A Tale of Live Production

Live production is fast, technical and, yes, sometimes crazy.  Live events are just that: LIVE.  They can morph and change at any second.  There are no redos or second takes.  It has to be done right the first time, every time. You need a team that can roll with the punches and has the ability to troubleshoot on the fly in any situation…  especially under extreme pressure or stress.  At the end of the day the show has to be (or at least seem) flawless.

Gather around the fireplace, youngsters, and let Uncle Dave spin you a yarn about the wild and woolly world of live production.

FEBRUARY 14^TH, 2011 – 7:00 A.M. (yes, Valentines Day)

It was cold and snowing that morning when we pulled into the venue before sunrise. We had less than 6 hours to get all our equipment set up before our client’s full dress rehearsal for the event that was scheduled to kick off bright and early the next day. There was no one onsite at the loading dock to meet my crew, so I ventured around the front of the building, wading through the snow in hopes of finding someone to let us in.  I barely made it to my destination, having to navigate around a pack of ravenous squirrels and a couple of mean-looking pigeons. I’ll never forget their crazy pigeon eyes or that incessant blood curdling cooing. Cold and noticeably shaken, I was greeted at the front door by a surly maintenance worker who was obviously too busy watching the morning news on his little black and white television to help me. I waited patently as he continually adjusted the aluminum foil rabbit ears while gulping down monstrous bites of an egg and cheese sandwich.  During what I believed to be a commercial break, he decided it would be best to draw me a crude map on the back of his sandwich wrapper than to actually show me the way to the loading dock.  With a grunt and a nod he sent me on my way through the back door of the convention hall and through the damp, dark corridors that would eventually lead me back to the garage door of the loading dock.

Once loaded into the convention hall we immediately starting setting up our “video village,” unpacking cameras and running various cables.  Within a couple of hours, my team was set up and ready to start testing, except for one small problem: we were using the venue’s internal audio team for the event and only two crew members were onsite. They were frantically running cables and trying to set up an “audio village,” but they were noticeably ”in the weeds.” This event called for 12 wireless lavalier microphones, three wireless hand held microphones, a PA system and 5 ClearComm packs for my crew….at this moment we had none.

We were running short on time, so since my crew was ready to go, we fired up our cameras and started to walk through the rundown for the event.  I noticed during that first dry run that there was something not quite right. I found a ground loop pulsing through the main video screen at the convention hall. (A ground loop occurs when there is more than one ground connection path between two pieces of equipment. The duplicate ground paths form the equivalent of a loop antenna, which very efficiently picks up interference currents.  In layman’s terms, our video had a horizontal line rolling through it.)

I contacted the venue’s electrical guru who promptly told me that the ground loop had to be coming from my crews’ equipment and had nothing to do with the venue’s electrical system.  We double-checked all our wiring and cabling to see if we had in fact missed something.  We ran a diagnostic check and after powering back up, I noticed that the ground loop was mysteriously missing from our camera viewfinders and control room monitors, but was front and center on the main video screen.  By this point the client had arrived and was starting to set up for their dress rehearsal.  The third audio person had finally arrived and was starting to mic everyone up.  I noticed more than one person glancing at the video screen…I forgot to mention that our client is a group of world-class engineers.  The CEO of the company, now armed with a live microphone, cleared his throat.  Everyone at the venue froze.  The CEO slowly walked on stage, raised his hand towards the video monitor and said in his best booming CEO voice, “Now David, will this be fixed by the time we go live with our event tomorrow morning?”  After swallowing my gum I assured him all would be ready by morning’s light.  Except for the ground loop issue, the rehearsal went off without a hitch.

Once the client had cleared out, I calmly explained to the venue’s electrician in my best outside voice that the ground loop was not on our end and was happening somewhere on his end.  At that moment one of my wily veteran crew members looked to the ceiling of the convention hall and pointed to a small catwalk containing a bunch of cabling.  With a knowing grin he just pointed and asked if all the wiring was properly insulated.  I watched as all the blood drained from the poor electrician’s face.  He just mumbled a few words then yelled to a subordinate to grab a lift.  They worked for about an hour separating and distributing the cables, th

us removing the wretched ground loop.  After further testing and one final run through I decided that everything was in order and we were ready to go live bright and early the next day.  Our “normal” day had turned into 16 hours and I was ready for a glass of wine.

We all arrived about an hour before showtime the next morning.  My crew fired up our gear, we had a quick meeting, then it was time to go live.  The house music played Sinatra as the attendees sipped hot coffee and mingled before the event.  The witching hour fast approached as I gave the final countdown.  ”We go live in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…  audio up and fade to camera one.”  God, I love the smell of hot coffee and doughnuts in the morning!