Loaded Uses Blackmagic Design for shroud Subathon Live Streams
Blackmagic Studio Cameras and Micro Studio Cameras capture 30 days of content for 27 million+.
Blackmagic Design today announced that gaming firm Loaded used a Blackmagic Design backed workflow for streamer shroud’s recent “Fragathon,” the gamer’s version of a subathon. With an average concurrent viewership of 11,879, the subathon amassed more than 27 million views across YouTube, TikTok and X and raised more than $1 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital via a mixture of donations, channel revenue and in game challenges.
“The ‘Fragathon’ is shroud’s version of the popular subathon style event where a creator goes live for 30 days straight,” said Loaded’s VP of Content and executive producer on the project, Ricky Gonzalez. “Shroud is one of the most storied and successful content creators in the gaming space, so we wanted to create an event that married his love for gaming with raising money for an incredible cause.”
A multitude of Blackmagic Design studio cameras and an ATEM Mini Extreme live production switcher were used to help produce the 30 day live stream across multiple sets constructed in shroud’s home.
“We worked closely with shroud to first develop the strategy of the event and then turn his home into a multi set studio for creating content,” Gonzalez explained. “We needed the flexibility of being able to swap to different sets at any moment, and this meant heaps of cameras, cables and control stations for each studio. The entire event was live, so we had to be prepared for anything to happen.”
The streaming setups included a LAN center, which was effectively a PC cafe in shroud’s living room, with six PC gaming stations each outfitted with a Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2 as a webcam and one also mounted high up in the living room to capture a wide angle of the LAN center. “This was a camera/scene that we used a ton throughout the event as the interstitial element between scene changes,” he said.
Additional setups included a board game/podcast studio that used three Blackmagic Studio Camera 6K Pros, a Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Pro G2 capturing a wide shot of shroud’s stream setup in his personal studio, and the ATEM Mini Extreme switching between gameplay and live shots in the kitchen and living room studios.
“Blackmagic Design cameras became our top choice for several reasons. We were working in tight spaces but couldn’t sacrifice quality in the end product, so we went with the best option on the market. Having beautiful, accurate monitors on the back of each Studio Camera made for a small footprint with an excellent image,” explained Gonzalez.
“Having cameras that were reliable and that we could flip on and immediately jump into broadcast were essential, and I can’t stress enough how awesome the Studio Cameras were at that. We could frictionlessly get our studios up and running in a matter of seconds,” he added. “Also, the overall ecosystem and having control via PoE or USB-C from across the entire studio was amazing. That goes for both the Studio and Micro Studio Camera setups. We were able to stash cameras in hard to reach places without worrying about running a ton of cables across the house, which was important since we wanted to have a studio like setup while maintaining the livability of the home.”
Expanding on the Blackmagic Design ecosystem, Gonzalez praised the ATEM Mini Extreme’s functionality, especially when used in conjunction with the cameras. “Using Blackmagic cameras alongside the ATEM is stunning. You have so much remote control without having to jump onto a camera physically, dialing in your image from anywhere in the room. ATEMs are extremely user friendly, and with a small crew that needed to wear many hats all at once, we could hand over switching to anyone on the team, know the ATEM was simple to use and super reliable.”
“Raising more than $1 million for St. Jude was the biggest highlight for the production and talent working on the project. Accomplishing that while doing the work you love is really humbling and feels fulfilling to the soul,” concluded Gonzalez. “The beauty of a project like this, especially in a live environment, is that there are always technical puzzles to solve on the fly, and from a production standpoint, that’s always a fun challenge.”
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