Filming Tech Conferences

David Hill 0:00

Shout out to GoRails for sponsoring Ode to RailsConf . If you or your team wants to learn the latest Ruby on Rails features Hotwire Ruby and more check out GoRailscom . Use code ODE2RAILSCONF at checkout to get 10% off . You're listening to the Ode to RailsConf podcast , where we reminisce about our experiences at RailsConf over the years . I'm your host , david Hill , and joining me today is Cindy Backman Cindy would you introduce yourself to our listeners ?

Cindy Backman 0:37

Yeah , Hi , I'm Cindy Backman and I am the current owner of Confreaks , which is a video production company that specializes in filming conferences and mainly in the tech industry , and so every year when we have new conference talks to watch from RailsConf and RubyConf , that's you right .

Cindy Backman 0:56

That's me , and I have some set contract videographers that come and work with me a lot of the time . Well , especially at rels comp and ruby comp the bigger events because I can't do it all by myself . So we've filmed rels comp since 2012 . It's a great event and I just have to say so . People know I didn't start Confreaks . Confreaks was actually started by Kobe Branquist and Carl Youngblood , and that was in 2007 . And then Kobe bought out Carl a few years later and was running it and I ended up working for him full-time , starting in 2012 . And Kobe's actually my brother . That's how I got the job . I'd been working with Confreaks since 2012 . And then I bought it out from Kobe in January of 2020 , right before the pandemic hit and the events stopped for a while in that .

David Hill 2:03

So I'm sure that was very pleasant .

Cindy Backman 2:06

Yeah , that was very interesting . That was very interesting and we're still trying to recover from that . So we had four other employees at that time , 2017 to 2019 . But with the pandemic we had to let them all go , but just wanted to make sure . Kobe and Carl were the ones that started it and ran things , and they started it because of attending a Ruby conference , because they're both software developers at the time , and they were attending a Ruby conference where Mats was speaking , I think it was 2006 . And afterwards they were just oh my gosh , there was so much information , it's too bad we can't watch it again and that she can only take so many notes and stuff , and so that kind of sparked the idea of oh hey , maybe we could do a video company or something where we can film these events , and that's how it started .

David Hill 3:09

Two programmers that were attending a Ruby conference . Listening to Matt , I feel like that there's multiple businesses that ultimately started from that same seed of . We're together at a conference and we had an idea and we went and did a thing . Yeah , I'm sure Lots of them . We had an idea and we went and did a thing . Yeah , I'm sure Lots of them . I'm really grateful to both of them for starting it , because I've gotten a lot of value out of being able to go back and re-watch talks over the years , Because Ruby and RailsConf have both been multi-track for so long . We're always having to kind of make that choice and that trade-off of do I go watch talk A or talk B or talk C ? Because you're always having to kind of make that choice and that trade-off of do I go watch talk A or talk B or talk C , Because you're always going to miss something . It's always been so nice having that safety net . Well , I can just pick the one that sounds most interesting now and I can go back and watch the other ones later .

Cindy Backman 3:57

One of Kobe's big themes with filming the events . It was really important to him for people that are able to attend because conferences aren't cheap . Not everybody works for a company that will pay for your trip to go to a conference , so a lot of people it comes out of their own pocket and especially people outside of the US . That's really hard to travel . That kind of travel is really expensive . That's really hard to travel . That kind of travel is really expensive , and he wanted to make it so that these people that can't attend can still benefit and learn from all the amazing talks that are given at the conferences . And so he's always been very giving and wanting to give back to the community and help out the community . So he did a lot of discounted events or just get us there , cover our costs and we'll do it in the beginning .

Cindy Backman 4:55

So we have filmed a lot of regional events too from these conferences . When I bought out the company , I've kept the same mentality that I want to help the different tech communities and especially the Rails Ruby Ruby Central area , because the people are just so great and I kind of have a personal stake in it , I feel , because my brother introduced me to so many people that he knew personally at these events and other organizers that do other Rails and Ruby conferences . We always give a discount if the organizers will agree to release the videos afterwards , that they're not behind a paywall for free , either on Comfreak's YouTube channel or their YouTube channel , so that people can see them , and we'll do a 10% discount off of the video services for that , because it's important .

David Hill 5:54

Yeah .

Cindy Backman 5:54

That's something we can try to do to help other people learn from the videos that aren't able to come . I feel that it helps the attendance at conferences , too , having the videos , because people see it and see the excitement and the benefit of being there in person , and I feel it draws more people to those conferences when they're able to sit and see the videos and the quality of content that is actually available at the events .

David Hill 6:22

Absolutely agree with that available at the events . Absolutely agree with that . It kind of gives the conference calling it a level of professionalism .

Cindy Backman 6:29

doesn't quite seem like the right vocabulary for it , but it kind of gives it that aura , I guess there's more going on than a bunch of nerds sitting in a room . And I know with tech events too , there are so many video production companies everywhere . There's a ton . So many , so many .

David Hill 6:48

Especially these days .

