Big Changes are Happening!

TL;DR - I left United Nations TV after 6.5 years and started a new full-time gig for the AV Event Production team at Google New York!

It has been quite the year and I apologize for not posting new updates about my work... things were either super busy with normal day-to-day coverage or extremely slow and boring, with nothing interesting to write about!

Regardless, November is here and lots has changed.

My one consistent job throughout the year has been my part-time/freelance work at Barclays Center in Brooklyn with supporting TV Systems for the building during the continuous events days of concerts, misc basketball games, boxing matches, and an impressive playoff run for both professional home teams in their respective leagues!

On the other side of the river in Manhattan, I have been working full-time at the United Nations in their Broadcast TV/Conference department since 2013. Throughout the year, we would broadcast the daily meetings and conferences, plus produce interviews or messages for celebrity activists, distinguished diplomats, and others. With this, there were always ebbs and flows of interesting content, with the big chunk of energy going into the annual General Debate/High Level Week for General Assembly in late September.

But with SEVEN (7) General Assembly sessions and hundreds of other global issues meetings under my belt, I decided it was time look for my next adventure!! After applications to many media companies and multiple rounds of interviews, I was offered an opportunity to work in the AV Event Production (EP) team for FIRST Events at Google New York.

Ultimately, our team produces the in-house events in Production-specific rooms for Google - from the coordination and logistics, to camera operations and audio mixing, to video playback and presentation visuals, as well as lighting and stage design. Only three weeks into the role, I am really excited about the work we do and personally being able to learn new (to me) processes and systems!

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!

Fast Forward to UNGA 73

I have been quite inactive here, on my blog, over this calendar year... sorry about that. Lots of fun events have happened; but to be honest, nothing interesting enough to write a post about it.

My favourite highlight of this off-season was being the primary robo-camera operator for the recent Hult Prize award ceremony at the UN. The show featured six teams of college-aged entrepreneur innovators who created products that "harnessed the power of energy to improve 10 million people" - see the magical camera work here (ha)!

Since the last blog post, the plethora of United Nations meetings and conferences continue year-round with our broadcast team operating the cameras, microphones, graphic feeds, and more for each event. The media asset management crew is often working nonstop with ingesting footage for archive and playout purposes, maintaining metadata for all digital content, editing speakers from high-level meetings, and monitoring all the recordings.

At Barclays Center, the traditional sports franchises (Nets and Islanders) continued their trek towards the playoffs but fell short and the offseason began... with the ACC Men's Basketball tournament making their debut, Brooklyn Boxing held its 30th event, the NBA brought their annual Draft back to Brooklyn, a new e-sports league emerged, and a handful of chart-topping artists brought down the house. With mostly all of these events, tour companies and outside vendors handled the video feed and graphics operations for the jumbotron/projection screens, ribbons, and TVs around the concourse/clubs... therefore, leaving our TV Systems team with minor updates for our creative projects (box office graphics, menu images/text, and off-season upgrades).

Now, the regular season is about to kick-off in Brooklyn and the 73rd Session of the UNGA is getting underway!