At its most basic level, Remote Production simply means that the creatives who are usually on set giving direction - the director and agency/client representatives - are no longer on set. Instead, they do their work from home, viewing live streamed feeds to see what the camera sees. In some ways, this isn’t much different than traditional production where creative directors and clients view feeds on monitors at video village, filtering feedback through the on set producer or director.
While remote production developed as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, it has emerged as a very practical means to produce a range of content without gathering large crews or traveling creatives to far away locations. Of course some styles of production will go back to business as usual when they can, but remote production will remain as a widely used option for many shoots even once the pandemic has ended.
This style of production is perfect for a range of content types, including:
On the ground, Remote Production can mean a number of different shoot types:
The simplest and most cost effective way to produce remote shoots is to have talent shelf shoot. This means that talent will either use their own device, or be provided with a device that will allow them to capture footage themselves with no production crew on site. Typically, this is done with an iOS device of some kind (iPhone or iPad) or a laptop. If possible, we prefer to improve talent’s image quality by working with them to find the best lighting available in the space.
The contactless camera cart is an option that allows for a professional quality camera and microphones to be used while ensuring that crew never enters the location. This type of shoot usually takes place in talent's home or place of business rather than a studio.
This scenario allows for maximum audio and video quality while ensuring that crew and talent never come in direct contact, and are never in the same interior space together. A small crew (as little as one person) enters the location to build the shooting setup. We do as much as we can to get the setup dialed in completely with our camera crew with the expectation that talent may have to do some small tweaking on their own when the enter the room. Once creatives sign off on the setup, our crew disinfects the gear in the room, and leaves before talent enters. From there, our remote Technical Director guides talent though any changes that need to happen before filming takes place.
This scenario offers the most flexible and efficient type of remote shoot because our skeleton crew remains in the room while filming takes place, meaning that talent will never have to make any adjustments themselves. This allows for more complex lighting setups and well as camera moves or live adjustments during filming. This is typically also the most time efficient type of shoot since there is no time wasted trying to have talent make adjustments themselves.
Remote Production always involves a remote Technical Director to run video village, manage any on site crew, and ensure that all technical requirements for the shoot are met. The Technical Director works with the crew on the ground or talent directly (if talent is self shooting) to get cameras, microphones, and lighting set up before agency/client creatives give feedback. Once the floor is opened to feedback, the Technical Director translates any necessary changes to crew or talent until the image gets final sign off for filming.
Remote Production typically takes place using a video conferencing platform of some kind, which is referred to as 'Video Village'. If client has no preference, we prefer to use Zoom for our video village, but we can also accommodate most conferencing platforms (Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx, Google Meet, Skype, and more). Camera feeds are connected to video village so that remote viewers see the exact frame being captured. Communication between the Technical Director, creatives, talent, and crew can be done directly within the video conference, but additional communication channels are typically also used between key team members.
When shooting for post production, files can be managed in a number of ways. We support a range of solutions for uploading or sending files to a post house or editor via the internet. If files are small enough, we can transfer using Google Drive or Dropbox. For larger files or when security is a concern, we prefer to use the Massive platform. If necessary, we can also manage shipment of hard drives to your post production team as needed. In addition to full resolution files, proxies can be sent quickly after filming is complete to get post production started before the master files arrive.
In addition to shooting for post production, we can use remote production to bring participants in to a live streaming environment, allowing for streaming to any online platform with multiple guests, video roll ins, broadcast style graphics, audience Q&A, and more. We can stream to the platform of your choice or provide a link or white labeled player for embedding on any website.
