The Never-Ending Cycle of Digital Events

From the very beginning of this COVID pandemic, we all thought we would be back to the offices and hosting in-person events two weeks after the initial lockdown... little did we know, we would get to the one year of this work-from-home scenario.

Since my last post in November 2020, the workload for our Event Production (EP) team at Google has increased quite a bit. Between more Google teams learning about the production value our team can provide and also commissioning/setting up new EP Spaces in the office, our weekly schedule is packed with mostly events and many more sessions of testing! While no in-person events are occurring at Google, until at least July, these new EP Spaces will most likely be utilized to expand the capacity of our team to produce more digital events. Another huge part of these digital events is lots of pre-recording sessions and pre-event editing... which provides event hosts the ability to coordinate multiple presenters and speakers to record their sessions ahead of time, and hires our EP Team to edit these sessions together for a cohesive final video.

On the other hand, my part-time/freelance job at Barclays Center has picked up and is getting busy again with a full schedule of Nets games. Even though there are no fans allowed, we are still brought in to support the visual presentation of the game (including pumping in crowd noise, so the players can pretend there are fans in the stands) and also, assist media personnel with their AV/IT needs.

At the time of this post, I think we can optimistically say that society is at the "beginning of the end" of this pandemic - with numbers of cases/deaths/etc decreasing and the growing availability of the vaccine.

COVID Hits the Events Industry Hard

I know I have been slacking on my posts here, but during normal days, I am quite busy with the Events team at Google New York, along with my continuous freelance gig for Barclays Center TV; plus having a social life!

Anyway, life has drastically changed since my last post in November... both with (another) new role for FIRST Events at Google and this whole COVID-19 chaos. 

Firstly, I began working for FIRST Events on-site at Google New York as an Event Production Technician and quickly hit the ground running with lots of hands-on training and being thrown into operating the audio-visual equipment for their live events. Our Production team runs everything from controlling multiple robotic cams and TD/video switching, coordinating presentation decks and unique Google-specific graphics, as well as all the audio from setting up microphones for presenters and live mixing the show! Additionally, we often do some post-production edits to finesse and master the final file before exporting to the client.

As Google drastically expands their New York campus, so does our Event Production team. Once the staffing model was determined for the new expanded campus buildings, the leadership decided to transfer my role down to this campus! With my knowledge in multimedia management and digital signage, my new role will revolve around creating, coordinating, monitoring, and supervising the Digital Signage and Video/LED Walls around the new campus.

Unfortunately, COVID chaos hit us hard and all of our events were cancelled/postponed or moved digital. Due to this change, my new Multimedia/Digital Signage role has been put on hold, as well as gig at Barclays Center being paused - with no in-person events happening in the arena. During this quarantine time, all of my work has become focused in video training/tutorials and online courses; most of these courses revolve around certificate programs for the on-site equipment and specific workflows ranging from our ETC lighting boards, Ross video switchers, Telemetrics/Panasonic robotic cameras, Evertz routers, Shure and Dante audio systems, plus lots of internal Google protocols!

Exciting Stuff to Happen in 2019!!

Hello blog followers,

2018 has come to an end with lots of smooth sailing and 2019 is here, with spirits high and excitement around the corner... both personally and professionally!

After the UN General Assembly Debate ended, the intensity of the high-level meetings simmered and a normal schedule of conferences, studio jobs, ENG shoots, and other events have come back. While I am mostly tasked to the Media Operations Centre (MOC) working on ingesting field shoots and recording live meetings/studio events, our crew supervisor often rearranges the schedule and crew tasks to allows everyone to cross-train and practice working as other positions. Most often, I am tasked to operate our robotic cameras during meetings inside for one of the seventeen conference rooms!

On the side, I am continuously picking up one-off freelance gigs that help me expand my network and more importantly, grow my technical knowledge and skills. In November, I had the opportunity to coordinate all the visual elements of the Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Corporate Citizens Conference in Washington, DC. As the sole "video guy" on the job, I had to create a full control room setup with multiple input sources (camera, graphics, remote CART services, etc) and produce a show for multiple outputs (program, ISO cameras, screen feeds, streaming, etc). There we many hiccups and the start of the event did not run smoothly, but thankfully with some support by various parties - the issues were resolved and the remainder of the show went swimmingly!

Personally, I did get engaged in 2018 and the big day is Nov 2019!! Therefore, I definitely look forward to the year ahead with expanding professional opportunities and big changes in my personal life!

