HILO, HI – The Afook Chinen Civic Auditorium was filled with spectators and performers alike for the annual E Mālama Mau I Ka Hula Festival, also known as, “Keiki Hula”. This event, organized by the Merrie Monarch Festival, included a panel of judges and twenty-six performances divided into Elementary, Intermediate, and High School divisions. Also competing were eight soloists spread out amongst all divisions.
According to the emcee, for the first time, the Keiki Hula festival was to be documented and made available to watch online by the Merrie Monarch Festival. KVIKS Media is proud to be a part of this inaugural recording. Advisors of KVIKS Media and students from both Hilo High School and Waiākea High School were present as engineering and camera operators.
What made this recording extraordinary was that the cameras were being streamed directly to a studio on Oʻahu, where they were mixed live to recording by producers involved with the main Merrie Monarch Festival television broadcast. Our student camera operators were given directions by the Director on Oʻahu, who kept pace with the show, sought out shots and mixed them live. The Director of the show consistently complimented the work of our student camera operators and expressed deep gratitude for being able to bring this show to life in this manner.
There were many technical achievements made to make this possible. Although the technology was available for the industry already, it still took a lot of time to figure out the pieces needed to make it run smoothly. While our cameras were being beamed to the Oʻahu studio, we needed to figure out communications between the team. Google Meets was used where the Director could give direction, and the studio could share multiview out for the Hilo engineers. Audio from the Google Meets computer was fed out to a Clearcom Encore intercom system for the engineering headend, that mixed the audio and sent it through the Clearcom DX410 Wireless intercom system for the camera operators and production assistants.
This type of broadcast is called a REMI, or Remote Integration Model. The first ever REMI attempted by KVIKS Media was only the day before for Girls Volleyball. The next challenge will now be to perfect our capabilities for more REMI shoots, however, KVIKS Media remains committed to providing opportunities for students to fill ALL roles of production, including Director, Technical Director, Graphics and more.
