Take It to The Next Level

If you haven’t read my blog post “Watch What You’re Watching” you may want to go back and read it first. This post gives you a peek into next level thinking when it comes to continuity of the visuals for an online event.

I recently project managed a 3-day online event. Some of the content was pre-recorded two months in advance and some was live-broadcasted using an Emcee as a host. The pre-recorded content included a band providing music that was played in between pre-recorded speakers. We also pre-recorded some of the transitions by the host introducing either the band, speakers, or other scheduled content.

Because of the availability of some of the band members, not all of the content could be recorded in order. We had everyone select outfits for each day, took pictures of them, and made sure that any time we recorded content for a specific day, that outfit, hairstyle, and makeup was worn. We tracked what each person looked like for each day of the event to maintain visual consistency. Then, when broadcasting the actual event, the Emcee had to bring the same clothing and even got a haircut before the event to match the look from the recordings. This way, as the program transitioned between live and pre-recorded content, the host looked consistent each day.

Not only clothing, but we also tracked what the environment looked like. The Production Director took high quality pictures of the room we recorded in (which was a really cool old shoe factory with brick walls). We used colored lighting and changed positions throughout the 15+ songs that were recorded. Then, the Production Director projected the same background onto an LED wall and matched location and color of the lights from the pre-recorded portion to the live broadcast as we transitioned between live and recorded content. This continuity helped the audience feel as if each day was all performed at once. Had we not thought through this level of detail the audience would have seen multiple backgrounds, different colored lighting options, a mix of clothing and hair changes on multiple people for three days.

The audience may never know the level to which the team thought through their experience, but I am certain if we didn’t, the chaos of the alternative would have been a distraction we would have heard about in the post-event survey.

I would love to hear about any next level details that your audience may never know about! Please share them below or email them to me.

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