I reached out to another friend in the business, whom I have not worked with in almost 10 years, recalling his core production work in Southern California includes swimming and diving. I explained to him the hurdle—or platform, as it were—and he countered, asking if I wanted to collaborate on this project, mainly because he was stretched with staff on another swimming event during this time.
My answer? “Absolutely!”
His company, Takeitlive.com would be our LA “boots on the ground” handling camera positioning and operations, streaming encoder configuration and operation, along with intercoms and audio sends.
We also worked with another company—actually a Interventional Radiology Doctor—who built an application that provided live scoring graphics for each of the 600 divers, ranking them accordingly. This was sent to Gemstone via internet and married to each of the cameras, to match what board each diver was competing on at that time.
The convergence of live cameras, audio, and graphics were done remotely, here at Gemstone in Jacksonville, along with insertion of event schedules, welcome messages, and sponsorship videos—all streaming live on the USA Diving YouTube channel.
Challenge accomplished!
