# Theater Tech with Live-Streaming?



## zwilliamson22 (Mar 22, 2020)

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to run a show behind the scenes if the show is live-streamed? I stage manage for my high school drama association, and am looking for a solution if my show is live-streamed amid this coronavirus pandemic. Our rehearsals were scheduled to start tomorrow, but now school is running online for a couple of weeks and could (and probably will) go even longer. If we aren't pushed to online school longer than the planned two weeks, the show will run in the theater as planned, but if we are, the show will go up via Zoom, live-streamed to an online audience. How would I, as the stage manager, go about my job? How would light and sound cues work? I'm sure there are other SMs navigating the same space with this pandemic, and I would love to get some advice on what others have done/are planning to do in this difficult time.


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 22, 2020)

Well, if you're just using a fixed-wide camera, it shouldn't affect your production or crewing. You just make sure the camera will feed Zoom, in a test, and then launch it at Places.

If you're doing actual multicam production, you might need to put your Technical Director and production gear in a different room, and put the TD on comms. Less important if your shots are all still fixed. Always a good idea to treat the live production and the broadcast separately. If your A1 is sharp enough, have him do a separate mix on a post-fade aux, to feed the encoder.

More important is making sure you have whatever emergency copyright licensure is necessary...


----------



## DrewE (Mar 22, 2020)

Do a dry-run (taping/recording) your show, or at least your scenes, with the camera and modify the lighting design as needed. Generally speaking, cameras have less dynamic range than the human eye, so the lighting needs to be flatter to avoid blowing out the highlights too much and/or making the shadow areas all black. Cameras are also relatively unforgiving of variations of white balance within the scene. This is also a good opportunity to experiment with different camera settings--manual focus vs. auto, manual exposure vs. auto, etc. Maybe the cues won't need much or any editing but it's also possible they may need substantial reworking.

If the show is only live-streamed, with no live audience, the sound of course should be mixed solely for that (and for whatever monitoring is needed). The house sound mix need not even exist, really.


----------



## Ben Stiegler (Mar 22, 2020)

One question is whether your show would need to be re-blocked to allow social distancing between actors - and also consider dressing room distances, etc. A school I teach at has a musical on freeze (we were a week from opening) and I'm quite interested to see if/how we'll get that back on track as well. one can imagine a messy video presentation with each actor at home, the music sound track arriving via a separate stream for audience and actors to hear, and someone functioning as video director perhaps choosing shots among many thumbnail tiles of the actors ... eek!


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 22, 2020)

Jay Ashworth said:


> Well, if you're just using a fixed-wide camera, it shouldn't affect your production or crewing. You just make sure the camera will feed Zoom, in a test, and then launch it at Places.
> 
> If you're doing actual multicam production, you might need to put your Technical Director and production gear in a different room, and put the TD on comms. Less important if your shots are all still fixed. Always a good idea to treat the live production and the broadcast separately. If your A1 is sharp enough, have him do a separate mix on a post-fade aux, to feed the encoder. { Wasn't thinking here; of course the broadcast would be your main mix in this environment... Thanks, Drew. }
> 
> More important is making sure you have whatever emergency copyright licensure is necessary...



It's not clear to me why that's what the forum did, when I told it to *edit* my original posting to let me add the side comment to Drew, but that's what it did alright. :-}


----------



## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 22, 2020)

Had to say it again, huh?


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 22, 2020)

No, that was the Forum getting it wrong. You'll note the second posting has an extra sentence that I edited in to the first posting - or at least that's what it told me it was doing. Sorry. [ Separately from my clarifying sentence, edited into the second posting later than that. My, but that's unnecessarily complicated, isn't it? ]


----------



## MNicolai (Mar 23, 2020)

Unpopular opinion, but if you are in a position where you cannot have an audience attend, you should not put on the show at all. It's one thing with professionals electing to take a risk of their own accord. It's an entirely different matter to do that with students. And you are not only taking a risk with the students, but with every person those students interact with for the following 4-5 days. I have a hard time imagining most schools will return to business as usual, but even if they do it is at least a little easier to social distance in a classroom environment than in a theatrical environment where people are singing, sweating, and running around through hallways and dressing rooms faster than surfaces can be kept sanitized.

