Pride overcomes Covid

Brighton Pride attracts around 450,000 festival goers to enjoy the city centre parade and weekend festival featuring world-class live acts. But not this year. Like the rest of the entertainment industry, Pride 2020 had to abide by government regulations, cancelling all public performances.

Stepping into the breach, the festival launched WE ARE FABULOSO! featuring 12 hours of live and exclusive entertainment filmed and streamed from a Brighton studio space. Over half a million viewers (according to the organisers) tuned into YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Instagram and 13 terrestrial TV channels to watch acts such as Fat Boy Slim, Nile Rodgers, Jess Glynne and Years & Years.

Andy Nicholls of APNTV and his team have managed the video production from the festival stages for many years. With the move to a virtual event, Andy Nicholls was tasked with producing three days' content, fitting out a studio and streaming live to global audiences.

A traditional studio set up calls for a large crew of producers, technicians and specialist operators. Under these exceptional circumstances, Andy Nicholls needed to adapt:

Social distancing meant that a full crew and studio installation was not an option, but we were determined to deliver a professional look. With the shutdown of the music industry, lots of Pride acts have taken to posting poor-quality homemade performances shot on mobile phones onto YouTube. We were determined to give these performers a professional look and sound on screen.

With a restricted studio space and minimal crew allowed on-site, APNTV opted for lightweight, professional 4K Panasonic camcorders. These were used over the long WE ARE FABULOSO! weekend as well as in the run-up to pre-record interviews and performances.

The lightweight 4K CX350 was chosen as the workhorse camcorder. With a 1 sensor, 20x zoom, 10-bit recording and 5-axis stabilizer CX350 is a versatile location camera. Its SDI output, remote wireless control, timecode and NDI connectivity makes it easy to integrate into a live production installation. Nicholls notes:

When you're working in a mask and continually cleaning equipment, it's vital to have kit you're familiar with. The ability to use the CX350 in the studio and on-location meant we could work quickly and safely, with each camera operator restricting themselves to certain cameras to avoid any danger of cross contamination.

APNTV was one of the first production companies to use the new Panasonic CX10 palm-sized camcorder. Very small and agile, it was selected to be mounted to a magic arm or stage truss.

With only 2 camera operators allowed in the studio space, we tried its full auto-mode and were very impressed at its ability to make the right focusing and exposure decisions with moving talent, changing lights and hazer in the air. It meant that we could cut with the main cameras very easily to create a dynamic, modern look. He comments.

However, as with all new kit, you learn its capabilities on the job, and its tiny proportions, light weight (under 1kg) and amazing zoom meant that it became very useful as a go-anywhere camera.

Although the CX10 features WiFi streaming built-in, Andy Nicholls paired the camera with a Kiloview wireless encoder which is small enough to mount on top of the Panasonic. The advanced encoder features low latency SRT technology which encrypts the data stream for security, preserves video quality at low bitrates and delivers very reliable streaming.

SRT also integrates with vMix extremely well, giving us the ability to manage, switch and record incoming feeds from crew filming on location. It's a technology that we will be investing more heavily in over the coming months: the image quality from the Kiloview was excellent and the workflow is really neat. Concludes Andy Nicholls.

LINK:	https://www.kitplus.com/news/Pride_overcomes_Covid/22719.html...
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