Trickbox TV once again put its portable production unit (PPU) in the picture with a two day ‘Marathon’ broadcast, involving split locations, for a prestigious London gallery.
Working with Serpentine Galleries, across two different UK locations, Trickbox TV provided a streamed broadcast for two 12-hour sessions, giving art enthusiasts from around the world the opportunity to see talks, panel discussions and performances on the Serpentine Galleries’ events microsite. The entire event was also hosted on the BBC-backed The Space online platform of digital art.
Liam Laminman, Managing Director of Trickbox TV, ensured the multi-camera, split location project went without a hitch. He said: “This is the third year we have been asked by the Serpentine Galleries to film and stream these Marathon events. They are a pleasure to be involved with, as well as being a great demonstration of our outside broadcast capabilities.”
He added: “Having multiple locations with multiple cameras, thorough preparation is necessary to ensure everything goes to plan. For this project, we had three weeks of stream testing to ensure a quality broadcast from the two locations.”
Filmed at Serpentine’s Sackler Gallery, as well as at the University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury (where artist Gustav Metzger located his project for the Marathon event), the event attracted 1,500 live viewers, much to the delight of Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator of the Public Programmes at Serpentine Galleries.
Lucia said: “Working with Trickbox is always a pleasant experience. They always deliver to our exact requirements and are very professional. I particularly liked having a single point of contact on site, which ensured that all concerns were quickly and efficiently dealt with. The quality of their streamed broadcasts is excellent and I look forward to working on similar projects in the years to come.”
Metropolis is known in the music world as the most successful independent recording, mastering, creative and production facility in Europe. It also offers artist management and music publishing services, and regularly hosts live music events for emerging talent. Recently it has also hosted more established artists in weekend events with a unique twist.
“We wanted to give music students and the wider music-loving public an exclusive opportunity to see some great artists at work, talking about their music and seeing how tracks were put together,” explains Matt Posner, Producer, Metropolis.
The first of these events featured funk legend George Clinton and his band performing a live gig and recording a super-limited edition album direct to vinyl in Metropolis, one of the only studios in the UK equipped for recording live to vinyl.
“Obviously we couldn’t fit 100 people behind the desk to see what was going on, so we decided to film it and relay a live feed to screens in the studio,” says Matt. He researched kit hire on the Internet and approached Trickbox TV on the strength of the information of the website. “Initially I was just looking for vision mixing equipment, which I found very clearly explained and priced on Trickbox’s website, but then I also realised that they could help with the engineering side as well.”
The event was split across three days: Friday was a live gig, Saturday was the live to vinyl recording, and Sunday saw George sharing his experiences with students in an intimate masterclass.
Trickbox TV provided multi-camera facilities, talkback equipment, radio mics and an engineer to set up eight Canon C300 cameras in the studio and recording area, and a vision mixing system with 10 inputs that would relay a live mix to screens in the VIP area and the bar. The footage from the weekend was also captured for later broadcast use.
“Our experience of working with Trickbox TV was above my expectations – I didn’t think it would be as easy as it was to achieve our aims for the event, and it was also very cost effective to do everything through Trickbox,” says Matt. “We only needed tech support a couple of times but each time the engineer was really helpful and talked us through the issues.”
Metropolis was so happy with the service that Trickbox TV returned a few months later to rig for a masterclass with Dave Kushner of Grammy-winning band Velvet Revolver. “This time we asked the engineer to stay for the whole day to rig and de-rig and just be on hand in case of any problems, and it was helpful to have someone on-site,” says Matt. While the event was smaller, it was a similar set-up with cameras in the studio and control room feeding to a vision mixer for a live feed to screens in the studio and the bar.
“It’s a unique way for music fans to see and hear their heroes in a very intimate setting,” says Matt. “The feedback we’ve had from both the audiences and the artists has been fantastic, and now we know how easy the technical process will be we have plans for many more similar events.”
Trickbox also provided a similar set-up for the most recent weekender event with drum & bass pioneer Roni Size, and looks forward to working with Metropolis on many more.
Trickbox TV and financial PR consultants MRM have teamed up for a series of financial debate videos.
The panel discussion series is scheduled to address the hot topics in the financial services industry, with 6-12 broadcasts a year covering areas such as ISAs, retirement and personal investment. MRM was keen to give the broadcasts, used on its My Financial Service (MyFS) web initiative, a professional feel.
Liam Laminman, Managing Director of Trickbox TV, explains, “MRM came to us with this great idea for the MyFS portal, and asked us how we could work with the concept to deliver a professional, television-standard broadcast. They were very clear that they didn’t want the look and feel of a traditional corporate webcast. With this remit we could demonstrate the full breadth of our expertise, advising on such areas as format, set, presenters, script and graphics – not to mention guaranteeing a broadcast spec product at the end of it. The whole thing has taken a lot of planning but we are delighted with the end result.”
Trickbox TV provided a full production service, from pre-production through to post production and edit. With Trickbox TV’s studio being used for other projects, filming of the first discussion took place at London’s Hospital Club, with Trickbox TV supplying full multi-camera facilities including four cameras and a polecam.
Host for the discussions is Declan Curry, former business correspondent for BBC Breakfast. MRM senior consultant David Stewart, who took the lead in preparing the first event of the series, says, “Our intention was to raise the level of debate on important financial issues. We were delighted to work with Declan as he is such a well-known and respected figure in the financial services industry and, coupled with the professionalism of Trickbox TV, we had all the ingredients for a high quality, television standard production.”
