Don't let the Oscars nightmare happen to you!
The faux pas at the Oscars yesterday is a great reminder that adding backups to safeguard your production doesn't necessarily help to keep it on rails. According to reports, in allowing for exits and entrances from stage left or right, two sets of the all important envelopes are provided. It appears that these became out of sync. Before announcing the prestigious best picture award, Faye Dunnaway was given the wrong envelope, reducing the crowning glory of one of the worlds most viewed TV programmes to a car-crash moment of spectacular proportions.
As it is for envelopes, so it is for technology and technical solutions. Allowing for spare cameras, backup power, diverse signal paths and a myriad of other features can provide your production with the robustness it needs to ensure a continued service to your viewers. This salutary tale reminds us to devise these systems with care, so that this extra expense and complication is your saviour, not your downfall.
Whether fulfilling a broadcasters technical standards, or simply defining and implementing your own, a key point of consideration is how much budget to divert from the screen to backups and "what if's". Whatever the technical or production solution you need to create, TX98 is able to help you ensure that you achieve the balance you require.
I'll be at BVE on Tuesday the 28th Feb and Thursday 2nd March. Please get in touch if there are any projects you might want to discuss.