← back Aug 02, 2023 • 4 min. read

Joy of an operator

It has been almost a year since the last time I became a live offline operator (in foreign, it might be called a dj). Finally, I am able to volunteer and reset my longing.

I have been operating for 6 years. All of them are voluntary and I learnt it from various of sources. From the technical engineer that set-up the sound system, from class seniors, from random ear sensitive people, and from experimenting. And it involves of many media, live offline formal event, casual event, live theater, musical theater, zoom event, youtube live, and any. Becoming both technical engineer and director for a multi-camera broadcasting using no more than vdo.ninja and a bunch of volunteer phones. I know that I don't have the facility to do a professional broadcasting, but while volunteering, I found that in all of the cases, what I did is more than enough, and the best is that all of it cost zero to the event.

It is a necessary for an operator to understand the event comparable to the event coordinator. Usually event rundown is the one that I used as the base for creating an operator sheet. I plan every music or backsound needed for an event. And to make it even more sycnronized with the event, I need to discuss with the coordinator of what nuance that they planned for an event. An operator that comes included with the sound system rent won't do this.

Then, art of improvisation comes to play. At the planning stage, everything is planned including what sound to play if the event are going sleepy and what sound to play if the event are going crazy. But, that is not enough, improvisation is needed in case a situation is going out of what have been planned. For this, I need to watch and listen at all time and to act immediately.

Zoom based event and religius event that spans a large area teaches me to do a multi-camera broadcasting. Even more, the same concept I just did implemented in the event I just volunteered three days ago, that is to have a court that capable to have multiple person share their screen directed into one big projector. For those who seen my last event, that is my first time I am experimenting with wireless multiple source directed screen sharing.

I enjoy directing and operating similar like the enjoyment that I got while being a minutes writer. It makes me know in-out about the event and the mistakes. Don't blame mistake, it happens everytime, the joy is comes from solving or improvising a mistake.