Production tips

• Backgrounds:
  • Make sure the background provide contrast with subject's face, clothing and hair
  • Avoid extremes in contrast and/or color
  • Avoid extraneous detail in lighting or pattern
  • Avoid highly saturated colors (rich reds and blues)
  • Avoid wide visually busy backgrounds
  • Be sure all light sources are consistent (the same color temperature)
• Wardrobe:
  • Clothing
    • Remove all name badges prior to taking stage.
    • Stick with solid colors - dark blues, grays or browns
      • Avoid wearing whites, blacks, pinstripes and any other fine patterns.
    • Avoid white and light blue (which looks like white on camera)
    • Contrast with background and bring alternatives (lighter shirt/darker coat)
  • Hair
    • Pulled back (Loose ends get messy after compression)
  • Jewelry
    • Avoid highly detailed, shiny, and reflective jewelry
  • Glasses
    • May require special lighting (generally from the side) to avoid glare
• Lighting
  • Ensure you have enough lighting to shoot with 0 gain
  • Don’t mix color temperatures (sun, incandescent, fluorescent lights)
  • Soft light is preferred for streaming
    • Minimizes shadow & detail which add stress to encoders
• Shooting
  • Make sure motion is useful and making a point
    • Unnecessary motion adds stress to encoders
    • Avoid slow pans, zooms, and dissolves when you can do a hard cut
    • Avoid handheld when you can use a tripod
  • When possible, shoot progressive.
• Audio
  • If the source is mono, encode as mono
    • Forcing a mono source to encoder as stereo causes the audio to be heard twice, once in each ear.
  • If there will be Q&A, have microphone runners available and instruct all moderators and speakers to ask the audience to wait for the mic before asking their questions. Anyone who is speaking during an event needs to have a microphone to be heard on the stream.
  • Speakers should leave all cell phones/PDAs with off stage assistant or production crew. The signals from them interfere with the audio equipment.