Revision as of 23:43, 11 January 2009

This article deals with achieving great quality for video recordings at events like conferences etc. Both OOoCons at Barcelona 2007 and Beijing 2008 showed significant quality issues for the results of the video recordings, that could have been prevented by better preparation.

Good quality video is the result of good preparation by the three critical groups

• The Organisational Team
• The Speakers
• The Media Team

For the most part these groups are separate entities in the lead up to the conference. The better that each group prepares, the better the result.

Organizational Team

The Organisational team's work should end with the start of the conference. Their attentions must needs turn to the attendees and speakers once the conference has started. For that reason they must be ready two days before opening to hand off to the person I will call the Venue Manager.

The Venue manager

will be liaison between the organisational team and the Media team. He should not be Speaker liaison. His responsibility will be purely technical, looking after rooms, making sure they're unlocked at the right time, equipment is in place and working, ensuring each room's media team are onsite and ready to go at the right times, heating, lighting and the guy who has direct contact with the venue's maintenance staff. Ideally he would be a professional at this and even more ideally an AV professional.

Timetable in the lead-up to the conference

Inventory

• At the earliest opportunity after booking a site, get an inventory of equipment at each venue. Normally venue management will be able to supply lists of:
  • What is in each venue
  • What extra equipment is available

• Once the inventory is in hand match it with what would be best possible requirements. For instance, some venues may have fixed microphones and in which case there may not be wireless receivers in the venue. Establish this before hand so the the inventory can be brought up to spec.

• Identify alternative sources of equipment. Some extra equipment will invariably be needed to bring the venue up to standard, additionally radio mikes and receivers can be fickle. Use a supplier for these who is also capable of supplying emergency backup at short notice.

• In the days immediately prior to the conference have all the equipment checked and do sound and video tests.

Event Type

Establish the type of presentation: ie Workshop, Panel Discussion, Instructional Presentation or Argumentative Presentation. Each has different technical and venue requirements. This should be finalised a month out from the conference so that the team is ready for.........

Venue Assignment

Besides the type of event/presentation other factors come into play. If I were to do a presentation on OOo in year 1 to 5 classroom activities, I would require a much smaller venue than say Simon Phipps debating the future of SUN in OOo with Mike Meeks. Panel discussions need for instance, more than one camera: one wide shot, one close up and an Audience rover and so a bigger mixing desk and more crew.

These should be established well out so that the Venue manager can make adjustments to inventory well before the event.

Venue Layout

Conferences often happen in University settings. Large lecture theatres are usually designed well and have facilities for video, however often small sessions are held in classrooms which are designed for different needs and are often not ideal facilities for presentations. Frequently the focus point in such classrooms is at the narrow ends of a rectangular shaped room. Where possible the layout should be modified with a semicircular seating layout with the presenter being on the wide side of the room. This allows for shallower audience seating and the camera position close to the speaker without interfering with audience view.

Speakers

Presentation Preparation

Practice and know your material. Confidence translates into better more consistent sound levels and visuals. Lack of preparation leads to the Camera taking shots of the top of head (as speaker looks down at notes or laptop) or back of head (as speaker reads off the screen). Practice using a remote slide changer.

Make the following available to the Organisational team as early as possible:

• Abstract,
• type of session (see above),
• timing,
• likely audience

Venue Preparation

Be available for a sound and lighting check before the session. Besides making it easier for the crew it also gives you time to get comfortable in the room and with the equipment. It is best to check the venue out before the day starts. If, through circumstance there is a possibility that you won't be able to make it to a sound/equipment check, make sure that your presentation, in it's final format, is made available to the Venue manager beforehand. This enables the crew to set your presentation up on the local equipment and know it will work for you from the outset.

Even if you do make it to a sound/equipment check having your presentation available on other standard Media such as CD or flash drive preempts difficulties with hardware compatibility.

It is simple courtesy to your audience and the organisers to start your presentation on time, neither early nor late. Some speakers feel uncomfortable sitting up front and not doing anything so they get under way early. This has two outcomes, the presentation gets interrupted by audience still arriving and some will miss possibly important parts of your presentation. The best idea is to arrive, set up your presentation and then either get out of the room and grab a coffee or whatever is favorite addiction or mingle with the attendees in the body of the room. To make this work, your first slide should be a simple title slide with identical detail to the programme in terms of Title and Presenters name and that should be left running immediately after the previous presentation. It makes it easier for attendees to be able put their head through the door and know immediately if they're in the wrong place or not and also gives the media team a nice title to begin the video. It also preempts that uncomfortable shuffling about that results when an attendee realises, two minutes in, that they're in the wrong venue.

Communication

Keep in contact with the Venue Manager and/or Speaker Liaison especially on the day, a simple nod to say that you are present and ready and to confirm you know which venue you are presenting in, takes a surprising amount of load off the Venue manager. Sometimes a ridiculous amount of time is wasted just trying to confirm speakers availability. However if speaker liaison is doing their job this should not be necessary.

