CASE STUDY

Story Productions produces gaming activation live transmission for the creative studio Find Your Battlefield

The successful MMO game Fortnite recently launched a new chapter; Story Productions assisted in the production of the two-day live transmission event in Brazil.


Date: 2022  

Five countries were chosen to host a live simultaneous global event launching Chapter Four of Fortnite, one of the most popular MMO video games. Find Your Battlefield (FYB), a creative studio in Los Angeles, trusted Story Productions as their local Brazilian production partner.

Gamers are looking at screens during filming
Story Productions crew on location in a Castle
Three gamers are sitting during a live event within a castle

The gaming activation was hosted in a special castle in the picturesque town of São Francisco de Paula, home to 22,000 people in the mountain region of the southern area of Brazil.


The gaming company selected three of the top Brazilian streamers specialised in Fortnite: FlakesPower, Manteiga and ZeroBadass. They were invited to broadcast their game over Starlink satellites for several hours, streaming to their preferred channel for their subscribers. The goal was to encourage their millions of followers to download the new chapter of the game, which premiered during this live event.

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The activation was a success. On one single day of the event, more than 1.2 million people watched the live video through the global Twitch platform.

THE CHALLENGES

Finding the right location

While this task was fairly simple for some of the global activation locations, such as Scotland and Spain, Brazil is a country with no authentic medieval castles to speak of! But the Story Productions location team discovered that in the southern region — very European, where most of the population is of German and Italian origin — castles are a trend.


These locations are very popular venues for weddings, which created another challenge: all weekends were completely booked at most of the castles for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, a newly built medieval castle had just been inaugurated in the hills of Rio Grande do Sul, and could host the event. Having experience with location scouting in Brazil was essential to book the perfect place.

A newly built castle in the Southern part of Brazil
A newly built castle in the Southern part of Brazil
The Story Productions in front of the A newly built castle in the Southern part of Brazil

Small town

Organising a big event in a little town involves a different set of logistics. One example: a sparse selection of restaurants, all with zero flexibility in serving hours, made it impossible to utilise the local eateries due to the event schedule.


In addition, all of the equipment and crew had to be brought in from Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, located two hours away. The city is a great hub of local talent, so Story Productions was able to source the entire team from the region. We had a crew of 20 Brazilians on set — including producers, cameramen, a drone operator, sound technicians and live streaming technicians — all coordinated by our very experienced executive event producer who flew in from São Paulo.

The Story Productions crew within the newly built castle on location
The Story Productions crew on location

Live streaming

There’s a direct connection between the success of a live streaming event and a strong pre-production, as there’s not much room for improvisation or error. For this project, the planning was intense, taking 40 days to make sure everything was ready on-site and everyone involved had the necessary information.


A tech scout trip was necessary for the Starlink team — travelling from the United States — to verify local conditions for the satellite coverage in the area. The castle location passed the test.


Additionally, we had a 2-day local rehearsal to set up all the equipment and test it. Our team worked hand in hand with the Starlink engineers to enable the 8-hour world-wide transmission to happen flawlessly.

Three gamers on location in a newly built caslte
The Story Productions crew on locatioin

Bringing equipment into Brazil

FYB brought in most of the filming gear on the plane to Brazil with their producer — with the assistance of Story Productions for the documentation and broker assistance. However, the custom gaming computers used by the streamers during the event had to be imported into Brazil via a specialised event importation company experienced in bringing in equipment, props and instruments. The cooperation between all the companies involved was key in ensuring all the event components were ready on time.


Many thanks to Find Your Battlefield for relying on our services during the many steps of this project, from the location scouting to the pre-production, from hiring the local crew to sourcing all necessary supplemental equipment items, from taking care of the installation to the operations and the logistics. It was an immense pleasure to join in the responsibility of a long-form live transmission for a global activation with a massive audience.


Are you planning to come to Brazil and need a reliable and experienced co-production partner? We can provide full production services at a fair price; all you have to worry about is developing your next project. Let us know how we can help by dropping us a line!

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