The White House keeps toting this "15 Days" nonsense, but there's no way this thing blows over in 7-8 more days. If people go back to business as usual in 2 weeks from now, the virus is just going to peak a little later than it would have originally. It is necessary for the preservation of human life that social distancing remain active for a good stretch of time until the virus is largely limited to regional pockets here or there that can be contained on a regional basis.

Might be a little different if we had the testing capacity to check for asymptomatic hosts but even that's a laughable idea for these next few weeks.

If it's a small play that's largely stationary like Beckett's Endgame, that might be a little different -- but most high school shows are designed to maximize the amount of students who get to participate.

I understand that it's going to make a lot of kids and parents upset who have been working on this for however long but holding a performance in the couple months borders on gross negligence. Remember -- we have only begun to see the tip of this iceberg and the response in the United States has been tragically insufficient. It is going to be much worse in 4-6 weeks from now than it is already.

The USA now ranks #1 in daily new cases, and we are barely testing people compared to other countries. We have risen to #2 in active confirmed cases and to #3 in daily new deaths.


----------



## StradivariusBone (Mar 23, 2020)

We are developing a setup for doing this at the church I run tech for. They purchased an HD camera and a bunch of gear from Blackmagic. An ATEM Switcher, another box that captures the output of the switcher to an SD card, and a capture device that takes SDI in and allows the computer to use it as a source for OBS. We tried a few things to get audio to the mix. We have an M32 with the dante card to drive an Aviom IEM setup, so I took a MacBook with the dante soundcard installed and tried capturing it with StudioOne. I'm having a lot of latency issues and audio glitching as a result, so I need to troubleshoot that more. However, the best method was to just use a mixbus from the M32 and run the mix live with really good over-ear headphones. Eventually, I want to get the dante working right so as to mix audio isolated from the live sound. 

All that said, I agree with Mike. For our school, we are limited to 10 people max anywhere at once and kids are not allowed on campus at least until 4/15. Our show was supposed to open on 4/17. I'm guessing we'll be doing online school through to the end of the school year in May. The other thing to consider is obtaining the rights to do a live streamed show. Most of the MTI kids/jr shows allow for it and I'm hearing a lot of the MTI full shows are starting to roll it out (for a price I'm sure), but you can bet you'll get nailed by the copyright censors if you publish something without the appropriate approval.


----------



## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 23, 2020)

Each member works from home on a web meeting app. Maybe "readers theatre" like in terms of production values but could be interesting with all the aspects of live theatre. Not for musicals - but straight plays it could work.


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 23, 2020)

We went from #4 to #3 to #2 since yesterday at noon, so Mike's probably right. :-}


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 23, 2020)

Wait, Mike? I have us #3, still, behind Italy by almost 20kcases; what's your source for #2? (Mine's JHU CSEE)


----------



## MNicolai (Mar 23, 2020)

Same as you, JHU. I'm differentiating Active Confirmed Cases from Total Cases though. Right now China is supposedly 81k total, but of those, 72k recovered, 3k dead, net 7k active cases.

So overall, China has been hit the hardest in gross, but the US currently represents much more of a hotspot in active and daily new cases than China. China's isolation and testing procedures were so thorough that they've largely avoided new cases over the last several days. Soon enough, their biggest threat will be outsiders reintroducing it into their borders once people let their guards down again.

This link looks like it's the same data as JHU, but in a nice sortable table.








Coronavirus Update (Live): 94,925,804 Cases and 2,029,648 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...



www.worldometers.info


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 23, 2020)

Nice get. Myself, I am in the "pushing to pervasive testing, not just people we think are positive already, is Job 2 behind PPE" camp; the statistics are important for driving the response, and USAdian stats are garbage because we're not getting any negatives.

Two separate news items in the last 4 or 5 days give me great hope on that front, as long as the policy people don't get in the way of the medical people anymore.


