It was August 5th, 2024 – 7am and hurricane Debby was just finishing up having her way with us here in Tampa Bay, Florida… It was cool, dark, cyclone windy, wet, and rainy with major flooding, electrical outages from down power lines, and broken tree limbs everywhere! The perfect setting to interview instructors Billy Billingham and Navy Seal Q, for the hit FOX tv show SPECIAL FORCES: World’s Toughest Test. This shoot was a little more fun than usual because we were not only asked to stream a live Zoom from camera to a remote director in England but also to let the talent see and talk to that director in real-time via same Zoom stream while continuing to look directly into the camera… We achieved this my using famous director Errol Morris’s “Interrotron” Camera Setup as used in “The Fog of War” documentary.
We just took it a few steps further and modified the director’s image for the talent to be digital from Zoom “instead of using two ways mirrors” we used a wireless HDMI out link from computer to a standard teleprompter rig fitted with a wireless wifi enabled monitor, that received the directors video image in real time. We then sent the raw SDI/HDMI video complete with pro lav and/or shotgun mic audio of the talent “direct from camera” back to the same Zoom computer for input via usb/hdmi capture card. Finally we output the audio closer to talent with computer speakers so they could hear the director great and up close, just like the remote director heard them! Sounds fun right? Some of you might be saying NO WAY, but as you can see the results are worth it if you want a direct eye line that helps create a stronger connection with your audience.
