- So recently at our
church we put together our livestream production setup. It's a multi-camera ability livestream and in this video, I wanted to break through how we do so with the type of cameras, the type of switchers,
all the way to like, the ProPresenter setup, and
this setup could actually be interchanged with whatever
cameras you want to use, but this will give you a good baseline to how to set it up for your
livestream or live events. Let's go. (beep) You gotta just press record. Hey what is up, I am Omar
El-Takrori with Think Media helping you build your
influence with online video, and on this channel, sometimes
we do tech gear reviews, other times we talk about various setups for different scenarios
just like this one. So if you're new here,
consider subscribing. Now the church that a lot of
us here at Think Media attend in Las Vegas is called City Light Church. And when the pandemic hit
and the shutdown happened, we went from going to
in-live, in-person services to prerecorded services,
and we wanted to make sure that when we started in-person services that we were able to go live,
but still have the quality of those prerecorded services. And so, obviously there's
a little bit less margin of error that can take
place, but having a setup, from communicating with
other people on the cameras to also having wireless
cameras on gimbals, so you could switch and
get super dynamic shots. So, more than anything, just
listen to like the setup. I'm just gonna break
through the cameras and how we actually run cables,
and maybe you can get an idea of how it can work in your
space, or for your event. So we are running four cinema cameras, they're Canon cameras, and
we have two C300 Mark IIs, and then we have two C200s,
both of these Canon cameras are incredible because they
just produce a great image straight out of the camera,
and a lot of the times that cinema camera actually
has like a look, you know. If you watch a lot of live
production and stuff like that, it usually just looks
better because of the type of cameras that's being used,
and so there is a difference between DSLR, mirrorless,
and now cinema cameras. And so, we use those cameras
to capture essentially the service, and then the
fifth camera is actually a roaming camera that is on
a gimbal, and we actually use a Sony a7 III for that
with a 24 to 70 lens, and it's on a zhiyun crane,
which is just a gimbal. And then we're sending the
signal to the switcher, which I'll talk about
in a second, wirelessly, which is cool. Everything else is ran from
the other Canon cinema cameras. Those have SCI cables running from the cameras to the switcher board. Also, if you didn't know, you don't want to run HDMI cords longer
than about 50 feet. I actually don't even want
to run it longer than like 25 feet, and so that's
just a rule of thumb. But, if you were using cameras
that only have HDMI cords, what you want to do is
convert your HDMI into SDI. We have SDI cables running
all throughout this building to be able to have the wireless video feed without it being able to cut out. And by the way, we'll
post links to everything I'm mentioning, and also alternatives down in the description below, so make sure you check
out the description. Now as far as the lenses go
on the actual cinema cameras, we're really just using
two types of lenses, so we have our 70-200 millimeter lens for our main camera A, that
is that straight on shot that's gonna spend a lot of
the time on whoever's teaching. And also whoever is leading
worship or what have you. There's another side camera that we have in the front of the room
that's kind of at an angle. That too, there is a
70 to 200 on that lens, so we have two cinema cameras with 70 to 200 millimeter lenses. And then we have two other cameras. One is on a motorized
slider, always moving back and forth throughout
the entire service, or even like the teaching,
and so it creates a dynamic, and somebody doesn't
have to run that slider. You don't have to do that, it just is cool that we're able to just
hit go at the beginning of the service and then it
can run too, back and forth, but that camera has a 24 to 72.8. And then the other camera during worship is another roamer, but it's not wireless, so that's the other C200, and
that too has a 24 to 72.8. All the cameras that we
are using in this setup are interchangeable lens
cameras, and so that means you can actually get whatever
lens you actually need. So, you might not need
actually the 70 to 200 for that main shot, the
24 to 70 might be plenty. So it all depends on the space
and place that your room is. The more you can zoom in,
the better compression and separation from your
background you can actually achieve but, more than anything, definitely want to start at that 24 to
70, and then if you want to get even tighter,
that's when you would want to get the 70 to 200. So that is kind of like
the four/five camera setup when we're doing our
worship, and that's just to let you know that we don't actually run all five cameras throughout
the entire duration of that service, it's
really just for worship, so we have those angles to
keep the viewer online engaged and when it cuts to the teaching, we really are only using
two different cameras. We're using that main
camera in the center, and then we have that camera
on the motorized slider moving the entire time and
so that just encourages you. But even at Grow With
Video Live, that's where we're filming this right
now, we've kind of taken over the church, but Grow With Video Live, we essentially have the
same two camera setup. The only other third
camera that we're using is to be able to talk to someone on Zoom. But more than anything, a two angle setup for a teaching or a
keynote or what have you, is plenty to keep the
viewer engaged and also get that kind of like wide shot. So people can actually
see like your slides on your screen onstage or what have you. And so all that to say, all these cameras have SDI cables to include
the wireless transmitter going from the gimbal. They're all going to the switcher room, which I'm gonna cut to right now. All right, so we are in the switcher room, and so you can see all
