Blackfish Gallery's "Be About Love Festival" in October 2020 was to present live performances with live audiences. COVID-19 forced the festival into a virtual festival. We hired David Barth of Lost Productions to film all but three of the performances (most were filmed in the gallery, two were filmed off-site). David provided all of the sound equipment, lighting, and multiple cameras; he documented the performances, then edited all of the sound and video into virtual concert videos, which we streamed as premiere events, and which are now archived on our BlackfishGalleryVid YouTube channel.
As Festival Chair & Co-Curator, I was present for all of the filming sessions and was impressed by David's professionalism, his preparedness, his calmness under pressure, his problem-solving, his innate kindness and how he treated all of the artists and made everyone feel comfortable and confident. We were very pleased with the quality of the product. The turn-around times between filming and the premieres was pretty insane and not ideal, but David pulled it off and ALWAYS maintained his positive attitude. David is an excellent collaborator, an excellent listener, and he makes every effort to help each artist achieve their artistic vision. Here is a link to one of the concert performances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7hYYlJa8kw&t=130s
Having worked with David, I look forward to future opportunities to collaborate with him, and in fact have asked about his availability for another festival that I am organizing with another group for the summer of 2021 -- if we are able to present a live festival at that time, we will have David run all of the sound for each performance. If it has to become another virtual festival, we will have David film and edit all of those concerts.
I highly recommend David Barth and Lost Productions, and have already given his contact information to several arts administrators and organizers.
Christopher Shotola-Hardt
Artist-Owner, Blackfish Gallery (www.blackfish.com)
Chair, Be About Love Festival read more