Planning a Remote Production So a Small Crew Can Cover Several Sites

Before any kit is chosen, write down what every location has to deliver. A talks programme with a presenter in one town and a guest in another needs two camera feeds, clean audio and a return feed so each person can see and hear the show. A venue event may need four cameras and a separate sound desk output. Put this in a single list, location by location, and agree it with the producer. It sounds basic, but most late changes on a remote day trace back to a feed nobody listed.

When I plan a job I also ask who is physically on site at each place. A location with a competent camera operator can run itself for an hour. A location with one nervous volunteer needs far more support from the central team. That difference shapes how much monitoring you build in and how simple the site kit must be. Settle it on paper first, then pick equipment to fit the people, not the other way round.

• List every feed and its format per location
• Name who is on site and how experienced they are
• Agree the return feed each location needs
• Confirm the finish time and any overrun allowance

Every remote show depends on the network at each site, so test it early and test it at the time of day you will broadcast. A line that performs well at ten in the morning can behave differently at seven in the evening when the building fills up. Run a sustained test for at least thirty minutes, watching for dropped packets and changes in delay rather than just the headline speed. Note the figures and keep them with your site notes.

Where possible, ask for a wired connection rather than relying on wireless, and find out whether anyone else will be using the same line during the show. If the site offers a second route, such as a mobile data bond as a back-up, plan for it now. It is far easier to arrange a spare path a week ahead than to improvise one while the clock is running and the presenter is waiting.

• Test at the same hour as the planned show
• Prefer a wired line to wireless
• Arrange a second route for each key site

The aim at each location is equipment that someone can set up from a one-page sheet. Choose a compact encoder or contribution unit, a camera, a microphone and a monitor for the return feed, and leave everything else behind. Every extra box is another thing that can be plugged in wrongly. Label each cable at both ends, mark which socket it belongs in with tape, and photograph the finished layout so a person on site can compare it with what you sent.

Send the kit ahead where you can, with a short written sequence: unpack, connect power, connect network, switch on, call the control room. I like to include a phone number printed on the case. People remember a number on the box far better than one buried in an email. Keep the sheet to plain steps without technical language, because the person following it may never have touched a broadcast unit.

Once feeds arrive, the control room needs to see them as they really are. Set up a monitor for each incoming source, with a clear label and an audio meter beside it, so one glance shows whether a picture has frozen or a microphone has gone quiet. A small crew cannot watch everything at once, so decide who owns what. One person cuts the show, another watches the incoming links and the audio, and they talk through a dedicated talkback channel.

I keep a simple rule: the person monitoring speaks up as soon as something looks wrong, even if they are not sure. A false alarm costs a few seconds. A silent problem can cost a segment. Agree short spoken phrases before the show, such as naming the location and the fault, so nobody has to explain at length while the programme is on air.

• One monitor and one audio meter per source
• Separate roles for cutting and for watching links
• Agree short spoken fault calls beforehand

A run-through that only proves everything works teaches little. Spend part of the rehearsal deliberately breaking things: pull a network cable, mute a microphone, drop a location. See how long the crew takes to notice and what they do next. The goal is to learn which fallback works, whether that is cutting to a different source, bringing in a pre-recorded holding item, or switching to the back-up connection.

Write the outcome as a short list pinned beside the vision mixer: if this location drops, do this. In the heat of a live show nobody wants to remember a plan, they want to read one. Repeat the rehearsal whenever the line-up of locations or crew changes, because a plan built for one arrangement rarely fits another without a quick revisit and a calm conversation.

When the broadcast ends, spend ten minutes with the crew writing down what happened while it is fresh. Record which links wobbled, which instructions confused the people on site, and how long setup really took compared with the plan. These notes turn into the next job's planning sheet, and over a season they build a reliable picture of each venue and each connection.

Share a short summary with the client as well, covering what went well and what you would change. It keeps expectations realistic and makes the next conversation about scope more straightforward. A remote production is rarely perfect the first time, but a crew that records its own lessons improves steadily, and the shows settle into a quiet, repeatable rhythm that suits a small team across several locations.