Graduation is Approaching:

Tehachapi Unified School District contacted us about filming their eighth grade and high school graduation ceremonies. They had been filming it themselves in previous years, and were ready to outsource the work, and to get a higher quality video. We discussed some options and different ways we could approach it, depending on what was important to them. They decided that having a fast turnaround was very important, and wanted to be able to upload the graduation videos to share with parents within 24 hours of each event.

Deciding What They Needed:

We have a lot of experience with live streaming and multi camera productions, so we put together a custom package for them with a three camera multi-cam production with a live edit that would be delivered to them the night of the event. We set up two cameras wired directly into our video switcher behind the graduates: a wide shot of the stage and audience, and a close-up of the podium. Then we had a third camera roving around with a wireless video transmission back to the switcher

Here We Go:

There is no such thing as a production without problems, no matter what the budget or experience of the crew, we go into every project, anticipating that something will not go as planned, and knowing that we will always need to adapt and overcome. The first graduation night was for eighth grade, and the second night was for high school graduation.

We Lost Sound:

Everything was ready to go, had been tested, and here came the eighth graders. All was working great until the students started filling their seats, the audio started to cut out, and by the time all the students were seated, we had completely lost our audio feed from the soundboard. As the audio was beginning to cut out, we quickly switched to our back up microphones on our three cameras. We could still hear what was happening, but the quality of the sound was not as good as the feed from the soundboard. As we were troubleshooting on the fly we were running three cameras and doing a live edit.

Interference:

Our wireless audio system was rated for three times the distance we were running it, which should mean we have a strong signal, no matter what. And then I noticed that the crowd of 200 8th graders were pulling their cell phones out and taking pictures. I realized what was going on. Even though the distance was short, our wireless audio signal was being interfered with by 200 cell phones.There was nothing we could do since the event had begun, and we could not stop the filming or live switching to try to fix the wireless audio problem. 

How We Solved It:

But we always have a back up. In addition to wirelessly sending the signal, we also had an audio recorder running on the soundboard in case something like this happened. So as we continued filming Plan B was put in place.

At the end of the event we explained to the client that everything had gone well, except that we had lost all of the audio due to the cell phone interference in the crowd. However, we had an audio recording on the sound mixer and we would be able to mix the video recording and the audio recording together as if there had never been a problem in the first place. We would be able to deliver that to them within two hours of the event. The solution was satisfactory to everyone and still met the expectations of being able to deliver the completed video the night of the event.

Racing Against Time:

As we drove down the hill from Tehachapi, Mike drove while Josh quickly combined the audio recording from the sound mixer with the video from the live switcher into one file. As we pulled into Bakersfield, we raced to the studio and uploaded the final and completed video to the client within two hours of the event. And the school was able to upload and distribute the recording of the graduation that night as we had promised.

What We Learned:

Even when things don’t go as planned, having an experienced crew with a back up plan can save the day. Needless to say, on the second night for the high school graduation, we brought a far more powerful wireless audio system with much larger antennas which we elevated to ensure there would be no interference from the cell phones in the crowd. It worked flawlessly the second night, and we were able to deliver a perfect video at the conclusion of the event as we had originally planned.

The two takeaways from this event are: always have a back up plan, and whenever you run a wireless signal make sure your equipment is overpowered for the job, and then overpower it again just to make sure.