LIVE TV
GENRE REPORT
LIVE EVENTS Leading live events producers have sought to make the best of a bad situation during the pandemic, pivoting towards virtual awards, ceremonial events and celebrations. As a company specialising in live events such
as the BAFTA and Emmy Awards through to the Superbowl Half Time Show, Done+Dusted was naturally concerned that it would struggle during the pandemic. CEO Simon Pizey says, however, that the company ended up enjoying a busy year, largely thanks to demand from the American market. When live events were cancelled in the US, they
were often staged as broadcast events instead. “Their reaction to news there was no graduation ceremonies was, ‘Let’s do a televisual graduation,’” recalls Pizey. Done+Dusted, for example, produced graduation event “Graduate Together: America Honors the Class of 2020” specifically for high school seniors who were unable to attend their own events. The ceremony simulcast across ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC and streamed online via TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Barack Obama delivered the commencement speech. Elsewhere, Done+Dusted worked on Global Goal:
Unite For Our Future – The Concert, which featured acts such as Coldplay, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. The globally televised and livestreamed special, which was broadcast by BBC One in the UK, was staged by Global Citizen and the European Commission as part of the fight to tackle Covid-19. The list goes on, with many broadcasters and
platforms looking to create virtual live events to entertain stuck at home audiences: Disney Channel Singalongs (featuring talent such as BTS, Andrea Bocelli, Michael Bublé and Katy Perry), Maria Carey’s Magical Christmas Special for Apple TV Plus, and David Blaine’s Ascension (in which he rose to nearly 25,000 feet hanging from a bundle of helium balloons) for YouTube. Pizey says the complexity of events grew over time as Done+Dusted learned how to shoot safely
during the pandemic. Initially, events were self-shot by stars on their iPhones. Within months, Done+Dusted was filming events in extended reality studios to lend a sense of scale and drama. In some cases, he says production innovations
learnt during the pandemic may live on in the way Done+Dusted covers events. For example, he cites Done+Dusted’s production of the virtual BAFTA and Emmy Awards in 2020. One advantage was that the nominees in each category could chat to each other in a virtual room, rather than stare at each other from their tables. Another, was that there was “no great long walk to the stage, which always takes up a large percentage of time in an awards show.” Could such changes be worked into future awards shows? Over at the BBC, Claire Popplewell, creative
director of BBC Studios Events says the pandemic has been hugely challenging for her department, and the many freelancers that help work on its coverage. Her department is responsible for coverage of
major live occasions such as the Invictus Games, the Queen’s Birthday Parade, the Festival of Remembrance, the Queen’s Christmas Broadcast, and the New Year’s Fireworks. VE Day and VJ Day, for example, were both
marked last year – albeit without audiences and slimmed down numbers of participants. “The emotion comes from your audience, whether it’s the people on the streets or in the seats of the Royal Albert Hall – it’s their faces, cheers and standing ovations that really give heart and soul to your event,” says Popplewell. Her team used projection mapping to bring a
sense of occasion to events, and digital storytelling to provide context to the event – recording testimony via zoom from veterans for its VJ Day coverage. Asked if she will incorporate techniques learned
during Covid times into future live events coverage, Popplewell replies: “I don’t think we will.” Creatively, she says the team will always try to make events stand out and to push creativity. “But remote editing is horrendous, and doing everything on Zoom
is awful…I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved, but the thought of having to do the Festival of Remembrance again this year with no audience just makes my heart sink a little bit. It is just not the same.”
THEATRE The theatre has been one of the worst hit sectors – leading some to embrace tech to reach audiences. The National Theatre, for example, has launched
streaming service National Theatre at Home to offer plays from its archive to viewers at home. The Royal Shakespeare Company took things
a step further, working with talent from the worlds of gaming, virtual reality and music to offer a live performance of Dream to remote audiences in March. Set in a forest, Dream is a 25-minute play based
around a fairy world and A Midsummer Night’s Dream character Puck. It featured actors in motion capture suits working from a virtual studio space at Portsmouth University against an LED video screen, using gaming technology Unreal Engine to translate them into extraordinary creatures. Digital audiences were also able to engage
and interact live with the performance online. “We’re experimenting with form as much as we’re experimenting with the technology,” says RSC director of digital Sarah Ellis. “This allows us to push the boundaries of what’s possible.” It also allows the RSC to reach a global audience.
Performances are aimed at UK and European time zones, as well as Asia, and the United States. “This is an experiment,” stresses Ellis. “It’s quite rare to give yourself permission to put work out there in this way. But that’s how we learn, and how we progress.” This is true of all producers who worked through
the pandemic to capture and broadcast live events. Covid-19 has meant the entire sector experimenting to safely deliver live stories, music and sports. Some experiments will be ditched as soon as the pandemic recedes; others will inform how the live events industry develops in years to come.
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televisual.com Spring 2021
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