Objective:
Successfully implement the director and design team's ideas into video production and make the show file performance ready.
On this Page:
A. Building the Show in OBS
B. Unique Video Effects
C. The Lottery & Programming
B. Unique Video Effects
C. The Lottery & Programming
A. Building the Show in OBS
The way built the show in OBS was in a way that I made a few "preset" pages that could be updated with the results of the lottery and those changes would take place through the rest of the show.
Getting the Performer's Cameras as Inputs
First, I needed to get the performer's as individual camera inputs to be manipulated and changed. To do this I took several "Screen Displays" as inputs in OBS that were of the Zoom call. By pinning performers in place, I made it so their position would not change despite turning a camera off or someone joining/leaving the Zoom meeting. Then I took those several inputs and cropped each one to be an individual performer, and changed the name of the input to reflect that, in essence creating their own camera input in OBS.
Orginal "Screen Display" Input
Cropped "Screen Display" Input
"Named Characters" Preset Page
"Somebodies" Preset Page
"Virtues" Preset Page
"Headshot" Preset Page
Preset Pages
Next, I set up preset pages to encompass all of the different characters in the show with the different pages changing the lottery characters as the results dictated. The character inputs would also be a "Screen Display" input, but I would copy the crop filter from the performer playing that part into the character's camera. These changes made on my "preset pages" would carry through the entire show and thus change the camera inputs to correctly reflect the lottery results. We also had scenes with performer headshots instead of live camera feeds. For this I also had a headshot preset page in which I simply updated which file OBS referenced for each character based on the lottery.
Building Scenes
The next step was to build the scenes in OBS. Once My presets were in place this was relatively simple; I would start by making a new scene, adding the Zoom meeting audio output, then adding whatever characters were in the scene. Once the necessary elements were added they could be moved, resized, and effected to the desired state. Pre-technical rehearsals, I built scenes according to the PowerPoint Storyboards mentions in "Pre-Production", but once in tech I could makes changes live with the design team seeing the output in Zoom through the "Virtual Camera" plugin.
Building Scenes Example
Transition Overide Example
Video Transitions
Once a scene was built I would assign a "Transition Override" to the scene. In OBS the next scene will transition to the next scene via the currently selected method. With an "Transition Override" I could assign each scene to transition a predefined way regardless of the currently selected transition. This made running the show significantly easier as I wouldn't have to select the transition and time every time in between scenes which could have been borderline impossible for back to back transitions.
"GO" Button
Last after the presets were made, scenes built, and transitions were in place I could run the show. In OBS I changed to scenes to read is "List Mode" which places them in 1-collum list based on a given order instead of forming a grid thus acting much more like an EOS cue list. Then I could use the "UP" or "DOWN" arrow key on my keyboard to select the next scene. I then programmed the "F12" key to be a hotkey trigger to "GO" to the selected scene. So, when a video cue was on standby I would "DOWN" arrow to the correct scene, and once it was called I would hit "F12" which would run the "Transition Override" into the cued scene.
"GO" Button Hotkey
Panic Video Scene
PANIC! Button
I also put in place a "panic" video scene and set up a hotkey to change to it. The video slide consisted of simple "technical difficulties" text with the pre-show music playing in the background. I then when into the settings of OBS and set up the "F9" key to instantly fade to the "Panic" Scene in case of an issue. I reality this never had to be used, and even if it did it was likely due to a problem that would necessitate post show video edits, and thus the audience would never see the "Panic" Scene as it would be edited out.
B. Unique Video Effects
Throughout tech there were specific video effects desired by the Set Designer and Director that were accomplished though manipulation of effects in OBS. Here are some of those effects:
Long Fade Ups
One of the desired effects was written into the script where at the top of certain scenes the performers start in black with a 2-3 minute long lighting fade up during a monologue. To translate this idea into the video production we were going to fade from blackout to live video. Unfortunately, in OBS there is a maximum fade time of 20 seconds as transitions longer than that aren't practical in video production. To overcome this I built a series of video cues that had a solid black “Color Source” at different opacities in 10% increments to gradually fade the video in over the entire monologue.
Long Video Fade Effect In Action
"Death Whisper" Look vs Normal Look
"Death's Whisper" Look
Another desired video effect was during Death "whispering" into the character's ears from across the room causing them all to viscerally react. The design team desired a monochromatic look to help reinforce this idea. I started by decreasing the saturation to the minimum to pull out the color from the characters. In tech, the look was desired to be more dramatic so I increased the contrast on the characters to further emphasize the effect. This video effect required me to make new camera inputs for each character as to not affect the presets for the characters throughout the rest of the show.
"Death's Rage" Look
Another desired look was while Death climaxes in anger to have a red "lighting" effect. This was accomplished by increasing the contrast on Death's camera (again making a new camera input) and then added a dark red "Color Source" in OBS at 25% opacity. This produced the desired effect for the design team.
"Death's Rage" Look vs Normal Look
"Senses Leaving" Look vs Normal Look
"Senses Leaving" Look
In a similar fashion to the "Death's Rage" look, when Senses leaves Everybody the director wanted a "Neutral Density Filter" look to reinforce that the character couldn't see. To accomplished this we again added a "Color Source" and adjusted the color and opacity to produce the desire effect. We ended up using pure white (Hex code: #ffffff) at 65% opacity to produce the look seen to the right.
"Cave Entrance" Look
Another moment that required some video effects was the "transition" to the cave location. The director and designer wanted the cave to appear then fade to eventually be behind the performers. To accomplish this while still seeing the performers, I placed the cave on the top layer but reduced its opacity to 75%. Then I had a transition that restored the opacity but placed the cave on the bottom layer and adjusted the timing so the opacity shift and layer fade happened at a similar rate.
"Cave Entrance" Look Superimposed vs Background
The Lottery & Programming
One of the biggest challenges of producing the show was the lottery that is built into the story. Due to the nature of the production and unpracticality of making 120 show files for all the possible combinations it was decided by the director and stage management that the Video TD, Sound Designer, & SM team would receive the randomly rolled lottery results at least an hour before the downbeat in order re-configure presets to record the results. The lottery could have been done live, but would have required a pause in recording in in order to update presets and the director wanted to stay true to the text by having the action flow and the actors having little time to prepare. Thus, in the end I built 14 show files for 4 dress rehearsals and 10 performances that had updated presets for the different lottery results.