A2SF + TiQ + Ki5
Live from UMMA
The Project:
The Ann Arbor Summer Festival commissioned New York City-based Theater in Quarantine to produce a piece combining a live musical performance from Michigan artist Ki5 with live theatre performed from NYC’s East Village.
The Solution:
Theater in Quarantine (TiQ) needed to ingest two cameras located at the University of Michigan Museum of Art into their production/livestream machine, located in NYC. The two feeds would be incorporated into Isadora where they would be processed together with prerecorded media and a performance captured live from (TiQ founder) Joshua William Gelb’s closet. The resulting production was broadcast live to a Youtube audience.
Lights and Cameras
TiQ provided an overall lighting design direction which was achieved by Sly Pup Productions with assistance from Charlie Steen. A Sony FX6 equipped with ultrawide lens served as the main camera, while Sly Pup’s David Newton operated a gimbal with a second camera in order to quickly frame shots of Ki5 and his hands/looping machine.
Audio & Communication
The audio feed from Ki5’s looping hardware was sent through a Sound Devices audio interface into a third laptop and sent using SonoBus, a feature rich & free internet audio transport program.
TiQ’s lighting designer Marika Kent also served as the director between NYC and Ann Arbor. OAE provided a 5 seat license of Unity Cloud which allowed Marika to directly communicate with camera operator David and local producer Jameson. TiQ Co-Creative Director Katie Rose McLaughlin was able to join via Unity from Korea to provide additional creative direction.
Video Transport
TiQ utilized Skype NDI to pull the two cameras into Isadora. This low-cost solution ensured a low latency feed with an acceptable level of resiliency against network congestion. Separate laptops were used for the two feeds to accommodate a unique Skype account on each. AJA U-Tap SDIs were used for quick and reliable driverless video capture.
A copy of the program audio was embedded in the SDI from the wide angle camera to serve as a backup in case of any issues with the SonoBus feed.
All streaming equipment was protected with a UPS and connected to the speedy UofM wired network.