Broadcasting from home during Coronavirus

[Bassman2003]

Way to go Erik on keeping the standards high! It makes a difference, at least to us.

[Cary Knoop]

Erik Naso is doing this from his home with his wife, who is a broadcaster:
Attachment 138808
Attachment 138809

Nice job!

[Run&Gun]

I agree with Jim, that I think it's being done completely on-purpose to prove a point/look "socially responsible" and the more "amateur/consumer" it looks, the better. There is absolutely NO reason otherwise for a planned shoot with a broadcast profession(reporter, anchor, etc.) to be using a hardwired earpiece with in-line mic dangling by their face while on-air.

As I said in another thread about this, most stations have studios that are large enough to safely accommodate a typical crew at the necessary distances. One of the local news stations that I watch here typically has two anchors, weather, sports and at least one reporter in the field or fronting from the news room. A week or two ago, they were just spacing people out in the studio(one at the desk, one at the secondary location where they do the next show, etc.), but now... This weekend it was one anchor in studio, second anchor from the field with a cityscape BG, weatherman from his house(FT/Skype) and sports anchor from outside the station with the building as the BG. Lotsa 4-box action... The weather guy had the earpiece/mic dangling the whole time and the sports anchor had the earpiece/mic dangling during the tease, but had it hidden during the actual shot. Not sure why she had it at all, because hers was a real live shot.

[jredmond108]

On the country music special last night on CBS, everything looked like it was edited with a combination in some cases with either a webcam or iphone and then a more professionally looking camera. On 60 minutes looks like they were using DSLR for their 2nd and 3rd camera while still using an iphone. When they did an interview with someone on 60 minutes it looked like it was through Skype. In a few cases they had an over the shoulder of the host looking at his laptop talking to the guest.
Erik piece looked great (at least from the photos). I wondered how it looked on air if he was using the iphone.
Hopefully there is an opportunity for us here.... James

[ahalpert]

Whether or not they're making their broadcasts look bad intentionally, these shows are proving the value of trained lighting/camera professionals. I can barely stand to watch some of it.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver started broadcasting from a smaller separate studio because someone working in their original studio tested positive for coronavirus. (Could this be why so many shows are going remote? They had to quarantine/disinfect their space or the possibility of doing that repeatedly was too costly?)

They properly lit Oliver's new shot (albeit with a plain white background), but the style of the scene and the beauty effect on the host are a FAR cry from their normal set-up...

(Though what's really weird for me with this and all the other late-night shows is the lack of a laughing audience. It feels so empty by comparison, and the host has no energy to play off of.)

[groveChuck]

I'm somewhat concerned that this webcam "look" will survive long after the current crisis passes and be yet another tool to reduce crew and lower the general skill set on a production.

Too likely. And too scary.

I haven't seen many of the shows, but Colbert looks pretty good (much better and sharper on air and online than the grab) and great connection. Shot by his (college age?) son, with his younger son on the phone with the director. And I'm sure lit by his crew.

Colbert.jpg


Naso, FTW!!!

[CharlesPapert]

I thought this was an interesting watch, the second half with the Hamilton surprise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oilZ1hNZPRM&t=113s

I'd assume that the 4x4 grid of participants was not a live Zoom meeting as it is suggested to be--more likely, I would think, that it was individual clips synced later and built into the grid in post. Feels like the song was a pre-record, then went live right after it ended (keep an eye on Lin transitioning from full frame to the grid at 15:28). A little sneaky there.

[ahalpert]

Too likely. And too scary.

I haven't seen many of the shows, but Colbert looks pretty good (much better and sharper on air and online than the grab) and great connection. Shot by his (college age?) son, with his younger son on the phone with the director. And I'm sure lit by his crew.

Colbert.jpg


Naso, FTW!!!

That's a weird framing on Colbert. And it looks like they may have tried to perfectly center his head. Could be worse though.

[patrickbaldwin]

Hopefully people can see this. It's Jake Humphrey, BT Sport presenter showing the home setup! What the video doesn't show is that his one crew member was working from outside at the window behind the camera! Presumably on the ground floor....
https://twitter.com/mrjakehumphrey/s...53348282941440

[Nick M]

Here's a home chroma key setup from a meteorologist in D.C.

https://twitter.com/ABC7BillKelly/st...38592011943936


A few acquaintances in news here in my market are using Dejero boxes to feed their cam/mic back to the station from their homes. They started with skype on work laptops while the gear was all being gathered up, and it looked just as horrible as you'd expect.