RiffTrax Live: Giant Spider Invasion TRUCK CAM

Hello, this is RiffTrax Technical Director David D. Martin. You may remember me from this peek behind the scenes at RiffTrax Live: KRULL. I’m also the producer for RiffTrax Live events. (We here at RiffTrax wear many hats.)

Today, we’re giving you a little behind-the-scenes glimpse into what goes on in the production truck during one of our live shows. The voice you hear calling shots is Curt Casassa, our director on this show. He's talking to the various crew members over a headset radio, telling the camera crew when to be ready, and what type of shots he needs coming up. He also talks to the EVS (video server) operator, Tami, who runs the playback of the various video elements. Fun side note: Tami also edits together the footage that plays behind the end credits.

We typically have five cameras for a RiffTrax Live show: three locked-off cameras in the back of the theater, one hand-held, and one on a jib (or crane). You can see all five cameras if you look closely at the various monitors.

When Curt is calling “ready one,” “ready five,” etc., he’s talking to the camera operator in the theater, and when he says “take five,” he’s talking to the board (or "switcher") operator. You can’t see him very well at this angle, but the board operator is sitting right next to Curt, pushing buttons that change which camera’s feed is going to the Program output. So Curt will call “Ready five… take five!” which means that he wants to cut to Camera 5; the operator hits the right switcher button in response, and then everyone watching the broadcast sees what Camera 5 is seeing.

It takes a production crew of around 40 to 50 people to produce a RiffTrax Live show, including set designers, carpenters, electricians, lighting crew, grips, and many more. This is not including the actual RiffTrax crew, or the great folks at Fathom Events who are based out of Colorado and make sure the feed we send them live goes out to theaters.

These shows are a major production for us, and we’d like to thank the folks involved behind the scenes, as well as you, the fans, for helping to keep RiffTrax Live going.

– David D. Martin