Aren’t All Events Live Anyway?

Tim Siglin

Welcome to EventDVLive, an online magazine and blog that explores the live side of topics of interest to readers of the venerable EventDV print magazine.

When Stephen Nathans-Kelly, Editor-in-Chief of EventDV magazine, asked me to consider being a frequent contributor to a new online-only magazine and blog focused on live production, I realized his vision may be the online equivalent of my day job, consulting with companies who need to understand the portions of the production ecosystem that fall outside their boundaries of expertise. EventDVLive, at its outset, offers an e-magazine equivalent of the missing link between the discrete part of the whole event videography ecosystem.

The timing makes sense, too. Longtime readers of EventDV may remember a column that I wrote from 2007–2008, called The Amen Corner, which focused on houses of worship and their use of video. What I found during those two years of writing was a market vertical in transition, a microcosm of a larger shift going on within the whole event videography space. A workflow of content acquisition, editing and display occurred in numerous houses of worship during that time, following a consistent pattern that often included live production and streaming. I’m writing an article on that topic that will appear in the first issue of EventDVLive.

In late 2008, EventDV magazine shifted to address an audience that focused less on weekly events and more on one-off events, such as wedding or graduations. While this made sense for the magazine’s current audience, it widened the gap between the readership and the world of live production.

Which leads us back to EventDVLive. In a nutshell, at least in my opinion, there’s a whole lot of low-hanging fruit that EventDV readers are passing up.

I’ll give you a brief, ancient example from almost twenty years ago to explain how painless this low-hanging fruit might be. It involves motion picture work, that ancient art that required film—yes, film—to render an image from camera to screen, but is as applicable today as it was then.

A college classmate received a used Steadicam for his 21st birthday, and set about to learn everything it that he could, as would any of us who are fascinated by camera angles and movement. He noticed he couldn’t see the screen as he moved, so he went out and found a great price on a used pinhole video camera, which he attached to the side of his old 16mm camera and viewed through a battery-powered video monitor.

While not perfect, it allowed him to get the general sense of movement and really hone his art, leading to several television and motion picture gigs in what has become a long and rewarding career. Yet, when he would approach projects where the film camera was supplied, he often found that the 16mm cameras on set did not have video taps. Even the 35mm film cameras with video taps for the Steadicam operator were not accompanied by a video tap kit for the director, often due to the oversight of the full-time production crew to acquire anything beyond the basics.

So he would simply ask, nonchalantly, if the director of DP would like to view the footage in real time, which almost always elicited a “yes.” He’d then rent out his “video tap kit”—aka the pinhole camera—strapped to the side of an expensive 35 mm camera, coupled to the battery-powered monitor on which the director could view the scene.

In all, he paid for the pinhole camera 100 times over in the space of two years, just by asking a simple question and being prepared to immediately respond. This is exactly the kind of approach that will provide significant benefit to their bottom line.

In conclusion, thinking about the title of this blog post, what are some of the ways your expertise can be leveraged in a live setting, where your cameras are already in place, for real-time revenue enhancement? That’s part of what we’ll explore in EventDVLive over the next few months.

Along those lines, my first article in the first issue of EventDVLive will cover a house of worship following the natural steps to enhance its live event technology, which may give you some ideas for ways to enhance your own business, especially for weddings that take place in these technologically advanced houses of worship. I’ll also review a point-to-point HDMI transmission box that might just make you the hero at a local event, for both large-screen display and streaming.

Finally, don’t forget EventDV magazine; I’ve been asked to contribute a new column, called Streamline, and my next column will cover the reasons why event videographers should consider using an online video platform (OVP) to enhance revenues. It should be a fun ride.