DEFY Media

DEFY Media contracted Broadcast Management Group to provide live production services, technical management, and production staffing for 3-days of live programming in San Diego, CA during Comic-Con. “Screen Junkies Live” took place at Moonshine Flats in downtown San Diego and streamed live to YouTube, Facebook, and the DEFY Media website.

Leading up to the live production, Broadcast Management Group participated in regular calls with the “Screen Junkies Live” crew to discuss logistics, production goals, and technical needs. Our live production team conducted a site survey prior to San Diego Comic-Con, which allowed us to map out the location of our control room, camera placements, and cable runs.

“Screen Junkies Live” was shot at Moonshine Flats in San Diego’s Gaslight District. On most nights, the venue is a bar with a stage for live music. The location was ideal – centrally located downtown just a few blocks from the San Diego Convention Center, which allowed the Screen Junkies crew to draw large crowds for each of their 12 live productions. All production equipment was loaded in curbside, directly in front of the venue, which allowed for a quick load-in and load-out. Despite not being a traditional production environment, the venue had adequate infrastructure to support our needs. There was existing lighting truss and instruments to support our events on the main stage as well as a front-of-house audio board. The biggest challenge with the venue was storage space for our empty equipment cases as well as space for our control room setup. We had a small footprint at the end of the bar – to the side of the main stage – which we had to use for our switcher, audio board, and live streaming equipment.

All live production staff for “Screen Junkies Live” were booked locally in San Diego, with the exception of our Technical Manager, who we traveled from New York. Broadcast Management Group’s CEO and EVP of Production filled the rolls of Executive in Charge of Production and Production Manager.

“Screen Junkies Live” was shot with 7 cameras – both manned and unmanned POVs – which were cabled back to a Tricaster switcher. Audio was mixed by the venue’s FOH Audio Operator, who sent a stereo mix to our broadcast A1. All live streaming to the 3 delivery platforms – YouTube, Facebook, and the DEFY website – was conducted on-site by our Encoding Engineer. The “Screen Junkies Live” team provided all graphic and video elements, which were rolled back into the live production. We shot a total of 12 live productions of our 3-day production window at Comic-Con.