New Year, Same 'Ole Work

As we ring in the new year of 2017, I continue to bust my butt and work around the clock - jumping between my full-time media production position at the United Nations, my part-time event presentation gig at the Barclays Center, and volunteering as a coordinator for one of the local Moishe House locations!

From Thanksgiving until mid-January, many diplomats are on vacation and tons of their committees, conferences, interviews, etc are generally put on hold. Obviously, world affairs do not stop, as there was an emergency Security Council meeting on Syria called on New Years' Eve!! Since Thanksgiving, there are very few conference room events... for instance, on a "normal" day, there would be about four events per day that our department covers (i.e. operating the cameras, audio, graphics, etc); but during these few weeks, there is one such events (or none) per day!

To fill the rest of my days, as noted, I split my time with working part-time in the AV department of Barclays Center and volunteering for Moishe House to coordinate programming for Jewish young professionals. With the official news of AEG being selected to manage and operate the newly renovated Nassau Coliseum, our creative team at Barclays has been starting to design possible templates for menu boards, box office graphics, and general visuals for the new buildings' TVs! This task is a nice change of pace, compared to the daily routine of my video systems tech role, during game operations.

It is crazy to think I am just about four (4) years out of college and have been working full-time in the industry since! Only time will tell to figure out what 2017 will bring to my career, let's go!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to my blog followers!

The Holiday Season has begun!

One of the greatest thing I experience in New York City is the influx of holiday vibes!! Between holiday markets, office parties, Christmas music, winter weather, and mainly, there is an endless supply of freelance production opportunities for holiday network specials.

Early in November, I had some production coordinator friends reach out to me inquiring if I was available to work a long-term freelance job for some of the big networks' holiday shows. Since my full-time production job is still at the United Nations in their broadcast department, I was unwilling to even interview with this network because they were requiring full day shifts, both daytime, nights, and weekends! Thankfully for my freelance friends, the New York City Council recently unanimously passed a new bill protecting freelance workers and their wage payments. Many of my freelance colleagues are very excited that their livelihoods' income is now more protected by law; plus many of them told me they are now, much more likely to continue working in the freelance world.

Back into my production world, things are running smoothly and according to plan. UNTV is continuing to cover high-level meetings, committee panel discussion, press conferences, studio interviews, and more! Down in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center, our Event Presentation team is constantly working to produce and distribute new videos and graphics content for all venue events!!

High Levels Events... Everywhere!

As April flowers, bring May showers... the United Nations TV department gears up for the Paris Agreement Signing Ceremony at UNHQ - with a record number of nations expected to sign on the opening day of any international agreement! In addition to the record-breaking signing ceremony occurring on 22 April, there have been multiple day-long dialogue sessions prior to the formal election of the next UN Secretary-General. With both of these high-level events, our television crew is starting to work early mornings and late nights again, making sure all the extra cables are laid and new temporary stake-out cameras are ready for broadcast.

Down in Brooklyn, at Barclays Center, the Nets/Islanders regular season games have finished and now tons of concerts, boxing matches, shows, and Islanders playoff fill the schedule!! While working as the TV Systems Technician for the sporting events require more attentiveness, since there are so many different camera feeds and live programs to broadcast onto different video monitors - on clubs, suites, bars, concourses, and the big-screen center hung! During concerts or low-priority shows, specifically those with few feeds or cameras, us part-time crew are given the opportunity to work another position - camera, or LED graphics, or technical directing, etc!

At the end of the day, summer is near and while stressful at times, working in media is incredible and with more experience under my belt, more roles/responsibilities comes by way!

New Year and New Potentials for 2016!

As the New Year settles in, I continue my full-time job at the United Nations in the TV operations department and also the various freelance jobs I have been lucky to work on! The first few days of 2016 was amazing, I took my first vacation of the year... to beautiful and sunny Mexico!! After a relaxing week without any thoughts of work, I arrived back in the States and got back into the swing of things - quickly realising why vacation days are vital to take!

During the winter months, the United Nations is generally quiet and for the TV department, we often only cover 3-4 meetings per day (compared to the 10+ per day during parts of Sept/Oct). Throughout these quiet months, my supervisors sometimes switch around staff in different positions letting us develop our knowledge and practice the skills!