----------



## Jay Ashworth (Mar 23, 2020)

See also








Tableau makes Johns Hopkins coronavirus data available for the rest of us

Tableau takes Hopkins' COVID-19 data, preps it and makes it available to all interested parties, in dashboard, Tableau data set, Google Sheet and CSV formats.



www.zdnet.com


----------



## What Rigger? (Mar 24, 2020)

zwilliamson22 said:


> Does anyone have any suggestions for how to run a show behind the scenes if the show is live-streamed? I stage manage for my high school drama association, and am looking for a solution if my show is live-streamed amid this coronavirus pandemic. Our rehearsals were scheduled to start tomorrow, but now school is running online for a couple of weeks and could (and probably will) go even longer. If we aren't pushed to online school longer than the planned two weeks, the show will run in the theater as planned, but if we are, the show will go up via Zoom, live-streamed to an online audience. How would I, as the stage manager, go about my job? How would light and sound cues work? I'm sure there are other SMs navigating the same space with this pandemic, and I would love to get some advice on what others have done/are planning to do in this difficult time.



Z, I'm gonna go in with what @MNicolai is saying. So, not tryin' to be jerk here, but to paraphrase Grand Moff Tarkin "I think you overestimate your chances". 







New Haven Public Schools Closing Indefinitely Over Coronavirus Concerns

All New Haven public schools will be closed indefinitely starting Friday, March 13 due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus and Mayor Justin Elicker said that families should prepare for children to be out of school for an extended period of time. The schools are closing “due to the...



www.nbcconnecticut.com





Look around at what's going on. Have you noticed the "2-week closure" thing is all but a memory? 

How many people in the cast? You REALLY think a group of high school kids are going to maintain disciplined social distancing? You think any district isn't gonna squash a chance to have kids avoid exposure? I'll bet my mortgage payment on "no". 

And other than essential services like breakfast and lunch TO GO... school closures especially now, are a hardcore thing. I can't imagine a school district worth anything will allow this. A lot of people here are teachers, or like me, are married to one. If I'm wrong, I'll get called out. But I kinda doubt it. 

I know you all want to do this for the school, and your cast and crew. I get that you're bored. But now's not a time to do what you- as an individual or a group- want to do. It is a time to step up and do what MUST be done. Look at it as your first real world exercise in risk management, and start getting hip to something that will serve you well (and is still missing in many parts of the industry, and especially schools): the show does not have to go on. Especially in light of a pandemic. Especially at your level. Let go of the lie that "SM's do WHATEVER it takes to get the show on". Part of what the arts do right now is entertain/distract in a safe fashion. But we as a whole have shut down every theatre and cinema in the country. Full stop, no questions asked. 

Does your teacher know you're out here sniffing around like this? Because, again, indefinite school closures in your area, right?

I implore you to have the courage to seriously question yourself and your teachers about whether you're about to put your community and yourself at further risk over an entirely disposable activity.


----------



## What Rigger? (Mar 24, 2020)

What Rigger? said:


> Z, I'm gonna go in with what @MNicolai is saying. So, not tryin' to be jerk here, but to paraphrase Grand Moff Tarkin "I think you overestimate your chances".
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Okay, now I know for sure you aren't getting this show off. Sorry. I know it's not cool, but remember that this industry is a marathon not a sprint. Play the long game. 








Governor Lamont Signs Executive Order Asking Connecticut Businesses and Residents: ‘Stay Safe, Stay Home’

Governor Ned Lamont today announced that part of the ongoing civil preparedness and public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, he is directing Connecticut residents to “Stay Safe, Stay at Home.”


portal.ct.gov


----------



## Ben Stiegler (Mar 25, 2020)

Now this is not for the faint of heart, or weak musicians, but this beautiful performance by members of the Rotterdam Symphony - all playing from home - shows what *can* be done. A click track was sent out to each musician, who self-recorded video and audio in their homes. Presumably with careful specs re frame rate and format provided. Then someone spent some serious time in edit mode ... and the result is really stunning (even if the chorus is dubbed). Not to be outdone, the Toronto Symphony tried one of their own! 4 minute watch/listen ... lifted my spirits, hope it does yours!

https://slippedisc.com/2020/03/believe-it-orchestra-plays-beethoven-9th-from-their-homes/


----------



## StradivariusBone (Mar 25, 2020)

Really good musicians + Ubiquitous phones with cameras + Reference recording = Magic

I wonder what old Ludwig would think.


