Business / Non-profits Need Pocket Production

Ease Of Use

First and foremost, easy-of-use!  I don’t know that many businesses that have an in-house produciton unit, and even fewer non-profits that have the budget  to have a videographer at every event.  I’d have to say that 9 times out of 10 it becomes the job of a volunteer to capture the event and forever lock its legacy on tape.  Because these devices have few features and no manual control you can turn one one hand it to someone and show them where the record button is – and just reclaim the device at the end of the day!  I’d really love to have someone try that with say a HVX – or any other “real” camera.

Co$t!

This is a huge factor in my book; with the costs of these devices coming in at sub $250 – which is a vast improvement when you look at spending $1000 – $3500 on HD production gear!  This means that you can put more of these devices at your event – yielding double, or triple the coverage.

Personal

How often do you have a camera that you want to take with you every where? (If you are a film student – your answer doesn’t count!)

Looking Beyond the Big Three (Flip / Vado / Kodak)

Every time I mention pocket video and I do a search to see what’s going on in this mini-revolution I find more camera and manufactures who are throwing their hat into the ring – over the next few weeks I’m going to take a look at some of the others who’ve come to compete – if you’ve found a device that I’ve not mentioned PLEASE list it in the comments of this post, if you are a manufacture of a device and you like to see it mentioned use the contact form to get in touch with me as I’d love to feature you!

Next time on Powered Production

On the next post I’m going to step you through all of the reasons that you – STILL need a real camera, so please stay tuned and chime in via the comments or send me a message on twitter (@big_b_rad) to tell me what you think.

Photos used on post

On Set by sheriffmitchell