Down the 4 train at my Barclays Center freelance gig, I continue to learn more software programs and various techniques that enhance visual content, as well as the distribution of such content to around the arena. It is really such an amazing feeling, when I walk through the Center and know with one push of a button - I can change the content on all 700+ video monitors!

As 2016 really gets going, I am excited to see what will come of it and where my career will go! Cheers

Whoa, 2015 is Ending and I've Learned So Much!!!

It is crazy to think it is already December 2015; this year alone has flown by and it has truly been an amazingly wonderful year!

Throughout this year, I have gained so many new career experiences and systems knowledge from my various media production positions. As I move onto year 3 of my position in the UN media department, I am excited that I continue to develop my skills in the corporate broadcast field. Over this year, I have been given more responsibility by training and teaching new employees the processes, techniques, and systems of the MOC.

In other aspects of my professional career, I have taken advantage of the NYC production scene and scored myself various freelance jobs. Last winter, I worked various shoots for Left/Right Productions on the Showtime docu-series, 3AM. Shortly thereafter, I applied and interviewed and accepted a perma-lance position with MLB Network throughout the summer, as a broadcast event logger.

Most recently, to fill the winter slump, I picked up a newly created TV Systems Technician position at Barclays Center in the Event Presentation department, working specifically with all in-house broadcast operations. The main duties of this position is to work directly with the IPTV Engineer to maintain digital media related to arena events - including event footage, sponsor ads, arena messages, concession menus, etc; we also distribute such media to all TV screens/monitors throughout the building.

This year has been absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to see what 2016 brings to me.

So Much Snow... and Nonstop UN Briefings

We're well into February and dug deep into many feet of snow (over the past month), the United Nations rarely closes and meetings continue all day, even with nonstop snow and freezing rain! Thankfully, with our well-deserved time off and I took a day off for an extra long weekend 

At the UN, there have been lots of week-long summits/forums/conferences and many of them have actually been quite interesting. Most recently there were sessions on social development, global anti-Semitism, the 2015 Youth Assembly, and many others — all of which, we in the broadcast facilities are monitoring and/or operating the robotic cameras, audio, graphics, etc. Many of these high-level meetings, Security Council or sessions I mentioned earlier, with various important political figures in attendance, we often experience first-hand knowledge of breaking news and historical votes on global geopolitical situations.

Many of the conferences and "emergency" SC meetings are called because of the numerous parts of the worlds' violence flaring up at once. The "Rise of Global Anti-Semitism Violence" sessions were following the Kosher supermarket attacks in Paris in January; since March 2014, Missions of Ukraine or Russian Federation have both constantly requested Security Council meetings to discuss the escalating situation on the borders.

The highlight of my winter so far has been the vacation (obviously!). Over the long Presidents' Day weekend, I flew to Italy and enjoy nonstop pizza, pasta, and vino—flights were only $400 roundtrip, so how can that be passed up!! Everything about the trip was so incredible - seeing all the cultural and historical landmarks of Milan and Venice while eating the delectable Italian foods!!

Onto 2015 and Continued Success

While most of the world was celebrating Christmas and New Year's Eve, the UNTV crew was still hard at work broadcasting last-minute Security Council meetings on important votes on world issues. Besides these few briefings and vote on the "Question of Palestine" (as the United Nation labels it), there has been very little international political work getting done.

As previously noted here, my supervisors and producers want me to partake in other production positions at UNTV. While there are fewer meetings happening and more time to practice on the UN broadcast equipment, I have slowly but surely started actively taken initiative to take a camera out and enhance my field camera skills. Additionally, they have began to schedule me more and more as the cameraman for high-level Security Council press stakeouts and hopefully soon on the art exhibits around the building or in one of the auditoriums (with non-robotic cameras).

One of my new year resolutions (at least for my career), is to grasp a more comprehensive understanding of broadcasting systems and processes at the UN, so I can use this knowledge to further propel myself for sustained success in the media industry.

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

... but not so much - even though it is getting bitterly cold in New York City. I just realised I have not posted any updates in a few months so here we go.

The UN General Debate happened, we worked crazy long hours and celebrated accordingly with all of our colleagues, supervisors, and peers. Some days we arrived early at 7am and other days we didn't leave til past midnight. The first days of that week started with the unprecedented Climate Change Summit with powerful speeches from Leonardo DiCaprio, US President Barack Obama, philanthropist Al Gore, international politicians, business leaders, and many others. Following that long day of climate change action and ambition announcements, the General Debate began and didn't stop - Heads of State of all 193 countries made their national statement for nine straight days, recording, editing, and distributing all of statements.

