Picture this: you’re in the rolling hills of Tuscany, at Gargonza Castle, a 13th-century fortified village, spread across 10,000 square meters in the Val di Chiana valley. One hundred actors dressed in medieval costumes are performing to an audience of over 5,000 spectators while it is live-streamed to Twitch and YouTube.
When Amazon Prime Italia was looking for an innovative launch event for their new fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, they opted for a one-of-a-kind experience: a live-action role playing (LARP) session.
Compared to a regular live broadcast, a LARP session is an ambitious undertaking. There is neither a script nor a plot, which means there is no opportunity to plan camera shots or rehearse. Instead, the production team on site needed to be able to roam around and capture the 100 extras as they improvised around the dramatic surroundings.
To pull off this impressive feat, they brought in local Italian production company Nexting.
“The event location gave us amazing panoramic views over Val di Chiana, close to the city of Arezzo,” said Antonio Palmieri, co-founder and CEO, Nexting. “A stunning place, but with really terrible connectivity! The set was potentially the entire castle, so we had to think of a way to ensure camera operators could capture the action without fear of transmission being interrupted.”
Nexting covered three different sets with 17 fixed cameras, eight wireless cameras, and a drone to ensure they missed none of the action across multiple locations. The team leveraged Dejero’s Emmy award-winning Smart Blending Technology to get the connectivity needed.
“It was absolutely crucial that our wireless camera operators could roam freely without fear of losing connectivity. With EnGo–which automatically connects to multiple IP networks simultaneously, including cellular, Wi-Fi and ethernet–our crew had the freedom and mobility to stream from the best possible vantage points in any of the castle locations,” said Palmieri.
Dejero EnGo mobile transmitters and a GateWay network aggregation device created a fast, secure, and reliable pipeline to transmit video and data across the historical setting, enhancing reliability, expanding coverage areas, and delivering greater bandwidth.
All the wireless cameras and feeds were monitored with ease using the Dejero Control cloud-based management system, enabling Nexting technicians to adjust settings and troubleshoot remotely so the camera operators could focus on getting the shot.
With the help of Dejero connectivity solutions, Nexting provided creative freedom to the Amazon Prime production teams for the live launch event. Our Smart Blending Technology allowed both creative and production teams to be unrestricted even in this challenging location. Together, Nexting and Dejero ensured a smooth creative process and provided a unique viewing experience for spectators and online audiences.
Discover how you can create content, enhance real-time collaboration, produce live events with peace of mind, and get reliable connectivity anywhere with our solutions for media production.
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