Playing for screen time: Media Experiment
Interacting with people is quite easy for some of us, while for others can be a bit of a challenge. However, interacting with someone who is only typing comments and emoji’s can be something completely different and for many indie musicians, it’s their specialty.
April 15th of 2017 was the day in which an up and coming musician decided to use Facebook live to broadcast a small practice in which he was a part of. What made his broadcast different was that he was interacting with the viewers as they were commenting. For most of the musicians that I was talking to I noticed that they were just concerned with the amount of viewers but Nelson was going one step further and keep his audience entertained. It was as if he were including all his viewers into the practice.
While the bass player and the keyboard player were focused on getting the song memorized, Nelson (the drummer) was playing as if there was a crowd in front of him. The importance of communicating with the audience was important to this young drummer and his playing was a result of that. Not only did he respond to the audience but he also gave quick shout outs to his viewers which gave the viewer more reason to stay tuned to the live stream. Although the viewers were only getting a view of his back, the audience was still present but they were viewing him though another camera.
To add to the experience of being present at their practice, the group had a second “camera man” capturing the entire practice. The one who was giving the best performance got the most camera time and the young Nelson took that advantage and started playing with many different chops and cuts. His playing help to motivate the other musicians to step up their game and resulted in Nelson sounding not as an overwhelming drummer, but an exciting one.
Overall the practice was full of talent and each player was being broadcasted on social media, but some were more interested than others and the proof is in the video.
