Crew in a Box: TV production in your living room

Crew in a Box appears to bring TV quality production to TV Talent, interviewees, journalists and presenters, right inside their homes.                                           

Crew in a Box, a TV studio... in a box! Image: Crew in a Box.

Imagine what it would be like if a global virus pandemic stopped TV production as we know it, in its tracks. Well, we don’t have to imagine, this is our current reality.

One of the ironies facing the TV industry is that at exactly the same time as it’s become nearly impossible to make TV shows “normally”, the demand for TV content has gone through the roof, as viewers cope with life in lockdown by watching their favourite shows. 

But the TV industry has never been short of imagination and willingness to think on its feet. Within days of this new reality sinking in, alternative production methods were showing up, with talk show hosts interviewing guests remotely and TV anchors working from home.

It started the same everywhere, with a laptop and a grainy, low-resolution webcam with poor audio. Of course this was better than nothing in the beginning, but it didn’t take long before something better would be needed. But one thing that was learned very quickly was that that even “survival quality” video was enough to spawn a new type of program making, where everyone could send a video feed of themselves into the production headquarters. The only thing missing was decent looking pictures. 

Lucky high profile presenters working for shows like the UK’s Channel 4 News quickly had top-end equipment installed in their homes, sometimes with green screens or, more often, seemingly de-rigeur bulging bookshelves. Production quality pictures from home-based anchors felt like an optimistic reminder that a return to normality might be  possible. Or maybe it was just nicer to see good pictures, lighting and sound! 

But it’s rarely possible and almost certainly uneconomic to install what is effectively a professional TV studio in the home of everyone that needs to appear on TV, especially if it’s only for a ten minute interview. And it’s definitely not always safe for TV crews to visit people’s houses to set up and run the production in the midst of a pandemic. 

This is a box that has an entire production studio inside it. Image: Crew in a Box.

Enter Crew in a Box

That’s when Crew in a Box was born, after seeing the poor quality of some remote spots and late-night TV productions. Founder Ira Rosenweig, together with industry friends cinematographer Dallas Sterling and Jeremy Fensler, a computer programmer and Emmy-nominated visual effects artist, crafted a prototype in a garage. 

The idea is simple. It’s a self contained unit in a flight case with everything you need to capture studio quality video and audio, with built-in lighting and two way cellular communication with a professional production team. It’s secure, fully disinfected, and it’s delivered by courier to the remote talent’s front door. 

In the last few years, technology has moved up to a level where this is possible. Image capture is by way of of a BMPCC 6K. With this amount of resolution on tap, not only does it capture great looking pictures, but it’s possible in post production to zoom in and around the frame digitally to make it look as though there was more than one camera in the production. Watching in HD, apparently there’s no quality loss. 

Lighting is as essential for home production as it is in a dedicated studio or on set. Crew in a Box comes complete with custom built, professional LED lighting that remains attached to the box as it unfolds into a 3 feet wide array that hits a sweet spot between analytical and flattering. The three panels can be controlled remotely to adjust brightness and dimming.

Three built in lights make things easy for users with no production experience to use. Image: Crew in a Box.

Professional microphones, a shotgun and lavalier, round off the sound and picture capture. Meanwhile the unit incorporates a teleprompter that shares its angled half-mirror with a monitoring system where the presenter can see either their remote producer, or the person (or even panel of participants) that they’re talking to, looking them directly in the eye. A secondary monitor can also show a real-time rough grade to reassure the talent that they’re looking their best. As a fully implemented concept it is impressive, and extremely well thought out.

Remote presenters and talent get all the assistance they need from the production crew, who are in contact at all times, giving advice and reassurance. It is literally a crew in a box. 

Whilst live streaming is supported, that’s not really the idea. Instead, ultra-high quality RAW images are recorded on site and then sent back to the Crew in a Box HQ, in the box, where they are then post produced and colour graded. Alternatively the files can be sent off to a third party client for post production and finishing. 

One potential risk, connecting to WiFi, is avoided completely because the box has its own high speed cellular connection. There’s no configuration beyond turning it on, and reportedly there’s no security issues.  

Since Crew in a Box went into production, it’s been in high demand, gaining such clients as NBC Sports, ABC, McDonalds, CW, Disney, Fox, MTV and more. 

Even without a pandemic throwing tradition into the air, it’s a production method that, for certain jobs, could possibly be here to stay. It’s cheaper, less obtrusive and more convenient to allow high quality contributions from talents’ homes than it is for them to come to a city centre studio. And with always-on two way communication with a professional production crew, no-one is ever working alone.

This is a product that’s not so much about the technology itself, as the intelligent application of it.

Find out more about Crew in a Box on its website. There’s more information in the video below, but it does come with a pre-warning that it contains some very retro sounding music!