I got a phone call in March from a long-time-client - can you make our graduation virtual?
Talon has been producing the live, in-person graduations for Da Vinci Charter Academy for a number of years, and they, like schools all over the world, were struggling to conceive of what a virtual graduation would look like. Da Vinci is a small charter school that emphasizes values of inclusivity, diversity, and student-driven collaboration. Their graduation ceremony features student MCs, awards, and each student’s “15 seconds of fame” - a 15 second video made by the graduate about their time at the high school, followed by live remarks about each student by a teacher whose classes they took.
The set, with Pipe & Drape Backdrop, Socially Distant Lecterns, robo cams, and lights visible.
When Da Vinci approached me to reimagine their graduation as an online event, I knew their event needed more than a pre-recorded video or a teleconference link. Working with school administrators and district officials, we got permission to build a studio in a classroom and broadcast their event live from the high school campus. Over June 10th and 11th, we transformed the media classroom into a studio with pipe and drape, lighting, a few lecterns, two vans full of video equipment, and 4 technicians: Technical Director, Graphics Operator, Robo Camera Operator, and Producer/Show Caller, all all positioned to preserve safe social distancing.
The resulting production was a live multi-camera broadcast with both student-produced and Talon-created assets. The show opened with a live to camera gag between the principal and vice principal at socially-distant (6’ apart) lecterns, followed by a student-produced video featuring the Student MCs, a capstone video, and childhood photos of the graduates. Talon provided formatting guidance and stock music sourcing, but it was student-created from start to finish. The goal of this segment was to feature the work, talents, and creativity of the graduating class and to allow the student team to honor their classmates. The student video then led into Talon-produced live segments including an awards ceremony, and the giving of diplomas, which honored each student by showing their 15 seconds of fame video and then displaying their name and graduation photo in a Picture-In-Picture format while a teacher spoke about their time at the school.
To produce the graduate graphics, speaker lower thirds, and award graphics, the Talon graphics team used an automatic form-fill process that linked a folder of images provided by the school administration with a spreadsheet of student names, awards, and speaker titles. This allowed for last-minute changes, and made onsite script changes easy to accommodate.
We used school-provided internet access, getting approval and dedicated network connectivity for our equipment and permission to bypass school network restrictions and firewalls. We also provided a cellular network backup, so that we could keep streaming even if the network were to fail.
Monitoring the livestream while calling cues, with video village and the set visible beyond the computer monitor.
Live chat, moderated by the technology teacher at the school, provided a way for students and families to interact in real time, and cheer each other on.
Post-event, the video was made available to parents to watch online and to download as a keepsake.
The event went very smoothly, and we were able to accommodate onsite and mid-show changes easily. We had some last-minute content changes during rehearsal that were easily accommodated by the graphics workflow. The biggest lessons learned for me were twofold - allowing ample pre production time and a full day of setup allowed us to adequately prepare equipment and content, and using a flexible, adaptable graphics workflow allowed us to make onsite changes to graphics, graduate photos, and lower thirds without the need to re-render or individually edit assets.
It was an honor to help DaVinci Charter Academy conceive and execute a socially distant program to honor the hard work and dedication of their students and families. With a great team and flexible systems we were able to roll with last-minute and during-show changes, broadcast live to a remote audience, and provide families with a memento when they couldn’t come to an in-person celebration. Special thanks to our friends at Argus HD who provided equipment and staffing support and to DaVinci Charter Academy and the Davis Joint Unified School District for trusting us to produce their event.
Recording of Da Vinci High Graduation 2020
Author Tim Kerbavaz, in mask, pausing for a selfie between cues while producing the graduation.
Tim Kerbavaz is the Technical Director of Talon Entertainment Audio Visual.
Talon Entertainment Audio Visual provides event AV production services for private, corporate, and community events across the United States. Serving a wide range of events, from political round-tables, to Silicon Valley Tech Company Conferences, to community festivals, to automotive-industry board meetings, Talon AV provides expertise and an exemplary attendee experience.