Is there a market for Providing Live Streaming?

[dmitrizigany]

My hope in starting this thread was to start a conversation about offering this service and maybe some brainstorming on possible niches.

I’m occasionally recording and filming bands in my music studio, so they get a “live in the studio” video of sorts.
Being able to broadcast it live on YouTube where fans can ask questions between songs etc could be a fantastic promotional tool, especially at album releases, tour announcements etc.

This can also be done for other product announcements etc. Knowing that something is live (and if you can interact) is quite special.

Best of course if you have access to a space that you know has good enough internet. The you offer the space in the deal (and charging appropriately for that.)

 

[puredrifting]

ok. Then lets move away from live event discussions. Surely these are not the only area for live streaming. I guess everything live streamed in a "live event"...

I'm sure there are plenty of live streamed things that aren't a PITA to shoot and deal with but I don't yet know what they are and if there is any money in doing them?

 

[Mitch Gross]

I was the lead camera op for the live stream of the NAACP Image Awards Red Carpet from Hollywood this year. We had four cameras, two of them wireless, host talent, interviews with all of the A-listers coming down the red carpet.

A friend of mine owns the company. It's equipment intensive and his constant mantra is that it can suck because you can do everything on your end perfectly but you are often held hostage by incompetence or technical issues that you have
zero control over with the streaming uplink and if it goes wrong, YOU are blamed. Not the ISP, venue or uplink provider, you will be blamed, which can be frustrating as hell. Our entire setup lost power twice during rehearsals but luckily, not
during the event.

For me personally, shooting live events of any kind is about as much fun as a root canal. I do them because they pay, but there is usually zero creativity or artistry, it's an engineering service kind of thing, it's both boring and stressful to me.
Also, there is a phenomenom, I don't know what to call it, but think of it this way. Live events are usually conceived, staged, and ran in a way that almost seems to deliberately screw up any kind of video documentation of said event, unless
the event is conceived for television or live streaming. Think about it, the sound is always for the live audience and a lot of what makes the sound work for the live audience makes the sound sound like garbage for the video live stream.

Same with lighting, stage lighting, unless conceived for video, usually looks hideously bad on video. I just worked on a live shoot for an expo. The entire stage BG were giant LCD screens, that when shot with our cameras (Sony F55s), was
solid twitching, flickering, filled with moire and bleeding colors, it looked horrible on the live recording and we, the video crew had zero input, meeting with the event organizers, etc. If you do weddings and corporate live events, you'll constantly
be running into this factor. People in general, want to make no contribution to making sure that event is video friendly, yet they complain when the things they have put in motion make the video look like garbage, then they complain that it's our
fault. I HATE doing live events, they are really just a big headache typically.

If you shot on VariCams everything would have been so much better.

 

[Mitch Gross]

I’m occasionally recording and filming bands in my music studio, so they get a “live in the studio” video of sorts.
Being able to broadcast it live on YouTube where fans can ask questions between songs etc could be a fantastic promotional tool, especially at album releases, tour announcements etc.

This can also be done for other product announcements etc. Knowing that something is live (and if you can interact) is quite special.

Best of course if you have access to a space that you know has good enough internet. The you offer the space in the deal (and charging appropriately for that.)

YouTube Spaces shoots live music performances all the time, mostly using EVA1 cameras kitted out for a live studio style configuration.

 

[alaskacameradude]

I agree. I have been telling clients for many years it is not worth it to live stream compared to a post-prepared upload. But, I think the times are changing no matter what. My hope in starting this thread was to start a conversation about offering this service and maybe some brainstorming on possible niches. Not every job needs a live component but some might be improved with a live component. All within reason and budget, which is often limited.

I am spending a lot of time editing at the computer executing the exact strategy Alaska brings up. As a one man band, I have operated this way for a long time. I aim to try to limit my editing time in the future and it is takes more live style productions, then I think it is worth looking into.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, if you see a market for it, go for it! In my past life I was
a videographer/editor for a TV news station. I was also the producer/director of 12 live
shows per week. As well as various live special events, sports and so on. So when I
finally went out on my own and started my business, I was kind of excited to learn that
I could do this too. You know how many (crappy) clients will tell you 'if you do this job
for us for cheap, we will send you a lot more work' and it never works out? I always tell
them 'Send me a lot of work, and I'll do a job for you for free!' Well, I had a chance to put
my mouth where the money is. I have a client that hires me probably 14 or 15 times per
year.....one of my better clients. I decided that I wanted to try to promote my 'live capabilities'
to them as it seemed to me that they had events that would be great for live streams. So
I gave them a demo of how I could broadcast to their Facebook page and YouTube channel
and told them that as a thank you for all their business over the last 5 years, I would do a
free live stream of any one event they picked. I figured, best case scenario, I'd get a bunch
of new work, and worst case scenario, I'd get NO new work, but would at least make them
feel good about constantly giving me work, by giving them a freebie. So they picked an
event and I did a livestream that was pretty successful in terms of viewers and their
president really liked it. They have hired me for 2 or 3 live events since then, but
they told me that honestly, there is not a huge reason for most of their events to be 'live'
and that they are typically more than happy just having me shoot them 'multicam' and
edit and post them a couple days later. And this is for my client that has a lot of
events that I thought they would be a natural fit for live's. As I said, there is a certain
'cool' factor to live, but if you aren't doing breaking news, or live sports......what
is the big reason for live content? Look at TV for example, how much of it is really live?
I dunno, it's cool but how much of an actual market is there for it? I'm sure in some
places there may be but not a huge demand around me. And a lot of the people who
DO want it, want to pay nothing because they will just 'go live' from their iPhone to
Facebook and think it's that easy. The clients you want are the ones who used to hire
a TV station or production company to do a live production for them. So I treat it
much the same as I treat my 107 UAV pilot's license. It's a service I offer, but
I don't depend on it for any income. It's just a bonus when I get a job
or two from it. And when I do, I often have a lot of the problems referenced by
puredrifting. The event was conceived for the audience not for live video.
Horrible video lighting, bad sound (house sound for an audience isn't very
good for video usually) and so on. So I keep up on it and can do it when
needed, but I charge a decent amount for it, because honestly, doing a good
live production is a right honest pain in the a$$.

