BERKELEY, CA – Blackmagic Design noted that OS Studios used its gear to help produce a virtual graduation and two-day music festival for the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) class of 2020 in Blockeley University. Blockeley University is a detailed replica of the UC Berkeley campus in Minecraft, the popular video game platform, built and maintained entirely by the university’s students.
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Based in New York City but operating worldwide, OS Studios provides creative, production and consultancy services for content and live production with a focus on sports and the expanding world of gaming and esports.
“The Blockeley student team built this incredible campus and music festival in Minecraft and asked us to work with them on producing the mock graduation and musical performances,” explained John Higgins, OS Studios’ co founder and creative producer. “In the game itself, you couldn’t hear the graduation speeches or the music at the festival, so all of the live streams’ audio and video cues came from OS Studios.”
The graduation and music festival spanned two five hour broadcasts over the course of two days and relied on Blackmagic Design’s Web Presenters, Video Assist 4K monitor/recorders, HyperDeck Studio Mini recorders, Smart Videohub 40×40 routers, and numerous converters.
The Blackmagic Web Presenters sent the program feed into two different computers, which provided remote multiview feeds to producers, as well as the final program output to various video platforms including Twitch. Used on all OS Studios’ productions, the Video Assist 4Ks were used as backup recorders and as a focus level check for remote hosts webcams. The HyperDeck Studio Minis cued up music and speeches, as well as recorded segments, such as DJ sets and video designs, for later play out. They also recorded all the different virtual camera angles and the line cut. The Smart Videohub 40 x 40 router was used for the remote engineer in chief setup where all the different camera angles from the game, as well as remote hosts and fans playing the game, were routed in.
“With the students unable to attend a physical graduation this year, we were excited to help them create a virtual experience by leveraging the Blockeley campus they had developed,” said Higgins. “Part of the reason OS Studios is unique is that we implement the idea that we are your operating system, and we build a custom workflow depending on the project.”
With projects including the NBA’s Twitch channel, the NBA 2K League draft, Bud Light Seltzer Royale charity stream and more, OS Studios offers live and event production, broadcast, content strategy, esports tournament and league production, and Twitch channel management and operation.
To accomplish this, OS Studios uses a variety of Blackmagic Design gear split between its main broadcast studio and control room in its New York City headquarters, and project specific workflows, which often require the team to build remote control rooms.
“Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2s, Micro Studio Camera 4Ks, HyperDeck Studio Minis and Mini Converters are used in conjunction with the main control room, which represents 50 percent of our work,” explained Higgins. “The rest is all project based, for which we use the ATEM Constellation 8K as the main switcher, along with the ATEM 4 M/E and 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4Ks and ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel for smaller shoots or as B units on large multi location live productions.”
For example, OS Studios recently relied on the ATEM Constellation 8K for a remote project for SLAM Magazine. “SLAM was a six vs. six Call of Duty show where everyone was remote. We had to do a lot of very quick cutting between picture in pictures, and the ATEM Constellation 8K was the right choice to handle so many M/E setups, as well as to control audio, graphics and line cut with a single crew member,” noted Higgins.
Having moved completely remote, OS Studios’ live production producers have basic control rooms set up at their homes complete with Micro Studio Camera 4Ks, ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4Ks, ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panels and HyperDeck Studio Minis, working with content uploaded from streamers. Its post production team also uses HyperDeck Studio Minis for recording and ingesting gaming content.
“We’ve been incredibly busy despite moving to remote workflows, since gaming by nature is largely a remote practice. Since the end of March, we’ve created 524 hours of content with 5.15 million minutes of programming watched,” Higgins concluded. “We’ve been able to seamlessly adapt to the new normal because we had the majority of the infrastructure already in place, along with solid and flexible gear from Blackmagic Design.”