As the broadcast department has not been overwhelmed with nonstop Debate or Assembly meetings, my supervisors have give me few more opportunities to operate robotic cameras, studio graphics, field microphones, and more. They also are beginning to have MOC technicians (myself included) train fellow technicians in the MOC Room systems; which is amazing as much senior technicians shadow and learn from my hands-on experience in the room.

Since that early October week though, committee meetings have continued, panel discussions convened, special events have happened and we have all been stepping up our game to make sure all meetings are effectively broadcasted.

Crazy snow days then some awesome celebs!

January flew by and February is well underway... might have been because of unbearable cold and snow of NYC this winter! The United Nations actually shut down once and closed early / opened late a few times, due to this crazy weather.

Many things are always happening here at the UN Headquarters including daily committee meetings, General Assembly plenary, country's Mission events, brief diplomatic meetings, Security Council debates, international remembrance days, or cultural bazaars in the HQ lobby. Everything that occurs in the UN really is quite interesting, even if I am just walking by checking out the posters or tables.

A few months ago, David Guetta and Stevie Wonder ventured into the UN for various events, studio records, and meetings... for the "International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust" (as officially named by the UN), many Jewish-related organisations and genocide prevention and awareness groups hosted / attended the ceremony to remember and honour the Victims of the Holocaust. The keynote speaker for the event was filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Holocaust survivor Rena Finder, both speaking about incredible stories of resilience, survival, and continuing education. Spielberg then came into our studio to record an extensive interview discussing his Jewish roots, filming Schindler's List, meeting survivors to hear their stories, and attempting to continue educating today's youth before all the survivors are gone! One of the best parts about having such incredible talent and "celebrities" come into our studio, is that I am on the opposite side of the wall from them or often in the same room as them (operating the camera, setting up lights, stage managing, or simply watching the interview).

In addition to my full time position at the UN, I recently picked up a freelance gig with Dick Clark Productions for crew at the NFL Honors which was held 1 Feb 2014 at Radio City Music Hall. As I was crew with various live event and award show productions in Los Angeles during my time there, I was able to reconnect with some of the managers and supervisors to land this gig. It was really an awesome experience to work again in a live award show production; to make it even more interesting, I ran into Hugh Jackman, Andy Samberg, Alec Baldwin, and lots of NFL players and coaches!

Big Year Comes to a Close... 2014 Here We Come!

Well damn... 2013 was quite an adventurous year - graduated college, started my first career full-time job, and moved to the Big Apple!

The first half of the year went according to plan, arrived back to Ithaca to finish my last semester at college. Throughout that time, I remembered and relived the most incredible four years of my life; realized how lucky I was to have those incredible times in Ithaca - learning so much, tears of joy and sadness, many (and many more) drinks, different ups and downs, gorge jumping, TCAT riding, wandering the streets of Ithaca, making the best of friends, and just loving life. After those four successful years, I graduated from Ithaca College's Park School of Communication and was ready to take on the media industry!

After I graduated, I thankfully found a summer job - in my intended career - and started right away, producing media content for my summer camp I have attended since sixth grade! I quickly then interviewed for a full time position, a Media Production Technician via crew agency at the United Nations, and got offered it then started very shortly after. I moved to New York City then started to settle in, relearning the subway system, exploring new neighborhoods of the City, and loving it all.

On that note, happy new year... here's to 2014 being just as successful, fun, and awesome as 2013

Wintertime in NYC... and the United Nations!

Since the last post, surprisingly not too much as happened... Thanksgiving and Channukah overlapped this year, Christmas trees and lights have taken over NYC, and few really exciting days at work!

November went by real quick, I moved into my first NYC apartment and quickly settled in - figuring out my new commute, finding good pubs/restaurants, and all the fun moving-in stuff. That's really all that happened last month, well and Thanksgivukkah! Plus NYC got its first "snow" of the winter, just a few morning snow flurries which turned into rain by mid-morning.

December quickly came upon us and started off with a bang! Nelson Mandela passed away on 5-Dec and the UN quickly took action on broadcasting a message of thoughts, condolences, and prayers to his family, South Africa, and the world. As soon as the news broke, the UN Secretary General and Security Council President quickly took action and went on-air with a message to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Mandela. Since the news broke very late in the day and much of the crew left, the remaining quickly jumped into action and got everything back up and running, ready for the broadcasts. We later saw that we broadcast our first statement 20 minutes before Obama!

