24-Hour Arty People
How can you showcase an international arts festival when international travel is on hold? Create a 24 hour live arts stream!
Earlier this year we successfully collaborated with Manchester International Festival for a third time to create a non-stop 24 hour online live streamed arts show with four hosts including a Mesmer-created avatar of one of Manchester's finest drag artists Cheddar Gorgeous. Broadcast live from a studio in Manchester, over the space of 24 hours, a team of four talented Manchester based artists, writers and activists - Javaad Alipoor, Lowri Evans, Simone French and Cheddar Gorgeous - hosted a live stream of live and pre-recorded discussions, Q&As, performances, live game play-throughs and networking events showcasing what the 2021 Manchester International Festival had to offer, as well as Manchester International Festivals future home, The Factory.
Taking live feeds from around the world, an invite-only audience were treated to exclusive live streamed performances, interviews, readings and discussions from guests including Laurie Anderson, Lemn Sissay, Theatre Rites, Hans Ulrich Obrist and many more. Having previously worked with Manchester International Festival on the 2017 award winning festival opener "What Is The City But The People", and in 2019 on the Yoko Ono immersive live and online celebration "Bells For Peace", we teamed up again to help audiences experience the range of in person and online events included in the 2021 programme through streams, interviews ands spotlights with artists. These included highlights with artists Marta Minujín and Kemang Wa Lehulere, choreographer Wayne McGregor and composer Ed Lewis, as well as screenings including the new film and immersive installation "All of This Unreal Time" featuring Cillian Murphy with music by Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner and Jon Hopkins.
Working with the MIF International Team we built, wrangled and scheduled an entire day and night programme of live and pre-recorded original and engaging content. In order to do this we had to take into account the following factors: audience and guest timezones, the balance of content at any given point in the stream and the best points in the schedule for showcases or interactive sections to allow for higher audience participation, as well as the logistics of running a 24 hour live stream.
Once a programme had been decided all the elements were then brought together. MIF's Digital team helped us to source assets, some of which were created live during the event whilst others came from performances that had only opened days before. In order to ensure our hosts could be present virtually, whilst they were off getting some well earned rest, we created facetracked digital avatars so the audience felt like they were never alone during their experience. Three rolling crews of camera operators, vision mixers, content playback and audio teams swapping seamlessly throughout the event, ensured there wasn't a break in the live stream, whilst teams of streaming technicians, online moderators, digital artist liaison officers and live transcribers also helped to keep the stream-side event running smoothly.
From drawing up initial concepts and timelines, pre recording interviews with artists, hosting panel discussions, running the live stream tv and video conferencing elements on the night to testing and finalising the 24 hours event platform and creating bespoke content, being involved on all stages of the project ensured we helped showcase Manchester International Festival to the world during a time when international travel was on hold.
Client:
Manchester International Festival
Location:
Online, 2021
Services:
Video & Projection Design
Technical Consultancy
Content Creation
Equipment Hire
Team:
Video Director: Ian William Galloway
Systems Designer: Salvador Bettencourt Ávila
Content Manager: Barbora Šenoltová
Lead Animator: Rafael Vartanian
Production Credits:
Creative Producer: Clementine Seely
Creative Producer: Livi Prendergast
Producer: Alison Darnborough
Photos:
© MIF 2020
