Category: Blog

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Multilingual Virtual Sessions & Live in NYC

The past three months working with Agency J on two high-profile, external-facing events for Client M have been an incredible experience. The agency’s account team trusted me with client communications and ensured I had all the resources needed to succeed.

The first two months were dedicated to a virtual event that featured 60-minute content from a dozen presenters, enhanced with motion graphics throughout. This was far more complex than traditional slide presentations, but we were fortunate to collaborate closely with the client’s content lead and the agency’s graphic designers in a series of brainstorming sessions. The result was a dynamic, visually stunning presentation, with floating graphics complementing the speakers. Adding another layer of complexity, the event was live-streamed in five languages, with subtitles and native speakers introducing English-speaking presenters. That’s five hours of content (5 languages @ one hour).  I personally QC’d the Japanese translation.

Sipping coffee after the NYC event on a hotel rooftop

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Google Cloud Innovators

It was great to return to Agency A and dive back into a familiar product area, Google Cloud. Although there were changes in team organization and project management tools since my last engagement, working with the familiar faces at Google Developer Studio was a blast.

My assignment was to produce two “Dev Bytes” (developer tutorial videos under five minutes) and eight YouTube Shorts within two months. While all the presenters were new to the process, they were incredibly supportive of our production needs.

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The Entrepreneur of the Year, Bay Area

This was my first time working for Agency B.  I was brought on board by the executive producer because the client had to manage simultaneous events across six cities in one week and needed multiple producers. My role was the show producer for the Bay Area event while other producers oversaw events in Southern California, Texas, and Colorado.

The evening awards show was designed to celebrate nine winners from a pool of 23 finalists, honoring CEOs for their impact and growth. These regional winners will advance to the national event in November. You can find more information about the event here.

The person on the far right is one of the finalists.

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Google I/O 2024

I am thrilled to be back to Google I/O. Agency G approached me last year because I was the production team lead for the same event in 2021 and I was available as a freelancer.

While Google has not returned to a 100% live event this year, the main keynote sessions and 50% of breakout sessions were live at Shoreline Amphitheatre and its adjacent venue in Mountain View. This is a significant change from 2023 when all breakout sessions were pre-recorded. I was impressed to see a solid workflow Agency G created.  They were able to bring back many producers, production crew, and video editors. This helped ramp up the project quickly without much training.

post-production team in Sunnyvale

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Seto Inland Sea Travelogue Series

This personal project marks the completion of the third round of my travel vlogs. Last summer, I explored the Seto Inland Sea (near Hiroshima) and recently finished releasing seven episodes on YouTube. It’s a gratifying feeling to mark the end of 2023.

I started creating travel videos during the pandemic for a couple of reasons. First of all, I wanted to support Japan’s tourism industry, which suffered from international travel restrictions. Secondly, my unique qualifications, stemming from my adventurous solo travel experiences since my teenage years and proficiency in two languages, made me well-suited for this project. Lastly, I wanted to help non-Japanese travelers in discovering hidden gems in the countryside.

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Mental Health Awareness Month with Dr. Ali Mattu

Our team had the privilege of supporting a special event for Mental Health Awareness Month. With little time to spare, we swiftly responded to the event production request and I was assigned as a co-producer, tasked with mentoring a new producer, Iris. To keep within the client’s budget, we reduced the number of crew members, but ensured that everyone involved was highly experienced to support Iris in her role.

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Celebrating International Women’s Day with Bozoma Saint John

Google’s International Women’s Day event brought an exceptional guest speaker to the stage, Bozoma Saint John, whose presence and words left an indelible mark on all who attended.

Her story resonated on multiple levels, serving as an inspiration to all who had the privilege of hearing her speak. I felt a deep sense of gratitude toward my client, Elise, for her efforts in securing such an extraordinary speaker, despite the numerous date and scope changes.

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The Checkup with Google Health

I had the opportunity to work on my first external-facing project with the REWS Event Production Team since joining last December. Typically, our team focuses on supporting internal executive-sponsored events, which involve confidential content. However, this particular event stood out in many ways.

To begin with, the event had to be rescheduled multiple times due to concerns surrounding the Omicron variant. Given that the event revolved around health, the client placed great emphasis on ensuring the safety of the presenters and crew members. As a result, we planned the event without a live audience at Google’s MP7 Event Center in Sunnyvale, which has a capacity of 650 attendees. Instead, we transformed the event space into a large sound stage, allowing the presenters to address the cameras directly and engage with a virtual audience. This required significantly more planning than our usual MP7 events.

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Women in Machine Learning Symposium 2021

This event was the first of the three virtual events that I produced in the second half of the Year 2021. I was so excited to be a part of this important initiative for Google to recruit and promote female engineers in the AI/ML field.

Joana Carrasqueira, Developer Relations Lead for TensorFlow, and her team led the efforts. The stakeholders were able to secure 20 amazing speakers, including Google VPs and industry experts from different organizations and countries.

