Imagine being set the challenge of running an all-day, live broadcast, featuring hours of interviews, reels, recordings, and spontaneous changes. Hard enough on home turf. Now imagine transporting your entire studio, equipment, and people 6,500kms across the Atlantic. Harder! Yet this was the challenge facing our long-standing Broadcast Master, Martin Grand, and his team, for World Cleanup Day 2023.
The team needed to ensure their fragile, broadcast-quality cameras, sound and lighting equipment, plus all accessories and cabling required, reached safely to New York and back, yet they faced other issues; setting up in a familiar location takes long enough – Estonian House was unfamiliar, so they had to work out where everything should go and how everything should be connected. Quickly!
Then there’s the trip itself, the jetlag (both ways), and the very tight timeframes. They only had one day to set up after arrival and even less time to disassemble and repack everything afterwards. Now add the prospect of a literally eye-watering 30-hour shift to make sure the broadcast studios were fully set up and ready for the show, which then had to be run in real-time for the full duration. Incredible but true.
Let’s Do It World President & Head of Global Network, Heidi Solba, spoke about why New York was chosen this year. “The initial question often arises: why did we choose to establish the Call & Media Center in New York? Well, as an integral part of World Cleanup Day, our live broadcast has always played a crucial role in showcasing the event to global leaders and the world.”
“This year, with support from the Estonian Government to promote World Cleanup Day as a side-event during the UN General Assembly, and to help secure a spot on the UN Calendar, we made the decision to host our entire broadcast studio program and the WCD Call & Media Center, in New York’s Estonian House,” she explained.
“The primary challenge we faced was in preparing every aspect to ensure a seamless execution – as the saying goes, “The devil is in the details!” And our journey was indeed filled with overwhelming detail; starting with scheduling a full, 9-hour broadcast program, handling visitors, coordinating locations, arranging team accommodation, etc., all culminating in formal agreements and plans with our partners.”
“It was like conducting a grand orchestra, where each member had their distinct role to play. It's truly remarkable how well the whole team performed their respective parts in this event. And the most remarkable part was our tech team, led by Martin Grand, collaborators with Let's Do It World for the past five years! Their professionalism in working under the most peculiar (sometimes unexpected) conditions requires an immense amount of trust, teamwork, and creativity. This team excels in all of these aspects and we offer a heartfelt, enormous thank you!” concluded Heidi.
Ingrid Nielsen was this year’s Head of Call & Media Center and added her praise. “The sheer amount of hard work and focused attention needed to run the WCD broadcast is not common knowledge. Generally it takes dozens of people to pull off a several-hour-long live show without a glitch – yet our team made it work, 100% error-free, with just four people. The professionalism possessed by our broadcast crew is not their only superpower – their attitude and courage to pull off even our craziest ideas remains unmatched so far!”
The jam-packed schedule featured an eclectic mix of needs, including many live guests, numerous live interviews from participant countries, and a selection of pre-recorded items, all of which needed to be coordinated to the second. As you’d expect from live TV, the team had to cope with last-minute schedule changes, guests going ‘missing’ for a while, and a whole host of other interruptions, all while keeping the cameras on. We cannot understate the scale of the effort needed to make all that work – and it did!
On the challenges, sense of accomplishment, and the experience itself for him and the team, Martin observed, “It was very difficult to plan all the equipment without knowing what exactly was waiting for us at the event location. Fortunately, we had everything we needed! I really want to thank the staff at Estonian House, who were consistently helpful in finding solutions to any problems that arose. The best feeling I remember is the precise moment when the WCD broadcast intro started at 9 am and I realized that everything was there, ready, and working to start with this big show! I knew that my team could handle everything, but I didn't know if we were technically ready to start until that exact moment!”
Our studio heroes are; Martin Grand (Producer & Head Director), Mark Oja (Director), Fred-Erik Johanson (Sound Engineer), Sebastian Sepp (Technician/Operator) who, between them, covered all camera, lighting, sound, transmission, and double-studio setup. What a team.
Please join us in celebrating our tech team’s remarkable achievements, carried out under extremely testing circumstances. Their dedication ensured that the live broadcast many of you might have seen at least part of was not only of the highest quality, but even happened in the first place. It is a true testament to the movement’s philosophy that, “Only doing gets it done.” Suur tänu teile!
Note that you can enjoy the fruits of their hard labor by watching the entire broadcast here!
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