agora's debut

The function room at the Vila Galé hotel in Sintra that we were heading for measured 8 by 9 metres and had forty chairs, and on the eve of the job, at the end of the day, it stopped being ours. Bondalti's Encontro 2024 was moving to another room, 12.5 by 16 metres with sixty seats, to fit more people. It was Thursday 18 July 2024. The next day agora media production would do its first job, and it did not yet own a single camera.

A floor plan redrawn at night

Rafael Reigota had worked with Bondalti, the Portuguese chemicals group, before agora existed, and it was through him that they brought us in for Encontro 2024, the meeting at which the board presented the 2023 results and the outlook for 2024 to its staff. The brief was the livestream and the recording, for internal eyes only: we streamed to agora's YouTube channel as an unlisted video, embedded on a Bondalti page for those who were not in the room.

We had prepared everything in drawings, with a floor plan marking the place of every camera, every light and every power box, and a diagram with every connection, from the cameras to YouTube. On 12 July the plan was on its third version. The fourth went out on the night of the 18th, with the control room in the opposite corner and the metres of cable from each camera to it, 38 to the furthest. Changing rooms the day before is like moving house with furniture made to measure for the old one, and even so we did not have to fetch anything, because we had come prepared. What worried Bruno Amaral was the lighting we had brought, planned for a room just over a third of that size.

Three hours and a laptop

We arrived at half past seven, with until half past ten to rig. The control room fitted on a laptop running vMix, and the cameras were three PTZs and a Panasonic GH5, all hired, because our own kit was still to be bought. Bruno directed. Rafael ran the cameras and the production. Sound was by Miguel Bogalho, of Imperativa Melodia, a partner of ours, and Vasco Vieira, our assistant, filmed the rig between errands: the making-of footage is his.

Rigging against the clock is always stressful, and more so on a debut, because there is no previous job to tell you it will go well. Bruno tells me they got to noon with everything in place through focus and experience. I was born with my watch running fast and get everywhere before I am needed, and that morning I would not have had time to look at the ceiling.

Windows on the hills

I divide hotel function rooms into two families, the ones with a view and the ones with light, and the room at the Vila Galé was one of the view ones, with a wall of windows facing the Sintra hills. The projection was ours as well, and a projector up against a July morning always loses. We advised Bondalti to draw all the curtains, and the room was left to the lighting we had brought. That was when the worry from the night before went away, because the lights were enough.

Showing off a little

The brief was the livestream and the recording. Nobody asked for the graphics: two sets of animated transitions, one in the light blue of Bondalti Water and one in the dark blue of Bondalti, a corner bug with the logo, lower thirds with each speaker's name and role, and a one-minute countdown before the opening. We made them well in advance, long before the room changed, because it was our first job and we wanted it to show. Bruno calls it showing off a little, and Bondalti approved it for the stream.

Half past twelve

The stream was scheduled for noon and went on air at 12:30, after a blue card reading "A transmissão começa em breve. Pedimos desculpa pelo atraso!" (the stream will start shortly, apologies for the delay) and the last minute of the countdown. It opened with Bondalti's corporate video. Then came the talks from the board and a question-and-answer session, with questions coming in through Mentimeter and also going on the stream.

At 13:15 we came off air with a transition and the agora card, which that Friday went out on a stream for the first time.