Is there a fresh way to reach our audience?
I remember back at College, one of our projects was to do a ‘live TV show’. It was 3 cameras in a small studio mixed on a DataVideo 4 channel switcher and sent to the next room for our lecturers, parents and colleagues to watch. Instantly I was hooked, the thrill and rush of vision mixing a live show, having the creative lead to choose what is on the screen when. The techie in me soon took over, how does it all work? Can we expand it and do 4, 5, 10 cameras?
Since then, I’ve always enjoyed the adrenaline of working in a live environment, be that in music or television. You can’t beat that feeling. Knowing that you have to get it perfect each and every time, that there is no second take. After college I went on to study Broadcast Operations at Ravensbourne.
Getting sucked into live broadcast is a deep and vast vortex. Diving into the building of multi-camera vision systems, I homed my skills as a vision mixer but was also able to tackle all of the technical situations that were thrown at us. Part way though my first year, with my head in a forum somewhere, I started to learn about live streaming.
What first grabbed me about live streaming was the ability to deliver TV quality content to anyone with an internet connection. Furthermore, with it being over the internet, we already have thousands of protocols and APIs that can be tapped into to enhance the streaming experience.
I formed a company called Silverline Media, where we instantly tried to implement audience interaction with our live content. This was, in the early days, mostly incorporating social media communications with viewers to bring in questions, resources and allow the audience to have direct action over the content.
We see social media being used to connect with viewers very frequently. Most of the time in a Q&A manner. This is effective for engaging with a remote audience and building a rapport between the presenters/artists/content and the audience. What hasn’t been used too much extent is the incorporation of audience interaction with the actual outcome of the content.
There are a few ways this can be done depending on the type of content you are producing. For example, in 2012 we worked alongside YouTube improv comics The RH Experience to deliver a fully interactive improv live stream. Shot in a TV studio with a small studio audience we also went out to over 10,000 viewers on YouTube. Our host would ask the audience for certain references, then the live audience would send them in, via twitter, Facebook, email etc… They were then used within 30 seconds, live on the stream within the improvised sketches. The comics having no idea what would be coming next.
The first game in the clip above asked for two things. A book from the studio audience and a relationship from the online audience. A book was passed to the comics and a tweet of ‘Pet and Owner’ came through (can be seen on the in-vision on set). The comics then incorporating these roles and probs/lines into their sketch.
Advancing the interaction
Bringing social media into live content is very simple and effective. But it can be over swamped and highjacked by people that aren’t even watching the stream. To fully implement interaction, we need to build a player that can action zones within itself, allowing it to register clicks and interaction. With all that data then being sent back to the control room to be processed for the stream.
This is stumping interaction right now. With the growth of YouTube, Facebook and Insta live we are being limited by the platforms to deliver the content. It’s a lot more costly for a company to run a private server to stream and also misses out on the organic viewers that one gains from the social platforms.
The creation of an interactive ‘API’ allows us (creators) to harvest and include the interaction from the home view. A protocol that can be integrated into the existing players and platforms. This would vastly increase the type and depth of interaction a viewer can have. This is something I am working towards.
RTMP streams have the ability for lots of meta data to be transmitted in both directions. I am working towards an API and server side manager to capture the interaction and process it ready for production and use. I am calling this project live_inta_.io and will have more info soon.
Can it be done without an interactive player/API? Sure, custom webpages can be built that the player is embedded within. Within the webpage we can design the interactive interface.
New types of content?
Integrating interaction wouldn’t necessarily create a new form of content. It would hugely widen how we create and deliver content; being able to deliver more information that is directly related to the viewer. What sort of shows could be enhanced by this method?
Secure Answers;
With the interaction staying within the player we can incorporate time limits and even changes of the page. This allows for a tighter window for responses to questions, a quicker reception of data at the production end and the ability to check for basic cheating.
Visual & Audio opt-ins;
Having an artist or presenter answer your questions live can be a thrill, but how about face-to-face (through video) or audio?. Giving the ability for the viewer to submit their live or non-live camera or audio directly to the stream – selected and controlled from production.
Live Data & Links;
Bringing interaction into a stream doesn’t just have to involve using the audience input. We can deliver direct information and links through the player. For example, at a fashion show we could have onscreen graphics providing information on the garment and links to the shop.
Democratised Content;
We have given a lot of attention to Q&A style interaction, what if the viewers actually decided what would happen on screen? You could have an interactive live drama, where production would create the story line with many possibilities and versions. A bit like the interactive books as kids, “They came to a door, do they A- Enter (turn to page 56) B – Double Back (turn to page 75) or C – “Look for a secret door (turn to page 23). As the opportunity for a split in the story the options are voted on by the audience and thus the story follows that path. This is a massive operation but would be super rewarding for the audience.
Live streaming has become a regularly used and highly watched medium of content. It allows the audience to get up close and personal with the subject. This is particularly important in this time of lockdown and isolation. Now is the time to get even more personal. Creating democratised live content that the viewers not only enjoy watching, but also feel like they are part of the team making it.
We would love to collaborate with brands and production companies both technically and creatively to help bring interaction and highly engaging content to your streams.
Also, I would love to chat to programmers and engineers about live_inta_.io
Tuck
@elliottlc
www.go-macro.co.uk
www.linehan-cross.co.uk