Stream of Conscientiousness

~ edoowinnie

In case you missed it last weekend, our charity livestream happened. We had a lot of fun, played a lot of games in the space of 12 hours and, in doing so, we raised over £500 for Inspiring Life. This amount trounced our previous target by over 100% and I couldn’t be prouder of everyone involved in this endeavour. In light of this success, I wanted to pull the veil back a little and tell you all the story of this stream from its origin to its eventual production.

A year ago, as part of the Game Heroes initiative created by MacMillan Cancer Care, I attempted one of my most ambitious charitable endeavours yet. A 24-Hour Livestream broadcast on YouTube. The stream would feature video games played by a variety of different people, who were all close friends and family members of mine, for an entire day from around 6pm. It was a lot of fun, but it was a taxing experience on everyone involved, not least of all myself who had to organize the games played, the hardware used and ensuring the stream itself didn’t break. And of course it did break. Several times. Once causing a complete system crash which had to be restarted. We were beset with issues that, while eventually resolved, still stressed me out to the point of frustration. Fortunately, we managed to raise £420 for MacMillan, however the events of the stream lingered on me. I swore that I’d never do a stream quite like that again. It was just too much to organize and I was clearly not ready for such an endeavour quite yet.StreamLogo.png

Nearly a year later, I was approached by a friend who asked if the stream would be happening again.

“Absolutely not!” I laughed. “The last one almost killed me!”

“Well, it doesn’t need to last as long this time. Why not just run it for 12 hours instead?”

“12 hours is still a long time.”

“What if I helped you organize things? I could source some gear; we could write up a schedule; it’ll be fun!”

My friend, as it happens, was on a kick of organizing and sorting things. He’d recently moved out into his own home and being able to sort things out his way was a freedom he was still drinking in heavily. Naturally, I relented and began planning the second annual stream. All we needed was a cause to benefit with our antics.

We thought about going to MacMillan again but we wanted to benefit something a little closer to home, both metaphorically and literally. Myself and my friends have all had experience in dealing with ill mental health so we decided to find a cause that helped in that field of things. Conveniently, another friend had a cause in mind that they were affiliated with called “Inspiring Life,” created in memory of Evie Douglas who took her own life due to suffering depression. The choice was very clear and we began preparing for the 12 Hour Gaming Marathon in aid of Inspiring Life: The Evie Douglas Memorial Fund.

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The first thing we wanted to do was make some videos advertising the stream. Originally, I had made a promo video for the first stream but the results were… not great. Now, I’m convinced that the video would have been great but, unfortunately, the camera I had stopped recording after a set amount of footage was recorded but I only learned about this half an hour after the last line due to the camera not letting me know it had stopped. The joys of doing your own production.

However, with my friend and I recording, the first stream promo we did was not only funny, but it was fun to shoot and a good experience overall. We tried a number of different ideas but settled with this one, which we tweeted out.

Our next plan was to record an interview with main trustee Freda Douglas which we would weave interstitially between segments on the stream. The interview was recorded but circumstances would mean that we would not be able to use the footage we had. The audio in the video was not great. Our distance from the camera with no complimentary microphone meant the audio sounded distant and suffered from issues due to the room tone of the house we recorded in. As a result, I decided to avoid using the footage and left it alone. It was a wasted effort from a video standpoint but I learned a lot about the cause through Freda and where exactly this money was going. Ultimately, I used the footage as a basis to help create a small ad for the stream, telling the viewers what their money was going towards and how they could get involved with Inspiring Life should they need them.

We finished up with a final promotional spot featuring my brother. This time, utilizing a microphone donated by another friend, we recorded what was, in my opinion, the funniest promo skit we’d ever done. Both of us finished the day pleased in what we had created and were excited to see how the stream would go following this.

As for the stream itself, let’s just say it had a few problems along the way. We had numerous issues with XSplit, the program I elected to use for the stream. It failed to access the Twitch Chat very well, had issues with the donation alert throughout the stream, and required restarting on numerous occasions. We also were conspicuously lacking donations throughout the stream and, while we started with £200 donated, it stayed that way for the first half of the stream. I became concerned that we would not raise any more money which began to weigh heavily on my mind. Fortunately, we gained a number of donors into the latter half of the stream not only beating our goal but raising more money than we had ever raised on a livestream before. We closed the stream with £490 raised and, with my donation still to come, we will have raised over £500 for Inspiring Life.

Ultimately, I was glad to have taken part in this endeavour. We broke some records, learned a lot about broadcasting and had a lot of fun organizing and raising awareness of our cause. I learned how much I really enjoyed making videos and, in future, I may be making even more of them just for the fun of it. Ultimately, I leanred that it’s difficult to organize something like this and have everything go right. It’s important to roll with the punches, though, and try to make the best of what situation you find yourself in.

We will be recording the finale to this endeavour shortly: an ice bucket dunk for all of the losers of this stream. However, while they may be losers in the video game sense, we are all winners for having taken part in this event. We’ve helped a good cause become greater and had fun while doing so. Hopefully knowing this will help ward off the bitter cold punishment heading our way…

I reaaaaallly hope so!

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Published by edoowinnie

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