The Yard Mcr and StreamGM in Manchester joined forces to revive and elevate Northern England’s grassroots music scene with a Blackmagic production and live streaming workflow.
Manchester music and event space The Yard Mcr and StreamGM, a music and culture streaming platform also based in Manchester, have joined forces to revive and elevate Northern England’s grassroots music scene.
Handling live streamed sessions, club nights and theatrical performances to small-scale podcasts, The Yard Mcr’s venue and studios have been restored and repurposed from a former Victorian boys’ school. They are now recognised as a venue for emerging artists seeking a platform to show their talent backed by a technical partner to help them reach a wider audience online.
To meet the rising expectations of online audiences and enhance the viewer’s experience, The Yard Mcr and StreamGM have recently overhauled their live production facilities, installing cameras and live production switchers from Blackmagic Design.
Local Culture
Dedicated to Greater Manchester music and culture, StreamGM approached The Yard Mcr to collaborate on a number of projects after reaching more than 20 million views across its platforms during the pandemic. “We had a couple of meetings with The Yard Mcr owners about collaborating and opening a production office in the building. Our goals aligned in so many ways, primarily inspired by an immense love of local culture, so the partnership came naturally,” said StreamGM Producer Laura Graham.
Indie music series ‘Spill the Sound’ was one of the projects to initiate the partnership. The 25 minute show highlights some of the best talent from across the North of England, blending new and unsigned acts alongside established headliners. The first series wrapped in April, and series two begins production in autumn 2024.
“The concept was created by presenter Louise Schofield and The Yard Mcr Film, a film collective based at The Yard Mcr. Together we have produced seven episodes featuring bands and artists such as Red Rum Club and The K’s, which stream on our website and YouTube channel,” Laura said.
Designing the Workflows
When it came to devising the live streaming workflow for the series, she said, “We needed a camera set-up that was both flexible and unobtrusive to capture the dynamic nature of the show, which is comprised of an interview with the artists followed by a live performance.”
The partners made several decisions, wanting to deliver a multi-camera production relying as little as possible on connectivity and equipment. Their system includes an ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO live production switcher and Blackmagic Studio Camera 6K Pros coupled with Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 lenses, producing consistent images across all cameras.
A second space for the live interviews runs a three camera set-up based on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro digital film camera and the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO, with all cameras from both spaces recording in UltraHD on portable USB-C drives connected directly to each of the cameras.
The ATEMs create a multicam DaVinci Resolve project, while simultaneously recording all live camera feeds as HD H.264 files with timecode and the final program mix. “With the live stream taken care of, we take the Resolve project and relink the UltraHD camera originals in post, allowing us to polish the edit and grade,” said Laura.
Web and Social Media Delivery
The master audio from the bands’ recordings is remixed using the individual audio stems and then also relinked in DaVinci Resolve Studio. Following this, the episodes are delivered in both HD and UltraHD for web and social media.
“Our approach gives us confidence and a fast turnaround for online delivery that doesn’t compromise quality. We are now at a place where the upgraded workflow has more than halved the time spent on set and in post production,” Laura noted.
“For the Red Rum Club’s shoot, we planned for three hours of filming time as we hadn’t shot with a six piece band before. However, by combining the plug-and-play nature of the Blackmagic equipment with a punctual, experienced band, we sailed through filming and wrapped in a little under an hour.”
StreamGM and The Yard Mcr feel that they now have a solid creative and technical foundation to work from and the freedom to be more ambitious with complex shoots, new filming techniques and styles. www.blackmagicdesign.com
