Live streaming the best of Sou Africa s music scene

Live streaming the best of South Africa's music scene posted: 23/11/2016

KWESTA

Militia Broadcast is the production team behind some of South Africa's standout live events of the past few years, including Johannesburg's Sowing the Seeds festival and Mumford & Sons' summer concerts.

Now the talented team is giving music fans the opportunity to enjoy exclusive performances from the latest artists from across all musical genres with the launch of Militia 24/7, a live stream showcasing Militia's Urban Sessions' series. Eban Olivier from Militia tells us more about the venture and takes us through the solution that is across the team's events schedule as well as its streaming solution.

NISKERONE

In a nutshell, the Urban Sessions are an hour long performance by either a band or a DJ in an empty studio. We'd been producing these sessions for ourselves for more than a year now, slotting in performances when we were in between live event responsibilities. We finally had time recently to reflect on the volume of content we'd produced, and realized that we had enough sessions to play back to back for almost two weeks, so we looked at setting up a channel to do just that.

REASON

We believe our sessions are all shot in a unique way; we tend to adopt an observational approach and give the artists a neutral canvas with very cool, minimalistic lighting. In doing so we make the artists performance our primary focus, and it ensures everyone on a level par in terms of staging. We've had some previously unheard of artists who have come into the sessions and have blown us all away.

When it comes to live production, we cut a tight show, which is produced using a studio rig built around Blackmagic Design. That same hardware is what we use as part of our rental and staging business, so we know that it is reliable and will give us fantastic quality. Blackmagics range of studio cameras gives you a one fibre, drop down solution for acquisition that allows live [primary] grading, talkback and tally as well as a return program feed, all of which are essential in any live production. No one else comes close as far as price versus functionality is concerned.

SAVAGE LUCY

So, for example, all of the coloring is done live using the ATEM Camera Control software with our Blackmagic Studio Cameras, and the live mix is streamed via Facebook Live while a master is captured on a HyperDeck Studio Pro within the hour.

Not only do we save ourselves time and money in using the hardware we have, but we also give our team, who are some of the best operators, mixers and directors in the business, the room to let their creative juices flow. Add to that the simple plug and play nature of Blackmagic's hardware and you have a flexible solution that is simple to build and easy to operate. It's like Lego! That ability to add to, or swap out components with no fuss is a must in live environment. You can plan for almost every eventuality, but live events will always throw something unexpected at you, so a flexible workflow is imperative.

TUMI

The response to the live streams has been fantastic, with good viewing figures, and I think this is a testament to the balance we have struck with having not only professional live production kit for our content, but complementing this with high-quality streaming providers. There's no point investing in an Ultra HD 4K workflow, only to deliver to a substandard stream. Equally, from our experience, those who are looking to elevate their streaming to a wider audience, providing you're prepared to put in the work in terms of time and creativity, the outlay in investing in professional production kit can bring a multitude of benefits.

LINK:	http://www.live-production.tv/news/products/live-streaming-best-south-...
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