----------



## zwilliamson22 (Mar 25, 2020)

Thank you all for the replies! I realized a clarification should be made from my initial post: for live-streaming the show, as of now we're planning to have actors in their homes broadcasting through Zoom so as not to endanger them and the audience and ignore social distancing guidelines. There's some talk of moving the show to a podcast format, but for now we're thinking of having actors in their homes and the audience somehow brought in, muted.


----------



## Kristi R-C (Mar 25, 2020)

Set up your Zoom room invite to mute everyone as they join in. Your actors can unmute themselves by pressing the space bar when it's their turn to speak. Let your audience know they should keep their hands in their pockets and when it's time to "clap" do with the ASL sign which is "jazz hands shaking by their ears."

Have friends who did a lovely Shakespeare reading this way and it was a treat!

Also know - Zoom limits attendees, so if you sell "tickets" that may help.


----------



## spiwak2005 (Mar 26, 2020)

zwilliamson22 said:


> Thank you all for the replies! I realized a clarification should be made from my initial post: for live-streaming the show, as of now we're planning to have actors in their homes broadcasting through Zoom so as not to endanger them and the audience and ignore social distancing guidelines. There's some talk of moving the show to a podcast format, but for now we're thinking of having actors in their homes and the audience somehow brought in, muted.



There is a setting in Zoom to "Allow live streaming meetings" (under In Meeting Advanced) that might work for the audience. Zoom meeting for all the remote actors, then start the Facebook or YouTube Live stream.


----------



## spiwak2005 (Mar 26, 2020)

Kristi R-C said:


> Also know - Zoom limits attendees, so if you sell "tickets" that may help.



Zoom Basic account limits up to 100 participants to 40 minutes. Pro account limits you to up to 100 participants with no time limit. Pro accounts can be upgraded with Large Meeting add-on to accommodate up to 500 or up to 1000.


----------



## JonCarter (Mar 26, 2020)

GO HOME! Sit down. Take a load off. Read a good book. Wait 'til somebody higher up sez "Come back!" You'll have had a rest, a chance to think, to read a good book, and if 'higher up' is wrong, it won't be on your resume.


----------



## MRW Lights (Mar 27, 2020)

Do be aware that millions of users are reported as being active on Zoom simultaneously which has been seen to cause some significant lag. Keep that in mind in your pursuit of live performance with an audience. I would definitely suggest the live stream option so that you're taking advantage of an external encoder rather than having your audience take up bandwidth within your zoom session.


----------



## LesWilson (Mar 29, 2020)

It's a creative idea. I'd think you would run into some timing issues depending on the type of performance. You'd have to get creative with lighting effects and sets. We cancelled our school musical. TRW extended the license terms to include next year at no charge. It was difficult but eased a little because we did not have too many Seniors. It's a play. Not the end of the world. It's a teaching moment for dealing with disappointment that will serve them well in the future.

If I HAD to do it, I'd use the rehearsal time rehearsing on Zoom so actors get used to it and you shake out technical problems. You could run sound effects in your Zoom session but I'm concerned about anything requiring tight timing. Once you are satisfied, perform it and record it. You could switch between Gallery and Normal modes for chorus and solo performance. Recording it gives you a video file (a large one) that you can upload to a true livestream service such as livestream.com where they broadcast it to your audience. One advantage is your cast could watch. But of course you have to check if that satisfies the publisher's contract.


----------



## jtweigandt (Mar 30, 2020)

record the Zoom performance.. stream it later Less technical challenge. Less bandwidth needed. Ability to edit if need be.