Anyways, I do have a blog post which is (on the face of it) a review of a cheap
capture card. But really, it's kind of a big picture overview of modern streaming
with a Mac laptop and what other gear you might need. If you are interested,
you can read it here:

http://alaskacameradude.blogspot.com/2017/09/you-get-what-you-pay-forand-other.html?m=0

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks Alaska, I am really on the same page as you. But, I am seeing streaming as a way to stay relevant going into the future. Once 5G drops, the internet side of things will be a lot less of a risk. I also think long form event work is becoming less and less popular. When I think of why an organization hires me, most often it is to drive awareness to their web or social media presence 1st, then enjoyment of the benefits of having an entire event recorded 2nd. Does anybody really watch that 1 1/2 concert you filmed and edited? How much engagement does it create compared to short clips from the show? As of now, the short clips get all of the attention.

I see that changing in the future to where clients might just want a live representation of an event and the short clips. But the big edit is what takes all of our time, and where we get the short clips.

For example, lets say a pool tournament came to town and wanted video production. My guess is that they would want coverage of maybe a main stage table and then snippets of other games and an overview video. The odds of them wanting the main stage table recorded and published later compared to a live stream imho go towards a live stream. If you told them you do not live stream but can publish the day(s) worth of games after the event would you get the job? 10 years ago yes, today, I think not Because to younger folks, the live stream is the long deliverable as it can sit up on YouTube. Plus it drives interaction during the games.

So I am looking at streaming as a way to stay current with the younger generations as they don't seem to like long deliverables, which I have done a ton of over the last 15 years! It is a conundrum but I feel the relevancy of what I have done for a long time fading. It was easier when people were excited about DVDs. I know the money appears to be a free add on at this point, which is why I am going to tip toe in with a Atem Mini, but how can we as video business' present it with a business model to make it work?

The phone thing might seem like competition, but I have seen people do this on events and often does not work out because people get bored in 5 minutes, or they get a call etc... Folks know by now that is a risk if the content means something to them. And if they don't want to pay, they are not going to be a client anyway.

Outside of events, I am thinking of business' that might want a more produced product than an employee phone and have a need to get timely information out there. Sort of a 'let me produce your podcast' service. Not a TV show but something in between. If you could start this it might be repeating and not a live event. Yes, it could be done in a post-upload format but some might prefer the live thing. Just thinking out loud.

 

[DLD]

Francis Ford Coppola live-streamed a movie.

So, live-streaming - not live movie, however - is closer to becoming a trend. The technology and costs of acquiring it are becoming more affordable, so it's not solely for the "Little Mermaid" fans nationwide anymore.

 

[dmitrizigany]

One of the coolest/weirdest events I've been to was when David Bowie performed in London (I think?) but it was shown live on cinemas around the world. So you bought tickets like to a normal concert, and the anticipation in the air before the "show" was almost as intense as if he was there performing. Photographers of the press were even up close taking pictures like at a real concert, even!
Of course, at that time no one had done anything similar. Not sure if anyone has really done it since either?

Anyway, this thread just reminded me of that!

 

[Greg_E]

I am wanting one of these at work, I think it would be a good tool to teach to our students and not require the full support staff that a truck would require. https://www.datavideo.com/us/product/HS-1600T

I'm building something similar out of some used PTZ cameras and OBS, but not along far enough to detail anything. Got the cameras for $30 each but these are older (2017) and require USB connections which sucks in the long run (pun intended). Need to look around inside the camera OS to see if I can hack it to make the streaming feed work better (too much delay and poor quality due to low bitrate). I have a couple of 30 foot USB 3.0 active extensions arriving today and might get some time to fool with it. For a few hundred dollars, it might be good enough for a lot of things (up to 1080/60p), but certainly not sports. Mostly an experiment to try and push work into doing things in an alternate way that doesn't require a full studio crew so they can break up some of the classes into groups of like 4 and create a production. Probably not for live though, at least not yet.

 

[puredrifting]

If you shot on VariCams everything would have been so much better.

FWIW, one of our roaming cameras was my friends HPX-270, it did fine ;-) but wasn't shooting the wall of LED screens on stage. Those screens even looked terrible to the eye, but being on video amplified the moire and oversaturation even more. The should have created a classy, designed stage, and then flanked the front of the stage with two large video screens,
left and right like every other live event seems to do. Making the entire stage BG a wall of LED screens looked totally out of place for the subject, keynote and tone of the event. The organizers either have really bad taste or it was deal signed with an AV company over a three Martini lunch. It's sad when so much money and effort is expended to make anything
look so bad.