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Production leaders, you are in the homestretch. Big Christmas productions and programs are mere days away, and know that our prayers are with you. On a more practical note, I want to offer four things to consider before the coming weekends to make sure you have a smooth Christmas season.
Keep a backup plan for key roles so the production can keep running smoothly if someone drops out.
Have Some People On Stand-by
I’d guess by now that your team is locked in for your big Christmas production, but you should have some fail-safes ready to go. While this time of the year is busy for just about everyone, production team members love to serve when the pressure is on, so don’t be afraid to phone some friends and have them on stand-by just in case a locked-in team member suddenly becomes not-so-locked-in.
And free yourself up, too. As a rule, I don’t often schedule myself for any specific position during a big production. I know how to work every position, and I’m good at troubleshooting on the fly, so I like to be on live stand-by to just help where I’m needed. I do the same for our staff production tech. We are “floaters” during big production weekends so that we can best serve our team when things (almost always) go awry.
Do a Dry Run Before the Dry Run
Obviously, there’s a rehearsal scheduled, but don’t let rehearsal be your dry run. Take some office hours and get the non-live elements of your production flow ironed out ahead of time. Check your media assets, make sure the lighting is all timed out correctly, and then, without the live team in the room, run it all to make sure it’s as seamless as you can make it. That way, the adjustments you make during your rehearsals won’t be stacked on top of core program construction that wasn’t done yet.
Double-check all media files and video assets so nothing gets stuck or missing during the program.
How’s Your Wireless Signal?
You’re going to have a lot of water-laden meat bags carrying cell phones (read: people) in your sanctuary, significantly more so than normal. Water, meat bags, and cell phones are bad for wireless signal, so your wireless cameras and mics may struggle. If you can, lift your lines of sight for all wireless connections to make sure that extra bodies won’t soak up the signal. Consider buying stronger antennas and making sure their line of sight is unobstructed, and maybe even do a frequency scan this weekend to find the best frequencies for your equipment.
Review transitions between songs, videos, and announcements to make the flow seamless.
Is there anything you can automate?
A while back at LifeMission, we realized that we could leverage BitFocus Companion to really nail our livestream transitions, things like fading to and from our announcement video, firing all of our preservice scrolls, and sequencing macros on our Blackmagic Design ATEM Switcher. It made our whole operation smoother and gave our directors a lot less to remember.
When you’re doing the dry run before the dry run that I talked about, keep an eye out for what you can automate so that there are fewer transitions you need to worry about during your programs, especially if your team is on the smaller side.
I hope these tips are helpful, and again, I pray that the Gospel is beautifully shared by your team this Christmas.