the angles coming in from the various cameras. And then we have our switcher,
which all the cameras are hooked up to, to
include our ProPresenter, which is the program
on a Mac that's sitting in the back of the room
that's sending in slides, or videos and assets and stuff like that. Lyrics to the songs we're singing. But as you can see, I'm wearing comms. The person running switcher,
it's very important that they can communicate to
everyone who's on a camera to let them know that
their camera is on standby and that it's about to go live, because you can't guess, you know. You don't want the camera people to guess if they're live or not. So you can get really intentional shots when doing live productions,
like if the guitar player has a solo and he's ripping
it, that you can tell the camera guy to be able
to be locked in on him and then maybe zoom in on
the guitar or what have you. More than anything,
this is so helpful just to keep everybody on the same page, and know what they're doing at all times. We are using the Black Magic
4K television studio switcher, and it is an SDI input
and output switcher, which is really great because we want to run those long cables. And essentially, this is just allowing us to change the various cameras. Remember when I told you that
we were prerecording services during quarantine, and I wanted
to produce that same look but, you know I have the
control in the editing room where what angles are being selected, so this actually in real
time allows us to choose whatever camera we want, and so even for Grow With Video Live, we
were able to run SDI cables all the way to other rooms
throughout this building and cut to certain cameras
reliably, knowing that there isn't gonna be a drop off. Now you don't need a legit
switcher like this one. I would say this is pretty like, prosumer. We have about 2,000 people
streaming in on a Sunday, and so we really wanted to
invest in something strong. But, if you're not gonna do
more than four camera angles, or three camera angles
or so, you know Atomos, the actual monitor brand,
actually sells a monitor that is touchscreen,
and is also a switcher. And then you can put out a live feed into, you know, whatever
livestream solution you're using. But there's so many different options. Also if you're using a smaller room, Black Magic makes them with
just HDMI, so you can run mirrorless or DSLR cameras
all to that switcher. But again, we'll post links
in the description below so just make sure to check out those links and you can see other
alternatives as well. Now the way we actually
livestream on Sundays is by using what used to
be called Living As One, but they have changed their name to Resi, but it is a livestreaming solution, and I would encourage
you, if you are a church, or maybe you want to livestream something through YouTube or
Facebook at a high level, maybe look into this company Resi. Again, we'll post links
in the description below. But this encoder allows
us to reliably stream our service both to Facebook,
YouTube, and our website, and it really doesn't
take too much internet to use a hardware encoder, and that's kind of why we use them, is
because you don't need super strong internet,
and so you're not relying on so much bit rate, it
actually helps it compress really well, and is a great
solution if you're looking for a livestream and coder. But, I have seen a lot of
people just go straight into like a laptop that's
hooked up to internet, whether that's wired ethernet, or wifi, and literally, a cam link
USB from that Atomos monitor, a friend of mine has a church and that's how they actually run their livestreams. They just run live through a capture card, and that is a great solution as well. So a lot of that stuff that
I mentioned, obviously, is a bunch of video
stuff, obviously there is an audio signal coming
from the soundboard. And as far as our church, we really wanted to take it pretty serious, (laughs) I got stuck here, but it's all good. We're gonna keep it rolling. (beep) We actually send all the
tracks to this computer. So, worship, the teaching,
it's all live mixed, and so the actual livestreaming audience has a good experience. You know, most situations
and churches, they are mixing for the room that the sound is playing in. There is a difference on the experience of the person who is
watching it on their phone, or on their TV, and so
having a separate way of sending a mix to online
is actually pretty wise. But, if you're not
there, that is all good. You can go straight in
from the soundboard, straight into the switcher, and that's how you can get audio consistently, no matter what camera
angle you're switching to. Now I know I didn't go too much in depth about the nitty gritty of all the things. I just wanted you to get a gist of kind of like how we were able
to run Grow With Video Live as well as how we livestream here at City Light Church on Sundays. More than anything, if you
want a multi-angle live event, it really keeps online viewers engaged, rather than just one static shot. And so having this all
hooked up to a switcher really gives that dynamic,
ordering those comms so you can communicate
to the camera operators, making sure you're timing those
shots and things like that. And then also having ProPresenter. We have the newest
version of ProPresenter. That really allows us to
send slides and scriptures or thirds to overlay
over whatever video angle is going on and so, more than anything, I just hope this gave you a gist. But if you have any
questions about this setup or maybe anything I have left out, make sure you put comments
in the description below, and I'll try my best to
answer those questions, and be sure to check out the playlist, where we put all our
live production setups from budget, from last
year's Grow With Video Live where we had to like, we
didn't have a building that had this infrastructure, to being able to put it on
in any building you have, and so make sure you check that out by clicking or tapping the screen. And I'll see you in another video. (upbeat hip hop music)