The promo video boosted the event registration number. It was the first shoot we did at Google Developer Studio’s brand-new studio on the Sunnyvale campus. I could not believe how much we missed high-quality recording that was hard to achieve with home rerecording. Continue reading “Women in Machine Learning Symposium 2021”

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Smart Home Summit 2021

This project marked the very first event for testing a new switcher at the Sunnyvale Studio. Before the pandemic, we typically recorded speakers only at the studio and inserted graphic elements in post-production. This workflow was time-consuming because each slide needed to be synced to the script. With the new switcher, we could record three ISO’s (speaker, slide, picture-in-picture) as well as the program feed simultaneously. We basically had a rough cut by the time a speaker walked out. While it was not easy for a speaker to have everything ready at the time of a recording, this workflow cut down editorial time tremendously. The speakers (especially VP-level) who had to record at home previously also appreciated studio recording so that they do not have to worry about the technical side.

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We did it!  First Virtual Google I/O

It was a fast and furious four-month journey to be deeply involved in Google I/O.  Our department, Google Developer Studio (GDS), has traditionally provided ENG style video crew on site as well as video editing of technical sessions. But this year was nothing like the past in-person events. GDS’s primary assignments were to pre-record 100+ technical sessions at the presenters’ homes and to live stream 50+ coding or Q&A sessions from home.  I led cross-functional teams plus collaborating closely with developer marketing.

Android Product Keynote (pre-recorded)

We often brainstormed how to execute these deliverables in terms of production timeline, staffing, home recording equipment, live streaming show flow, and VOD publishing schedule.  I might have communicated with more than 500 different people during the project.  My primary responsibility is to provide execution strategies and timelines.  I did briefings weekly to various groups and created playbooks, trackers, and FAQ’s so that I did not have to run a call center 24/7.

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Year in Review – 2020

2020 was certainly a memorable year.   The year started with a trip to LA for an internal conference in February; we met with everyone in Google video teams worldwide, which turned out to be my first and last trip for 2020 and the only time to see them in person for the year.

Fast forward, it is the end of December now.  First of all, I feel extremely grateful for having a full-time job.  Secondly, I was impressed by how quickly Google Developer Studio pivoted to record from home while providing camera/audio equipment to developer advocates.  Our job became writing up best practice documents about home recording, teaching software engineers how to operate production gear, and troubleshooting technical issues.  Separately, I was able to oversee the deliverables for virtual events.  It was amazing to realize that I worked very closely with 40 speakers for the past nine months.  Here is a recap of those events.

March – Google for Games Developer Summit

At the beginning of the lockdown, I remotely directed a studio shoot in Tokyo for two days.  I was lucky to be able to book an external studio that had everything (space, crew, equipment, and excellent customer service).  While I was exhausted from working double-shifts between California and Tokyo, we finished in a week from shooting to publishing, which is a speed record to date.

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Year in Review – 2019

2019 was a roller coaster in terms of my employment status.   The year kicked off with a good start with a one-year contract with Company N from January.   The position was to lead their developer conference in Tokyo in September as the program manager.  So, the first order was to learn their flagship event in San Jose in March.  However, due to a company-wide budget cut in February,  the contract prematurely ended in three months.

First Day at Company N

While I was working for Company N in Santa Clara, I was able to moonlight at Agency D, which is conveniently located five minutes away from Company N.  At Agency D, I produced two online workshop series to teach presentation techniques.  I was fortunate to work with amazing presenters and a fabulous creative director while hiring a seasoned freelance crew.  That was going from January through May. Continue reading “Year in Review – 2019”

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AI Engineers Are Social Butterflies

My role for this AI conference was vastly different from my regular producer work at the agency side.  I was hired as a corporate event manager for Company N, which has a large number of employees and contractors at their event team and does not hire an anchor agency.  I mainly communicated with hotels and restaurants to plan for receptions and dinner events.  One of the items I managed was called “Dinner with Strangers,” in which a conference attendee can choose from a pool of restaurants and be seated with random people from the conference.

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Disneyland for Video Game Enthusiasts

It was fun to work for this agency for the first time in six years.  I was asked to play an assistant stage manager role for this video game publisher’s fan festival event in Long Beach.   It took me a while to figure out the show flow and my exact responsibilities because the 200-page script is complicated and rehearsal schedules were tight.

A couple of thousand avid gamer attendees had a lot of fun. Katy Perry, who sings the theme song for the game, made a surprise cameo appearance. She was beautiful and super engaging with the crowd. Check her out at 5:33:00 into this link.  Also, the 17-person orchestral ensemble did an amazing performance of the game songs. That’s at 9:00:00.  Music is indeed a beautiful part of this game.

Setting up props on stage.  I was trying to be invisible.

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San Francisco Hotel Strike

It was my privilege to work on one of the biggest enterprise user conferences in the city.  While this event finished successfully, the city of San Francisco displayed the reality of the wage discrepancy between the tech industry and others.

This city-wide hotel strike has been going on for weeks.  It is ironic that the conference brings in so much revenue to the local hospitality industry, but its 60,000 attendees were not getting the services they deserved.  When I was at a Union Square hotel (one of the venues for the event), I could not locate some equipment because the hotel personnel misplaced it, which probably would not have happened if their regular workers were on staff.

