In the midst of a 105-performance world tour, alternative rock band Imagine Dragons began interacting with their fans through Twitch, a social network for video game players. During each live broadcast on the channel, the group chats and enjoys video games with its fans, while offering exclusive content and concerts.
His first official Twitch stream was live backstage, before his concert in Boston during this tour, and with the help of two Blackmagic Pocket Cinema cameras and a 4K Blackmagic ATEM production studio, he reached nearly five thousand views in a matter of minutes. And because of the high quality of the production, no one knew that everything was done in a small space with such thin walls, which vibrated during the sound checks of the opening band.
For the group's first stream, vocalist Dan Reynolds, guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and drummer Daniel Platzman launched the show in front of five Razer gaming laptops (four for gamers, one for fan chat). With two Pocket Cinema cameras equipped with wide-angle lenses and mounted on tripods, the head of production, Turner Pope, had no difficulty including the entire wide game table on the screen.
The size of the ATEM helped a lot to increase the available space. Turner's stacked mounting allows all four streams of video games, Pocket Cinema cameras, multiple microphones, and an audio mixer to connect comfortably to the back of the system, and you can prepare to be transported elsewhere in a matter of minutes.
In Boston, the biggest challenge was learning the operational details of Twitch in less than five minutes. Turner had fun with the production, and to add some style, he made full use of the ATEM system's multi-screen monitoring, switching between the band members' game screens and live streaming.
Although their Twitch channel is only in the initial stage, the band has big plans to incorporate it into new formats. They have a whole line of video games in the mix, and they've already promised followers and subscribers that they're going to be the first to hear the latest news.
Turner is even trying to set up a montage in the middle of the stadium that allows fans to take a look via Twitch during stage set-up and sound checks.
