Our office space hosts what we call "Town Halls," during which our remote employees and offices connect up to share information in a kind of giant shared Skype session without using Skype. Cameras, microphones, and connections are set up so we can not only send video of a speaker presenting company information but also the display of a connected computer.
We have enough space for projected employment numbers in our presentation space. This means we have a nice space available that was only being utilized for Town Hall meetings and company lunchtimes. Rather than let that space sit largely underutilized, we have had a few groups (and our employees) use it for after-hours technology presentations and meetups.
The setup is rather sophisticated, if I do say so myself and has largely been automated by an employee with a history of working with audio/visual equipment. For the most part, he has abstracted the complexity of the AV setup to a selection of one of a few presets on a tablet touchscreen, which can be further refined using a few interfaces on the same tablet. It's pretty slick, and he's still refining the macros controlling the interactions among the video, computer, and audio systems.
Some of the presenters for the talks have requested that events be recorded; normally the employee with AV experience is on hand for these events. That's fortunate, since he has intimate knowledge of all the plumbing that interconnects the systems and is in a very good position to improvise and fix glitches that can occur during the system's shakedown.
Recently we hosted an event where this same employee was not available onsite, and the role of recording the event fell to me, the backup systems person. On the plus side, I do enjoy learning more about recording and presenting events. It's a chance to scratch an itch for amateur video creation (I watch the how-tos from Ryan Connolly and his videocast series Film Riot and think, "That looks like it could really be fun to do...," until I look at Final Cut Pro and think, "This must be what a fighter jet looks like to an orangutan.)
Side note - If you have any desire to create sophisticated films, I strongly advise subscribing to Film Riot. Special effects and filmmaking tips broken down into easily digestible lessons, Film Riot makes me think that even I could make a half entertaining movie short. Perhaps. With the right software and decent camera...
On the other hand, it's still an incredibly complicated system that is separated by a few layers of abstraction so a monkey like myself can operate it, but if something should go wrong, I'm left scratching my head. Being kind of an anxious person, I constantly fear the breakdown of the abstraction layers, and this presentation night would have me flying largely solo.
The postscript of any event should be retrospective. What went right? What could have been done better? What was overlooked? How can I improve?
Even if things went awesomely, what can we do to make it more awesome in the future?
I'm not an AV person; my background largely comes from reading rather than doing when it comes to making videos and doing presentations. Therefore I'm a student with a lot to learn.
One good thing was that technically, this presentation went rather well. There was a glitch in the equipment where a camera wouldn't start up. While this wouldn't kill the presentation, it would have been nice to have this camera working; it was getting close to showtime, and the options were to fly without the camera and make do, or do a complete shutdown and powerup, risking that something wouldn't come back up in time (or properly) so close to the presentation start. I'm more risk averse. A less risk-averse coworker made the call to do the power cycle when I asked for input on the situation; it turned out his was the right call. It brought the camera up, and the rest of the equipment powered up as well, although the projectors gave me a bit of a fright as they wouldn't project right away to prevent damage to the lamps.
Eventually I'll need to find out if there's a way to individually power something up without having to do an automated shutdown and startup of the whole system.
There was also an issue with sound, where for some reason the notebook computer brought by the presenter refused to be heard through the headphone jack. I think it's related to his use of the HDMI output for video while the audio cable was paired with the VGA output on our system, but I need to consult with our AV designer to confirm it. Otherwise it might have been something strange with the way certain laptops deal with DRM restrictions. I'm not completely sure. The fix was simply using the notebook's regular speakers with a microphone placed over it.
I also have to remember that I need to be aware of the background. The system we have in place is optimized for presenting a town hall; that is, a speaker at a lectern, with two narrow spotlights aimed to highlight that speaker. The presentation that night had speakers that wanted to do something more of a fireside chat, out of the way of our lighting system. Our lights in the room also seemed to have a new lighting glitch that created a "disco" effect when we hit a particular preset; so we tried to get more lighting by keeping the solar and blackout shades open and allow more natural light into the space.
During the filming I realized that the camera resolution was just high enough that you can make out movement in buildings with open blinds. I'm not suggesting you could see lewd acts and the captured imagery was completely unintentional, but nonetheless all future video taken by me in our space will be done with our own shades down, regardless of lighting issues it may present.
Later on another speaker came up to present, and partway through I realized he wasn't miked. By far, my biggest fail; I should have interrupted the presenter and reminded them to put on a microphone. As a speaker, I will need to remember to check for a microphone if I wish to be recorded.
While recording the video it occurred to me that if you are presenting for a crowd outside of a comfortable circle, it may be beneficial to do a sweep of the backdrop for anything out of place or something that could be removed if it doesn't belong. The presentation was bookended by a social meetup; food and drink can easily be left out in plain sight. If your goal is to have a casual video by like-minded individuals, this may not be a problem. If you're planning on making something that may be incorporated into something larger, you may want to make sure the background and material are as vanilla as possible so the material will be more flexibly integrated.
Those were my own notes for my own reference. For a first solo performance at the tech side, I think it went fairly well. There are some things I couldn't really help (i.e., we don't have box lights, to my knowledge; I also need better knowledge of handling the transition arrangements of the two cameras and computer outputs to switch what's being sent to the recording system on the fly so there's less hesitation of what buttons to punch when, but that can only come with time. The addition of a mobile camera with transmitter would also give more flexibility in setting up shots and getting better footage, but I'm not sure it would be something we'll get budgeted anytime soon.) The items I did note...backdrop attention and insisting in the future that if you're not miked when you take the stage that you stop and get miked...are things I can improve immediately. Familiarity with the system will come with practice.
Regardless, it was an opportunity to learn more about an area with which I am unfamiliar, and I enjoyed it (once I stopped being afraid of it breaking on me!)
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