Moscone Hall D

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A Shoot on a Shuttle Bus

Very rarely, a client advocates your ideas and fights really hard to make it happen.  The reality is that a lot of brainstorming ideas can go down the drains due to budgetary constraints or logistical obstacles.  This project is no exception.  I proposed many different scenarios, but none of them was possible with the budget they had in mind.  However, once we identified a workaround, Client G really helped me to execute, everything from booking executive calendars to holding a cue card for lines that the executives needed to memorize.

On top of that, we did all the shooting while a company shuttle bus is running.  The results?  It was funny, candid and authentic … which is exactly what Client G and Agency J wanted to achieve.  I wish I could share the video, but this is not for public consumption.

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A Blind Date in Hong Kong

This was a rare event project.  I had no pre-production work until I got onsite.  It was almost like a blind date partly because of their strict NDA.  Agency J provided project briefing to me and another producer from Singapore when we arrived in Hong Kong.  Both of us were speaker support managers for a keynote session.  I was quite impressed with all the resources and documentation Agency J prepared for us.  They were very experienced in hiring an international crew.

I can’t talk about the event itself, but I was impressed with a dozen British crew who was very diligent, polite and seasoned.  Agency J even hired one of stage managers all the way from Mexico.  One of many things I learned from this project was that you get hired based on whom you know, instead of where you live.

Loves the juxtaposition between the old and the new in Hong Kong.

 

 

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Kudos to Simultaneous Interpreters

I have worked on this huge enterprise user conference in San Francisco since 2011. My role changes every year from an interpreter to a webcast producer.  This year, I was assigned to setting up translation booths. It was interesting to find out every location has its logistical challenges, and they are all scattered throughout downtown San Francisco. The technical director and the producer for each venue were super cooperative even though some sites were managed by another agency.   Luckily, Client O has been providing this translation service and hired the same group of seasoned simultaneous interpreters for a number of years. Agency I also had an established conferencing equipment vendor who utilized the same audio techs every year.  It turned out that I was the only newbie, but the executive producer downloaded me all the nuances of my role.  The receivers were available to a fraction of attendees out of 60,000.  However, this segment of the audience was very important for Client O, and a lot of efforts were made to provide this service.

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Snug San Jose Convention Center

This is my 6th year to work on this prestigious event for Client A through Agency D. I like San Jose Convention Center.  It is much more comfortable and convenient than the previous venue, Moscone West.  Maybe, the warmer temperature made people happier.  At least, I was not frozen with four layers of clothes.

As usual, our client helped us tremendously to improve production process and solve technical issues.  This is very different from my typical role which I am responsible (i.e. blamed) for everything.  Despite almost brand new video crew this year, my team published 120+ session videos in five days successfully. 

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Live Streaming from Orlando

This is my first time for me to work for Client S.  Agency I booked me six months ago, but the majority of my work happened a month leading up to the event.  My role was to manage live streaming and video-on-demand for the 3-day general sessions.  Managing two new vendors took me a while to figure out their process.  Because the venue (Orange County Convention Center in Orlando) is huge, I chose comfort over fashion and wore running shoes most of the time.  Who cares?  I was in the dark backstage as you can see.

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Projection Mapping Hundred Faces

How do you schedule shoots with a couple of hundred employees in multiple countries and cities in three weeks?  Well, that was basically my assignment for Client I.  I was skeptical about the aggressive timeline, but I made 160 individual appointments with basic tools (Google Sheet, Outlook and Post It). The calendar looked like a dentist’s appointment schedule.  Each employee queued in the assembly line for 15 minutes for makeup and 15 minutes for the shoot.

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Year in Review – 2016

I was kept rather busy at Duarte this year and did not have a chance to post any blogs for a while.  Here are my top three memorable projects that I worked on.

#3

Project: Videos On Demand for Developer Conference
Reason:  It is simply a pleasure to work with this passionate client for five years in a row.  I was also lucky to hire many veteran members to my post production team.  Here is a photo of my crew.  I managed to stand on one foot despite the lack of sleep.

 

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IoT Security

This was a customer success video for Client S. My role for this project is to supervise post production. The testimonial was already shot in Tokyo by local crew.

There are a lot of changes (new faces, equipment and process) since the last time I worked for this client on campus. However, one thing, which remains the same is how tight the network security was. With all types of IoT’s, there is a new focus on security. The video may explain more.

This is a screen shot. The video is no longer available on YouTube.

 

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Product Launch at Roppongi Ex Theater

It was impressive to see how many rehearsals Client A went through for this product launch. The 90-minute keynote session was comprised of multiple presenters with technically challenging product demos using all devices you can think of (Mac Pro, MacBook, iPad, iPhone, Surface tablet, Android phone). The client chose Tokyo this year as Japan is the second biggest market for them. It was interesting to attend a series of rehearsals both in San Francisco and Tokyo, and to see the progress along the way. Thorough preparation definitely paid off to the flawless presentations.

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In spite of the midnight load-in schedule, the local Japanese agency put together all the necessary personnel and equipment by 6:00am as scheduled.

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