Streaming up the learning curve by Geoff Wright

STREAMING UP THE LEARNING CURVE

For me, it all began with a call from Mark Blackmore last autumn. Would I lead on streaming? Flattered to be asked and keen to help, I said, yes and then Googled ‘streaming’. I would still be hard-pressed to give a precise definition, but ‘broadcasting a live show’ might sum up most of what we have been trying to achieve during lock-down. The team is made up of Tim Wilmot, Andy McLaren, Peter Jones, Arthur Noonan and me. Our first venture was ‘Punch Night’. This was pre-recorded, filmed on a sunny day, and edited one long Saturday to be broadcast/streamed on Wednesday 23rd December. On this occasion we had huge help from Keith Rogerson, friend, neighbour and past BBC colleague of Peter, and a sound recordist/engineer. Keith did all the filming and sound recording whilst we stood around in apprentice mode and made tea. I did get the exciting role of clapper-board operative! Was I ‘Best Boy’ as shown in the titles of films? Thereafter, we have aimed at live-streaming, but with a recording that can be viewed after the event.

Live-streaming is ‘on the night’, unedited, ‘seat of the pants’ stuff with no forgiveness included. Why choose this? Live is live and has this ‘buzz’. It is also much less time-consuming. You only have one ‘take’ and there is no editing and synchronisation of sources, which is painstaking and can take many, many hours. Tim, who streams his own art classes, has been the practised, knowledgeable, patient mentor to the team. He has advised us on streaming platforms – we use Crowdcast, and on image mixing software – we use OBS. A powerful purpose-bought laptop computer creates a troubled marriage between these two capricious software packages. In each broadcast we make new mistakes, but learn more technique. I am sorry you have had to live through this.

Now that we can stream from the Wigwam, things have become more manageable as there are fewer variables, although there are still many problems to overcome. Getting good sound into the laptop and then out in the broadcast is top of the list.

In the beginning everyone was ‘chez-eux’, sending their contribution from their laptop via their wifi to the virtual ‘studio’ in Crowdcast which was hosted by Tim in his house, thence to all of you who had signed in. Wifi varied, cameras varied, computers varied, technique was on a spectrum, and wives, sons and daughters were often enlisted, sometimes along with their more modern iPhones and computers, to get the show off the ground.

We had hours of rehearsal with the artists and musicians, but it always remained touch and go on the night. I was the anchor in the early broadcasts and I remember nail-biting times when the streaming might have started, but one of the main contributors had still not succeeded in getting into the Crowdcast green room or their wifi suddenly faded. Nevertheless, we saw and heard musicians play, sketches drawn in real time and the occasional interview carried out. Most of all, something live and a bit familiar could be seen on a winter Wednesday, and through the shaky videos and poor sound a little bit of what we missed was brought to life and to us.

What next? I hope we continue to film and stream many different events, but if we do, we will require cameras that are not webcams, a separate editing box and a professional sound coming from it and plenty of time to make new mistakes!

Geoff Wright