Host Bill Weiss, Island Creek Oysters Director of Sales and Toro Executive Chef, Josh Elliott interacted live with the audience, giving away prizes and taking questions as the donations rolled in.
When we were approached by the incredible people over at The Jimmy Fund to produce a 60 minute, live, unscripted cooking demonstration with Toro’s Executive Chef and Food Network star Josh Elliott, hosted by our friend Bill Weiss of Island Creek Oysters, all from inside the tiny Toro kitchen - well, we said yes just about as fast as we could.
Getting the technology and budget to work for this charity event, however, wasn’t immediately clear. We knew what we wanted, and how we wanted to do it - but even in the middle of Boston, a good stable internet connection for fail-proof HD streaming is hard to come by. That, and we simply couldn’t allocate the large figure live production budget that one normally would - there was no way to get a production trailer or truck. There was no way to bring very much gear in the tiny space. There were restrictions, to put it lightly. This job needed a customized approach - one that wouldn’t break the bank, and could offer the same quality and security as any other live production. All during a global pandemic that limited our crew numbers to only a select few.
Limitations and restrictions are the bounds in which the Bottle Tree team loves to work - because it forces us to come up with better ways of doing things. It forces us to get creative - and that’s when we’re at our best. We quickly listed out the things we would have to cut from the budget, and figured out the bare bones essentials of what we could accomplish. That left us with 4 crew members: A Director/Live Switch, A Producer, a DoP and a camera operator. That’s it. Everyone would be wearing multiple hats, and masks, during the shoot. To top it all off, we had only a few hours for setup and even less time to load out as the restaurant needed to open for dinner service soon thereafter. Our tasks were broken down into specific problems: How do we get everything in and out quickly? Where do we light? Where are the cameras? How do we get coverage if they go over here? Over there? How do we deal with the overhead fan noise? How do we keep out of the way of the prep staff? While daunting at first, we went one by one - forming our battle plan. We’d gotten everything squared away and planned, but it left one hole in the operation - the stream. How would we stream?
The obvious answer might be to use the internet at the restaurant. If you think that’s the answer, you haven’t done this before. A full HD stream at 30fps was going to need quite a bit more stability and speed than that of a downtown restaurant. It became clear that the safety net we needed was bonded cellular - to leverage the already existing 4G infrastructure to supplement any internet connectivity we had on site. There’s only one name we trust in that space, and that’s the genius tech folks over at Dejero.
Dejero primarily sells their equipment to news stations and video houses, but they do offer rental services as well. We chose to rent a Dejero Engo - a small box that lives in a backpack. The box has multiple SIM cards from all the major cell providers, and uses those connections alone to stream - or as a supplemental backup to existing ethernet AND WiFI. The thing is just the best magic little backpack you’ve ever seen. And, it’s easy. Plug in the SDI from the switcher, turn it on, and we’re done. Bullet proof stream to YouTube, Facebook, where ever you want it - using their cloud server, we could even stream to multiple destinations at once.
Our experience with the Dejero team was really fantastic - from the rental experience all the way to the day of phone support and guidance. Their team is extremely knowledgable and I would certainly recommend their products to anyone looking to not have to worry about their stream going down. Dejero was even kind enough to interview us about our experience after the fact, and wrote up this nice press release and blog post about the production.
The last piece of the puzzle was solving the 60 minutes of improv part - which came pre-packaged for us! Bill from ICO saved the day with his charm, humor, and ability to keep things on track and moving - all while making some amazing food, and supporting an incredible Boston charity that helps so many families both in our community and across the country. At the end of the day, we realized that the old business models of pre-covid just don’t hold water anymore. 2020 has forced us to rethink every approach, and although it’s been tough - I think our creativity and new solutions are worth the upheaval. See you on the next one!
Alex Enman | Creative Director