----------



## MNicolai (Mar 30, 2020)

Need to be aware for any student events that student privacy laws still apply. There are specific ways that meetings should (and should not) be organized to paint within the lines of federal law.


https://zoom.us/docs/doc/School%20Administrators%20Guide%20to%20Rolling%20Out%20Zoom.pdf


----------



## darinlwebb (Apr 15, 2020)

ComedySportz San Jose did a show with Zoom. They streamed to Facebook live, but had a small audience on the zoom call to participate via chat. They appear to have had a person designated to picking which players appeared on the screen at a time.



Tech wise, I'm guessing they used OBS to stream to Facebook, and the 'produced' or a different designated computer was streaming their screen or the Zoom window.

I produced a show last week where we had performers (circus and burlesque) submit videos that they shot of themselves performing at home. We had someone emcee by recording intros/outros for each performer as well. I edited all the files into one video, normalized resolution and audio, etc, and streamed that video using OBS. We started with Facebook Live, but the stream got shut down because it detected the copyrighted music in the performer's pieces. We redirected our audience to Zoom, muted everyone but me, and resumed the show.

Audio & Video quality is terrible on Zoom (especially if it's pre-recorded), so I'm currently exploring ways to self-host a streaming site. I got a POC working with OBS, AWS MediaLive and MediaPackage, and I'll probably create a simple web page in AWS S3 or Github pages to host the site itself.


----------



## Malabaristo (Apr 23, 2020)

darinlwebb said:


> Audio & Video quality is terrible on Zoom (especially if it's pre-recorded), so I'm currently exploring ways to self-host a streaming site. I got a POC working with OBS, AWS MediaLive and MediaPackage, and I'll probably create a simple web page in AWS S3 or Github pages to host the site itself.



A local club has been having DJs stream via Twitch pretty regularly, and so far that hasn't been shut down... not sure if that's something reliable, or just that they haven't been caught yet? From their rules it looks like Twitch explicitly says not to do this, but it also sounds like they're not proactive about policing it--just that they respond to DMCA notifications from rights holders and terminate accounts for repeat offenders.

Self-hosting is tricky with streaming video because the bandwidth and processing requirements can add up very quickly. For x viewers and video with y bitrate you need x * y total bandwidth. It's more complicated if you want to be able to offer different resolutions and quality to adapt to different viewer devices and connections. This blog from AWS goes into some detail on how to estimate costs. The main takeaway is that the inputs and processing are fairly cheap, but distribution via CloudFront can get pretty pricey. This is one case where having a smaller audience is an advantage (assuming this is offered for free).

I'd be interested in hearing where you end up going with this. I've been looking into options for doing a live stream of events in our theatre to classrooms around the building. Youtube/Facebook/etc would be super easy, but the copyright detection would likely cause problems eventually. Teachers are bad at following rules... Zoom or any other conferencing solution isn't great for the reasons you mentioned (and just general clumsiness). OBS has some options for multicast streaming to local devices, but the network configuration won't let that work throughout the school. I found some info on setting up your own RTMP server, and that actually turns out to be pretty easy... until you want it to be able to handle the amount of data required for more than a handful of viewers at once. So far I haven't really come up with anything that really fits this particular niche--especially for something we'd probably only actually use a couple of times a year.


----------



## darinlwebb (May 17, 2020)

We had a second show, and while we put the show on Zoom, I ran a backup stream with AWS.

For Zoom, definitely go find the settings to turn off all audio enhancement. Google 'using zoom for music lessons audio quality' and you'll find plenty of guides for that.

For about 2 hours of streaming at 1080p, I spent about $25. That said, I only had one viewer - me. Cloudfront costs are definitely the factor here. My next steps when I have time are going to be to figure out how to get this stood up with Cloudformation, because it's a lot of clicking, and then I can also stand it up and tear it down without worrying about offline channel fees (paltry, but why pay if you don't have to).

I'd like to learn more about this and then see if I can work with some of the videographers in my circles to do some more tests.


