PoRtfolio
Blair Academy Graduation
Project Details
Client
Blair Academy
Industry
Corporate & Business, Entertainment
Founded in 1848, Blair Academy is a coeducational, boarding and day school located in Blairstown, New Jersey. The school serves high school students from ninth through twelfth grades as well as a small post-graduate class.
About the Project
Challenges & Solution
Skynine Delivers High-Quality Livestreaming For Blair Academy’s Commencement Ceremonies
Blair Academy is a coeducational boarding and day school for high school students, serving grades nine through twelve, along with a small post-graduate class. Blair trusted Skynine to livestream their commencement ceremonies in the post-COVID era.
Blair’s expectations were straightforward—simple, clean, and high-quality—a style very familiar to the Skynine team. While the livestream didn’t require complexity, the demand for high-quality video was critical.
Custom Broadcast Package With Dynamic Graphic Overlays For Seamless Event Coverage
We provided a small FlexPack (flypack) system with three cameras and a sleek broadcast package for graphic overlays. The FlexPack included a mount routing and switching hub rack, a switched panel rack, a multi-monitor rack, and an ATEM mini kit for backup. With everything internally wired, the only on-site setup needed was connecting power, the three camera feeds, and the internet.
The broadcast package included standby slides, “in case of emergency” slides, and animated lower thirds, all custom-designed in After Effects and preloaded into the FlexPack’s media player. These graphics were created weeks before the event, then proofed and approved by Blair through our interactive proofing interface.
Skynine’s Tactical Fiber Systems Enable Efficient Setup For Blair Academy's Graduation
Thanks to the efficiency of our FlexPack and tactical fiber systems, we deployed the entire setup in about an hour. The two main camera lines took the long, “scenic” route to avoid tripping hazards in the grass, resulting in a cable run of over 250 feet. This was quickly handled with our multi-strand tactical fiber reel, which is thinner than a standard microphone cable. The fiber provided video transport, talkback, and tally for each camera operator—features essential to the success of Blair’s graduation, and a standard in all of our live multi-camera productions.