DemoJam 0 – Behind the scenes

“It’s like Jools Holland’s Later, but for science.”
“OK. I… no, wait: what?!”

Glossy, multi-camera, live-audience, guest-laden, magazine-show extravaganzas are familiar enough on BBC1 and ITV, but you don’t see many made for the web. Somewhere around four o’clock on a late October afternoon, a couple of hours before the DemoJam audience was due to arrive, I realised why.

They’re really, really hard.

This wasn’t a total surprise, I should say. I made dozens of big studio shows when I worked in broadcast TV, so I know how they’re assembled. They take lots of people with highly specialised skills, and an inscrutable collection of cameras, cables, audio gear, metering equipment, and desks with row after row of those really funky light-up buttons.

But video has been thoroughly democratised over the last ten years. Heck, you can shoot, edit, and publish to the world all on your own, and all from your phone. The technical quality might make broadcast people scoff, but if you’re only a little bit careful it can be better than ‘good enough.’

DemoJam, then, was an experiment, a pilot show to see what we could achieve just a couple of months into the Ri Channel project. Could we mount a complex production with minimal crew, the motley collection of cameras we had to hand, a few hired lights (that we didn’t entirely know how to use), fuelled only by coffee and hubris?

At four o’clock on the afternoon of the shoot the answer was very clearly ‘No.’ Lights were still in the middle of the stage, there were entire items we hadn’t rehearsed, I’d no idea how we were going to get from item 3 to item 4, our host and one of our guests had completely disappeared, and somebody I hadn’t met was wandering around with a guitar and that preternaturally alert look people have when they’re being hunted by something with unreasonably large teeth.

Three hours later I heard a voice say ‘Action!’, and realised with a jolt that the speaker was me. The next two hours are something of a blur. I remember working out that we’d filmed an entire item with the main light turned off; some confused and possibly pitying looks from our superlatively patient audience; a slightly bizarre chain of events whereby half the crew hid behind chairs and very slowly waved bits of cardboard on sticks in an almost-unnoticeable attempt to look like a roaring fire; the guitar guy who I still hadn’t really met singing a magnificent song; and then I found myself in the wholly surreal situation of carrying a still-running camera through a silent roomful of people playing statues, out of the building, and halfway up Albemarle Street.

Only at this point did I realise that the next thing I had to do was shout ‘Cut!’, except I was no longer in the same room as anyone who needed to hear. So what I actually said was ‘How did that happen?’

DemoJam wasn’t wholly smooth and seamless, but it was far from shambolic and we’re tremendously proud of the finished show. There are all sorts of things we’re itching to do better next time — it’s very much a pilot — but the response we’ve received has been wonderful, positive, and wholly encouraging. Thanks for all your kind words, and for the constructive criticism. Please keep it coming.

The plan is to make it a regular series, but of course that’s a big commitment for a young project. We’ll keep you posted on our plans for DemoJam 1.