David adds, “Credit also needs to be given for the incredibly fast turnaround of the project. With numerous journalists attending our first panel discussion it was important that we had video ready to support their coverage. Trickbox TV was able to deliver on that score – managing to go from shoot to final edit within 48 hours.
“I have used Trickbox TV in the past for promotional videos and have always been impressed with their professionalism and attention to detail. On seeing the studio set-up for the first time it was clear that I could just sit back and let them do what they do best.”
The final edit from the initial discussion resulted in an hour-long video, plus a three minute highlights video. Similar events are planned for filming throughout the year.
Friday 19 September 2014 is a date that will go down in history as the day that Scotland decided to remain part of the United Kingdom – and Trickbox TV had a ringside seat.
The Trickbox TV team planned, installed and supported multi-camera flyaway facilities for ITV’s Good Morning Britain show that was broadcast live from Edinburgh on the day of the Scottish Referendum results.
As well as the historic nature of the event, it was also the first time that Good Morning Britain had produced an entire four-hour show outside of the London studio, so it was extremely important to get things right.
“Trickbox TV was recommended by a colleague in the studio,” says Alice Gairdner, Senior Production Manager, Good Morning Britain. “They adapted well to the fluid brief and answered my many questions prior to the event. On the day, everything went according to plan. They worked very hard and couldn’t have done more for us – I would definitely book Trickbox TV again.”
Trickbox TV provided full ‘studio’ facilities on the roof of a city centre hotel, with three Sony HDC-1500R camera channels – including one on a jib to save space – and radio mics, presenter in-ear monitoring and talkback, as well as engineering support. The flyaway unit was built in a hotel room on the floor below, connected to ITN’s uplink facilities and a return feed for the final output. The feed was sent back to the Good Morning Britain studio where VTs and GFX were added. The team was also on standby for an additional four hour broadcast in the event of a Yes vote.
Trickbox TV recently took a short stroll around the corner from its facilities to the Red Bull Studios, where Sony Network Entertainment Europe’s (SNEE) music streaming service had gathered a number of up-and-coming bands and singers eager to perform and chat about their music.
Sony’s WWS Creative Services Group, which is responsible for video production for Playstation and other Sony divisions including its music streaming service, Music Unlimited, was tasked with capturing the interviews and performances and creating videos for the website.
While the Creative Services team often handles its own production, budget and efficiency were key factors. In order to provide a service that was both cost effective and impactful, in this instance it was more sensible to work with a trusted local production company.
The team had worked with Trickbox TV previously, filming and live streaming a music performance with teen idol Conor Maynard. Trickbox TV’s expertise and equipment, coupled with the company’s location around the corner from Red Bull Studios, made them a natural fit for the Red Bull production.
Trickbox TV provided all the kit and crew for a compact multi-camera flyaway in the recording studio’s control room which was the only space available. The Trickbox team filmed the entire project, shooting the interviews and performances. Since it was a compact rig the team was able to set up, shoot and de-rig on the same day.
The live mix was fed to screens around the venue and also recorded in 1080/29.97p for Sony to edit back at its Liverpool facility, eliminating the need to transcode. All the media was managed on-site as well, so the edit could begin immediately on the following day.
Despite a long and busy day, everything went to plan, with the Trickbox TV team meeting the Creative Team’s very specific set of delivery parameters.
As competitive poker continues to grow in popularity, the Sky Poker channel has been capturing the tension of the plays, bets and calls of the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships with the help of Trickbox TV.
The inaugural four-day tournament attracted hundreds of players competing for over £600,000 prize money. It was held in February 2014 at the Dusk Till Dawn casino in Nottingham, with six episodes shot and edited for later transmission on Sky Sports HD2 and Challenge TV. Trickbox TV provided a multi-camera flyaway unit for a single day of filming on the final table.
Following the success of the first tournament, the second saw more than 500 players flock back to Nottingham in August for the Sky Poker 6-Max UK Poker Championship, this time with over £1 million prize money up for grabs. Thanks to lessons learned from the first shoot, the production team decided to alter the shooting format.
“In February we shot most of the footage on handheld cameras around the venue and the subsequent edit took a long time,” says Bruce Clements, Sky’s Senior Producer responsible for the overall programme output of the Sky Poker channel. “However, the footage shot by Trickbox TV from the final table was fantastic quality and had also been vision mixed live in the Trickbox PPU, so it was much easier to edit. When we started planning the second tournament filming we decided to extend the multi-camera shoot in order to get more close-ups and reduce the post-production time required.”
Trickbox TV was contracted to shoot for three days on a feature table where many of the better players were placed. The Trickbox TV cameras were able to capture the close-up action that is so important in poker, seeing every twitch, expression and gesture that could then be analysed by commentators during the edit to ratchet up the tension.
“The quality of this additional footage is so good that we are extending the next series to ten episodes,” says Bruce. “These close-up shots really bring something special to each episode.”
Bruce adds, “Simon Hotchkin – Trickbox TV’s Unit Manager – and the rest of the Trickbox TV team were very helpful and professional throughout. They set up in very little time and in limited space, and were careful not to impinge on the casino’s activities. I was most impressed with Trickbox’s work and plan to work with them again on the next tournament.”
The new series featuring the second Sky Poker UK Poker Championship is scheduled for TX in October on Sky Sports.