The Harvard Signet Society has been promoting the intellectual, literally and artistic life at Harvard for quite a while (since 1870). We've been supporting their dinner for a somewhat shorter period (not yet a decade) but every year we enjoy the poetry, music, and speakers that make up a Signet dinner.

We are less tempted by the two champagne bowls from which 170 very smart people drink.

This year we provided a small pa system, wireless microphones, a piano and a camera to record the event for posterity, and the staff to run it all. (The staff didn't play the piano, thoguh, that would have been very bad.)

Also, the staff at Arlington Town Hall were very helpful in explaining what was what and where, and they were easily accessible and pleasant during the set up and tear down of all of the gear.

The Hynes loading dock was - as always - clean and well organized, which made for an easy load in and out, and the Hynes staff was courteous, pleasant and professional.

Our friends at FLS Boston Commons routinely ask us to provide their exchange students with a little video reminder of their experience in Boston. Often this is a dance performance, but we're always open to help with anything else.

When FLS VP Michael LaRiccia asked us to produce a quick and informative video that showed parents of prospective students how effective and enjoyable it is to study at FLS, we jumped right in.

After a short meeting with Michael to tour the facilities and to find out what was special about FLS Boston Commons, Editor Tara Neves and Producer Geoff Briggs put together a timeline a script for a two-and-a-half to three minute long video, ran it past Michael, got a few minor changes, and then produced everything with a one-day shoot and two-day edit.

The result covers all of the points that Michael wanted to hit, without bogging down or going into information overload. Michael was very pleased and so were we!

Every year our senior digital media specialist, Seth Wereska, endeavors to do the impossible. He tries to produce a marginally professional promotional video of a charity fund raiser gala.

We know. You're thinking: "Really, that's not so hard."

And we'd agree, except this gala takes place over the course of about 14 hours and travels over 3 miles on foot . .  Oh, and it stops at 15 or so bars. 

The Hancock Street Pub Crawl was started ten years ago by a group of friends after one of their children was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. Initially it was held to raise awareness, but now it benefits Little Hearts an organization that offers community, support, advice and advocacy for children with congenital heart defects and their families. 

Seth got involved 7 years ago, first as a crawler, and now as their resident videographer. Each year we put together a video that explains what the crawl is, while commerating the event for vetern crawlers and recruiting new ones. 

Crawl videos have helped to swell the event to having over two hundred fund-raising participents.

In Boston we were happy to be her crew. 

The nice thing about knowing somene for the better part of a decade is that you can speak your expectations plainly. Christine made her expectations clear with one simple statement: "I was promised perfection."

I suppose that might seem like a tough standard, but we've been doing almost this exact shoot for the last fifteen years. These days most of the projects we work on are multicamera, live streamed, or part of a show with multiple video roll-ins, a live audience and several video projectors. There are a lot of moving peices (and a lot of last minute changes). While we generally get it right, those gigs can really keep you on your toes.

Christine's statement reminded us that we were back in the the comfort zone of a single camera interview in a mostly controlled setting, with a director/interviewer and plenty of time to slow down and approach things in a more craftsman-like manner. It was really quite nice. 

Did we acheive perfection? Well the audio guy stopped the interview a couple of times due to sirens in the back ground, and he did complain about the air conditioning system; and the Director of Photography would have liked it if there was more available power for lights. But the important thing is that only our staff was complaining.  The footage looks and sounds great.  Darned near perfect!

We're always happy when we can help another good organization get started in the live internet event space. 

Having a lot of gear out isn't really anything new, but we can remember the first time we did this gig--more than a decade ago--when we were using two s-video consumer class camcorders, and a videonics switcher... that the client owned. We helped shoot the event, then we went home. 

Now we were loading up a broadcast-grade 3 camera fly-pack, DVD-burners, documentation cameras, 5 video projectors, two podia, a full sound system, VGA switching gear, 2 remote speakers, an overflow room plasma screen, a confidence monitor, and a live streaming rack. 

And that is for only part of the event. The night before we had a different sound system, a single camera and three projectors in Boston's own State Room.  While we were loading out, they returned the 3 smaller projectors that they had been using for breakout sessions in the preceeding week. 

Now that the conference is over, we are post-producing the main sessions, and breaking them up into presentations that we will be hosting in a custom secure streaming viewer (that we designed for them) with embedded video and powerpoint.

Looking back, we were dumbfounded by just how much this event had changed over the years. Yes our client has certainally grown and developed more sophisticated needs, but we've grown as well. When we first started this gig, we didn't even really do multicamera work. 

We got to thinking about how we progressed from such a small show to such a complex production with so many moving parts. We boiled it down to five simple words: "Well, let's think about that." 

That sentiment happens to dominate their internal culture, so it resonated with them when that was our response to a request for a service that we didn't normally provide. We didn't just tell them that we couldn't help them, we took the time to figure out if we could do what they wanted in a cost effective and reliable way. That is how we got started helping on the multicameras. That is how we ended up taking over the multicamera. That was how we were contracted for sound, for projection, and for two different types of internet streaming. 

And I guess that's why we like working here. Our first response is never: We don't do that. Our first response is always: Can we make that make sense? Can we make that work?