Trust the Media team

• They know where the mike is best positioned, remember the mike is not there for the speaker, it's for the audience, both on site and on video.
• Don't second guess the sound levels, the Media team can hear and see you better than you can and they are after all, amongst the audience.
• If you're not sure about anything; ask!
• Despite what it seems, video is an Auditory medium. Audiences get more from the commentary than they do from the visuals or the slides. The slides should therefore be an adjunct to your commentary. A simple demonstration of this is thinking about the difficulty of watching a film with subtitles. Slides should Focus Enhance, Expand Develop. The best possible video of a presentation should be:

<vid> Title Slide
<zoom=out> #as Interlocutor enters
<cut-to> Interlocutor for Speaker introduction  
<shot=hold> speaker walks into shot acknowledges interlocutor.  
<shot=hold>Interlocutor leaves
<shot=hold> Hold for Speakers opening comments
<cue slide=first> first slide 
<cut-to time~"5">
<cut-to> to speaker #track as necessary until slide change
<cue slide=next>
<cut-to time~"5"> #Cut to slide for about five secs
<continue> and so on
</vid and pathetic attempt at humour>

Very simple and there are a lot more techniques that can be used, but this gives you the idea.

The critical point is, the video will fail if there is a need to focus on the slides for any length of time because they're full of information. The Human brain only imports language based information from one source at a time. Either reading or hearing. There is a simple demonstration that any experienced presenter knows the danger of: Give your audience the entire text of a presentation exactly as you're going to say it, before you start, then ask them to follow you. Afterwards test them for uptake, the results are invariably abysmal. However, do the same presentation, then hand out the notes immediately afterwards and the results are far better.

The art is in retaining the audiences focus. If the Presentation is designed well then the Video production is easy, because the point of focus is easy to discern, however if the Video crew are having problems trying to figure out where the focus should be, then how can your audience know.

Familiarise yourself with the equipment

Microphones are not created equal. Each is designed for a particular function and there are many different functions. To demonstrate this, take a look at the Shure website Shure is arguably the No.1 manufacturer of microphones to the high end audio industry and their range is vast, each designed for a particular situation. In older venues especially, varying purchasing decisions over time can result in a venue having multiple brands and types, so don't expect the Mike you are going to use today is the same as the one you used at the last venue, even if that venue is at the same facility.

Many speakers consider the sound check an annoyance rather than the essential that it is. To be fair to your crew and audience, both onsite and watching the video, make an effort to do the sound check. The result will be worth it.

The Media Team

In the best possible world the media team would be a professional team, however the costs would often be prohibitive. A team of enthusiastic amateurs under professional guidance and training, would in most cases achieve excellent results as long as there was time set aside in the leadup to bring these people up to speed. Again it's about preparation

Essentials

• AV team for each venue
• Best Possible Camera quipment
• Wireless Lapel Microphones for the speakers
• Handheld microphones for the audience (questions)
• Mixing desk to suit the venue
• Lighting (strongly depending on the overall environment)
• Spares for microphones, cables, light bulbs, consumables etc.

AV team for each Venue

The size and make up for the team varies depending on the venue and presentation.

The minimum for say a fifty seat auditorium would be two. Camera operator and Sound operator.

At the other end of the scale a 500 seat Auditorium for a big Keynote could require a team of eight. One Wide shot camera op, one close up Camera op for the speaker, One wide shot Audience Camera (Usually onstage looking out into the audience), One Roving Camera in the audience, one mixing desk operator, two hand held mike carriers roving the auditorium at question time and a Crew Director. The whole team would require communications in the shape of headsets.

In the ideal world this would be a full professional AV team, in the real world only MS and Apple could afford the outlay that would require.

However there are sources for tech crew in a local community. The local community theatre group, High School Drama departments and College Media Departments are just some. Depending on the number of venues, a small crew of AV Pros with a team of skilled amateurs or students can give you a high quality and enthusiastic Media team.

Whatever the makeup of the team in a venue, there is one critical requirement: The Crew should be available for sound checks at each venue at a predetermined time outside the programme times. I usually make this the whole day immediately before conference opening, plus one hour before the start of each day's proceedings. Speakers need to know that if they appear for a soundcheck at a particular time, there will be people and equipment in place to do the sound/video check. There is nothing more frustrating for a speaker than arriving at a venue for checks and there is no-one about. Some facility needs to be put into place to allow speakers to book sound check times, so that the Venue Manager can confirm crew availability, but the venue's team in place at a predetermined time that all the speakers are informed about is the best system.

Best possible Camera equipment

Again this will depend on the venue. For a large Auditorium, camera requirements are different to small venues.

Tripods

An often ignored factor is Tripods. Good strong Camera tripods are a must no matter what the venue. Smooth pan is difficult on cheap lightweight tripods. If a tripod is too light, weight it with sandbags or something similar and gaffer tape it to the floor or a solid table top. This prevents camera shake and jerky pan movement. Use a level to get the camera mount level then lock it in place, then set the tripod height and the camera position so that the camera lens is positioned at speakers eye level.

Audio input

A camera without the ability to take sound input from the desk is no use. Taking sound to the video via the onboard camera mike results in substandard sound. Reverb (the speaking inside a drum effect) and ambient noise seriously affect the quality of a video. By controlling levels through a sound desk the audio quality can be greatly enhanced. In the best possible world taking video and sound directly to a computer is the best possible solution.

Camera Zoom

The longer the zoom a camera needs to use the greater the problems with Camera shake and the less the video quality. Get the camera as close to the speaker as possible within the strictures of the venue. There is a balance factor involved between video quality and restricting the Audiences view.

Test and calibrate equipment and environment

General preparations

Five minutes check for every speaker