----------



## Dionysus (May 26, 2020)

I am the TD for London Fringe (London Ontario Canada) which is a member of CAFF (Canadian Assoc. of Fringe Festivals, however, we have many American Members).
Orlando Fringe has been live streaming their festival over the last two weeks. It's been really informative to see what they've been doing right, and doing wrong, along with the NAC (Canada's National Theatre in Ottawa) has been funding artists to do live streams daily since quarantine started. 
Victoria Fringe also has the "UNO Fest" that ran late April where they put their entire festival online (had to cut any shows that were not able to do it).

I am currently looking towards possibly putting London Fringe and Summerfolk (a mid-sized folk festival) online in August/September, so looking to what others have done and their issues/successes will be very informative.

UNO Fest had some live stream components I am told, but also put content behind a paywall using VIMEO. Videos were up for the duration of the festival, plus a week or two to give people who bought "tickets" a chance to watch them. They were then locked down but kept online for the producing companies to be able to view/use.

ZOOM has been by far the most used for live streams that I've seen so far, they are often "cast" to youtube or facebook live, but ZOOM has been used to allow multiple participants to work together at a distance.

Orlando Fringe's Flashlight Cabaret is a great example that I watched earlier. A Live stream from participating companies from all over the world, doing short "skits". The "hosts" were in Australia (where they are in lockdown) but the stream was operated from Orlando. Tomorrow CAFF is having a meeting where we expect Orlando to detail their experiences of the last few weeks and I am looking forward to it.

Another Orlando Fringe live stream I saw had the 3 members of a group streaming via Zoom to FB Live, along with a small "digital audience" of supporters to engage in audience participation required for their show. It worked very well, I've been thinking of incorporating something like that possibly.

The stream tests I've done so far I've utilized ZOOM, and OBS Studio so far. I also have an ATEM Mini to use on my end, that I tried having one input from a QLAB computer for an video and audio feed I could switch to. I hope to use ZOOM to engage outside participants.

So far the real issue I've seen is with the latency. Any HDMI signal adds latency, the ATEM Mini adds latency, then the stream itself adds a lot. I've seen musicians successfully play together over ZOOM but it isn't without problems. The more participants (and the worse the connection) the worse the problem gets. And then there is also an added lag to the audience if you are looking for live chat participation.


----------



## macsound (May 28, 2020)

Most of these type of events are recorded individually and edited together, just like recording a song in the studio.

Starting with a scratch track of someone reading all the lines, or a zoom call or a cd recording, and you listen to that while you create your part of the recording.
Then that recording is passed to the next person who records their part. 

Ultimately all those pieces are sent to one person who edits them together and hopefully because you recorded your part while listening to the recording of others, the timing should be good. At the editing time you could also add lighting and sound FX pieces. 
Then that recording would be broadcast or uploaded for people to watch. 
You can make it feel "live" just like they do for regular TV and broadcast it at a specific time, maybe with a live host, like a preshow, intermission and postshow speech to make it seem live.


----------



## BillConnerFASTC (Jun 5, 2020)

Kind of interesting. https://www.auditoria-magazine.com/news/displays/mhb-creates-digital-audience-platform.html Sit at home but be a live audiene member. I wonder if each person has a ptz camera on their display. Makes me hum 'in the year 2525..."


----------



## TimMc (Jun 6, 2020)

BillConnerFASTC said:


> Kind of interesting. https://www.auditoria-magazine.com/news/displays/mhb-creates-digital-audience-platform.html Sit at home but be a live audiene member. I wonder if each person has a ptz camera on their display. Makes me hum 'in the year 2525..."


"You'll pick your actors, pick your dancers too
From the bottom of a long glass tube..."

With apologies to Zager and Evans...


----------



## Ben Stiegler (Jun 10, 2020)

This could be a little involved, but check it out. VMIX is a virtual video/audio switcher which can run on a virtual machine near you, or in the cloud. (similar to open source OBS). Corporate AV and broadcast types are using this to run/switch shows with distributed crew all safely from home. You need to figure out video transport / VPN/etc. but if you are going to do it repeatedly, it might be worth the learning curve.


----------

