Producing Videos During a Pandemic: Working Safely and Working Small, but Still Having a Big Impact

By Cade  Martin

Our need to communicate important things doesn’t disappear in a pandemic. With sustained attention to safety protocols we created this behind-the-scenes video with a handful of people on set and a remote feed. With a small crew and a small footprint – we monitored temperatures, everyone wore masks, kept physical distance, with the smell of hand sanitizer always in the air.

Here we were in a studio with a set that did not move so the live-streaming / monitor set-up could live throughout the day. Thousands of miles away in Arizona, the art director joined in and collaborated with us and the on-set team via a live streaming feed.

For the setup, we had two monitors facing each other – one monitor showed the live feed from the camera and the other monitor was the client on Zoom so they could watch the live feed coming in from camera. A third monitor was facing us, the team, so the client could have a second zoom window and he could see and converse with us as well as having the ability to toggle Zoom windows from us, to reviewing the images as they appeared via live feed. Max Headroom, anybody?

The learning curve has been steep and quick, but there is no room to mope or resist it. It’s about responding and pivoting- we want to do great work and keep everyone safe, So best practices have been identified pretty quickly.

We are working safely. We are working small. But the impact can still be big.

Cade Martin is a Capitol Communicator sponsor and you can view more of his work here.