I thought I’d add to the post I did last week about filming and live streaming at the Westfield shopping centre for Xbox’s new Forza 4 game. There are so many challenges with live streaming, building a car, live broadcasts and working with new talent – and this project had it all.
Our brief was to film the construction of the car over a week and stream this live to the internet. As well as this we were to work with a presenter four times a day to give live updates of what was going on with interviews and time-lapse shots.
The technical challenges were to use a small team and provide 12 hours of coverage a day from 5 camera positions and to ensure rock solid streaming to the campaign website. The solution was a combination of top of the range remote control CCTV cameras, a live camera operator, lots of vision mixing equipment, a hardware video capture card and a flash encoder to stream the video feed to the internet. We also played everything that happened live to the video screens around Westfield and intercut the footage with the Forza 4 advert. Again this involved lots of mixers and some clever cable patching.
Editorially we dedicated a producer to working alongside the mechanics to nail down the story of each broadcast to to ensure that the viewer had a fulfilling experience. As the build developed the producer worked up relevant questions to keep the interviews on the right track.
Finally, the footage every day was edited into a highlights package and uploaded for viewers to watch at their leisure – the upload started at 5pm every day so it kept Dan, our on site video editor, on his toes.
After the event we were asked to create a promotional film that would reflect the passion of car fans and the beauty of the game, and you can see that film at the bottom of this page.
Overall it was a great experience for the team with a vast amount of content generated each day. The feedback from viewers has been great … it’s just a shame none of us won the car!