Introducing Maestro Cam
Greetings! We did our first Maestro Cam Prom on Saturday. It was great fun. Maestro Cam is a new red button delight, which we're trying for five TV Proms this year.
You can press red to watch a close up camera on the conductor during the Prom. There are two audio options: Music + Comment, or Music Only. Live commentary is from a conducting mentor from BBC2's 2008 Maestro TV series. The gregarious Matthew Rowe is doing our first two dates, with Peter Stark and Jason Lai joining later in August. They'll be commentating on conductors Vasily Petrenko, Ilan Volkov, Daniel Barenboim and David Robertson. There's also the option to watch the main Prom TV coverage under the red button, if you fancy just the multi-camera action.
On Friday we practised at the Royal Albert Hall during the main Prom's camera rehearsal. It was one of those times when I thought "I'm getting paid to do this - this is ridiculous!" because it was so enjoyable. Graeme Kay from Proms interactive and I offered some editorial suggestions to Matthew Rowe - though we both thought Matthew had pitched it just right. We want Maestro Cam to appeal both to people who know nothing about music, and to those who do.
We had intended to show full screen conductor at all times. This means you can't see the orchestra at all. During rehearsal we decided to alternate this with picture-in-picture, for different movements/pieces of music: little picture of conductor Sir Charles Mackerras in big multi-camera picture. Especially when Sir Charles was cueing unusual instruments, and the voices of soloists should be seen as well as heard.
Matthew & Graeme both score-read throughout the Prom. We went through the camera script in advance to match Matthew's comments with shots of particular instruments, for our 'picture-in-picture' pieces.
How it works
The music-only audio and video feeds are sent via microwave link from Royal Albert Hall, to the glamorously entitled 'BIP' - our red button gallery in BBC Television Centre. Matthew Rowe records his commentary live to air. Music + comment audio is mixed together in the BIP, and everything is sent from BIP to red button Playout for broadcast. I operated the desk, with set up from a very helpful vision mixer and our engineers, who also sorted a synch problem we had during the first half.
You can also watch each Maestro Cam online, from the day after broadcast until the end of the Proms season (on Saturday 12 September).
We learnt a lot from our first broadcast, which went quite smoothly, and we intend to make it even better for the next: Saturday 8 August, 7pm, press red from BBC2 TV,
It's the first time we've done live audio commentary and/or close-up camera on BBC Red Button for classical music and your comments would be welcomed!
Let us know what you think of it.
Rhonagh O'Donnell is Interactive Platforms Producer for BBC Audio and Music Interactive.
- Find out when you can press red for Maestro Cam on the BBC Proms website
- You can also watch Maestro Cam online.
- Over on the Radio 3 Blog, Graeme Kay blogs about the rehearsal and first performance.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~08~RS~)
Comments
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It would be nice if you could get this working over the iPlayer. I miss the interactive notes from the broadcasts last year on the TV. Now I rely on the iPlayer for it all.
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It's a pity that this facility is not available to Freesat viewera.
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I don't quite see the point of this. Conductors have very different styles on the podium, mostly it is true for public consumption so is it just a study of ''acting '. Famously the late Sir Adrian Bolt hardly moved a muscle, and I understand Bernard Haitink emulated him the other evening. With some exceptions conductors real personalities are best seen in rehearsal
What a lot of people would really like is radio vision experience of the all the concerts but that is far too expensive.
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Maestro Cam is absolutely brilliant. I have a personal hate of the use of multiple cameras concentrating on minutiae instead of just giving us the picture of the whole stage and the music. This, however, gave us something interesting to watch, to gain knowledge from, to see how the performers reacted to the requests of maestro and we could do this by watching Maestro and using OUR EARS!!! I will go to Maestro cam every time it is on in future. Oh, and because I am a singer (choral) I especially love the expert comments which enable me to more clearly understand what Maestro is communicating. More of this please...
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"I will go to Maestro cam every time it is on in future. Oh, and because I am a singer (choral) I especially love the expert comments which enable me to more clearly understand what Maestro is communicating. More of this please..."
As another choral singer, I thoroughly endorse the above comment from Welshgalles.
I really enjoyed the National Youth Orchestra concert on Maestro Cam, a wonderful idea. I thought Matthew Rowe's voice-over was exceptional and added so much to my enjoyment. Would it not be possible to have these versions available as downloads for iPlayer, please?
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Please could we have the alternative audio button back to turn of the commentary for views who like the multi screen but just want the music.
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