Most UN committees, Security Council meetings, Mission programs, and other events happen generally wrap up as December comes to a close and come Jan/Feb, days will be much slower and less hectic. For now, I'm still tasked to monitor, then cut and distribute the the important recordings of UN events!

Post-Debate Frenzy

In early October, the General Debate ended and numerous Committee, conference, and council meetings restarted or continued. These non-Debate meetings occur throughout the year, in addition to various studio messages, photo opportunities, interviews, delegation statements, etc throughout the UN complex.

I continue to be stationed in the Media Ops Centre, where we monitor video recordings of all high-level meetings, as well as maintaining any studio recording or ENG shoot. Also, I am one of few staff that operate master control for the global UNTV channel. Everything really has settled into place and I am really creating my niche in the media management aspect of the UN media departments.

One pretty cool project that was just started this week is the retrieval of "ancient" video recordings - from the 1960s and 70s, for an NBC Olympics feature. Since the meetings was on film, these records are archived at some facility in New Jersey; once we obtain them, we will ingest and transfer into HD-ready for the NBC broadcast in February.

The Last Week

Last weekend on Dec 1, the program Director hosted a holiday party for ICLA and all IC alum. It was a bit overwhelming with so many people, but nice to see everybody dressed up and looking nice!

The remainder of the weekend was set for paper writing and completing final course assignments. For the two papers, I was able to write about youth culture in media influences its viewers (Senior Seminar) and how technology has improved sports' broadcasting on American television (Electronic Media Criticism). Both of which research papers were quite interesting and I actually learned a lot about each of those topics.

At my last week of Authentic, I continue transcribing and logging footage for the two sets of shows I am working on -- My First Home (on TLC) and the two IGN shows (Geek Love and Next Game Boss). Friday was my last day at Authentic; I got a delicious free lunch out of my producers and I just didn't want to leave, at all. I was sad.

I was able to take off one day of internship and work as a talent escort for the CBS holidays' show -- A Home For the Holidays. It was a lot smaller and more intimate, compared to the Mexican Billboard Awards in October; I did have a similar task though, to guide my assigned talent (Jillian Michaels) through the backstage and press areas for the show. Other stars who were featured on the special were Wayne Brady, Kevin Frazier, Phillip Phillips, Rascal Flatts and a few others -- all of which, at one point, I was within arms length from. The one-hour holiday special will air Dec 19th at 8pm, on CBS.

Thursday at CONAN would have been my last day here, but luckily I am able to stay a few extra days and continue the internship. Unfortunately, it was the last day for many of my classmates/coworkers; it was bittersweet! Besides the bittersweetness of the day, nothing too crazy happened behind the scenes, on stage, or in the office.

Getting Ready to Leave

It is crazy to think that the semester is almost over... just two papers (well one, since I already finished one -- yea, go me!) to go and that's it. Besides the "emotional" reaction to the end of the semester and leaving LA, everything has been normal the past few days -- continuing to discuss relevant topics in class, familiar routines at my internships, and still dealing with the worst public transit system in the nation.

As stated, I am still doing familiar tasks at Authentic (transcribing interviews, logging chyron sheets, creating VO scripts, researching various this for the Development department, etc) and CONAN (sorting and distributing mail, writing late night and research summaries, running on equipment errands for crew, answering phones, etc).

Friday evening/night (it gets so dark, so early!) was Authentic's annual Christmas party; complete with festive music, yule log on the monitors, egg nog, Christmas tree (sorry for the bad picture quality), and just overall fun times!!

The Jumanji Effect: Extreme Winters Explained

This winter has been unseasonably warm winter, here in Ithaca and across the United States east coast. Meteorologists have labelled this extreme winter as the Jumanji Effect. Over the past many years, studies and observations have shown a general trend of rising and warming temperatures, across the globe.

A recent New York state study explored the impacts of this climate change to the local ecosystems. Specifically, some Cornell Univ professors investigated the effects on animal and plant ecosystems by the Jumanji Effect.

Watch the video below, or click here. To read the report, click here

Snap Judgement 2/3

Snap Judgement, Feb 3: How has the snow affected your day?

Watch the video below, or click here.