Cindy Backman 6:50

Yeah , and I feel like we were started just because there was a need for tech events . And with tech events it's a little bit different than , I think , almost any other kind of conference , because the speakers want to use their own laptops and events in general . Speakers send their slides in and it's done from one laptop , so there's no issues . They know that laptop works and everything . But it's really hard to do that at these kind of tech events because people use all different kinds of software for their slides , or you have coding or web usage , and let me show you our business site . Let me show you how it works and runs and that stuff that isn't in slides .

Cindy Backman 7:38

So everyone uses their own laptop and that can cause a whole array of issues when working with a different laptop with every single speaker in each track or each session room . So it's taken us years to perfect it the best we can , testing different equipment and trying different things , and it's still not perfect . There's still , of course , not a while . Especially , I think Linux is really hard to capture . For some reason , if someone's using Linux on their computers or different international laptops can have different issues that we don't run into with US laptops . So it's been interesting .

David Hill 8:22

Yeah , I bet it never even occurred to me that other kinds of conferences would expect everyone to basically use the same laptop . That never even occurred to me . But yeah , I could totally see why you would have a whole host of hurdles expect everyone to basically use the same laptop . That never even occurred to me . And as a but yeah , I could totally see why you would have a whole host of hurdles that you would need to constantly jump over to deal with . Oh , they've got this laptop and they've got that one and software versions and operating system versions and yeah just the variety of talks that were given for , like the keynotes at RubyConf a few weeks ago .

David Hill 8:57

You've got one that's a game show type of thing and you've got one that's this very animated picture book . Almost Seems like the presentation tools in use between the different keynote speakers were probably almost no overlap .

Cindy Backman 9:15

Yeah , it's really interesting and that is my biggest stress with every event and it's not something you can really prepare for until issues happen and then you have to kind of figure out how to fix them and how it works , because every laptop is so different , different and a lot of you developers , whatever go in and change things too with your laptops . They're not like here . This is the store bought laptop and I don't know what exactly , but things get changed and that's they're not always from the store type laptops . So , yeah , it's , and every event is different because speakers are different . You get new laptops .

Cindy Backman 10:00

So that is my biggest stress is okay , are the slides going to capture so that when I go to edit afterwards because I do all of the post production editing on them are the slides going to capture ? Are we going to get all the live content , if there is , and the transitions and the web use , because those aren't in slides . I can have someone send me their slide deck and I can cut them in . It takes a lot of time but I can do that . So all the slides are still there . But if there's anything live that's not on your slides , that's not captured .

David Hill 10:34

Live coding isn't recorded unless we capture it with our equipment which is happening live which is a whole extra layer of things that you need to consider and plan for as much as you can yeah , and so we always have at the very , very worst thing is a second camera that's just on the screen .

Cindy Backman 10:58

So we're filming the screen . That helps with syncing and that and post-production . But we have used it at times if we cannot get a laptop to work and have the slides capture , because a lot of times it'll still show on the projection screen .

Cindy Backman 11:13

but it won't show on our capturing device . We don't want to make the conference or that talk start late . We'll spend five , maybe 10 minutes , depending how soon the speaker was in the room , to set their laptop up , and if we can't get it working , it's okay . We'll cut in all the slides we can , but if there's anything live or web usage and stuff like that , we're going to have to pull that from the backup camera , which sucks because it's not as good a quality . But at least the whole talk is hopefully still there .

David Hill 11:48

Right .

Cindy Backman 11:48

Because sometimes when we get , if I ask for slides from a speaker , we get it in different formats or whatever , and if they have GIFs , the GIF isn't there . I have to go and try to find it online so I can download it and have it on my computer and actually put the action , the actual GIF , on top of what they've already got there , because it's still it's not the the full thing . So it can take a lot of time and be complicated , but I don't think everybody realizes that's what happens if things don't record and we don't say oh hey , your talk didn't record , unless I have to right so I can get information or something oh man from them and that .

Cindy Backman 12:31

So that's the stressful part . I love the conferences , I love the events RailsConf , rubyconf , they're all great and it's always fun to go and see people , because I see a lot of the same people over time and get to know people too , even though I'm not one of the programmers or developers .

David Hill 12:53

You've been going there often enough . You kind of become one of those familiar faces .

Cindy Backman 12:57

Yeah , so that's always fun , but slides are definitely not an easy thing . They're not an easy thing to do .

David Hill 13:05

Definitely we're going to have to keep that in mind in the future . If I ever speak at a conference again , what can I do to try and make the job a little bit easier for whoever's doing post-production here ?

Cindy Backman 13:15

Well , and I know with Ruby Central at Rails and RubyConf now they really encourage and set up a schedule for speakers to come in and test their laptops ahead of time , because then we at least have plugged it in , they've their stuff and if there's issues we can try to work it out . Then in that 30-45 minute block they have to come in and test , which I would encourage anyone as a speaker , if the conference offers you the opportunity to go in and test your laptop , do it , because equipment is different at every single conference you go to . The AV is different , video production is different . They might change out their equipment and stuff .

Cindy Backman 14:01

It's just really good to go in and test your laptops ahead of time and even if they don't offer a schedule to come in and do it , try to show up early for the conference or take some time out of your lunch break . Try to show up early for the conference or take some time out of your lunch break and I'm always willing to help people test their laptops and the AV . People are usually very willing to help you test on that . So I encourage that with speakers .

Community Support at Tech Conferences

Cindy Backman 14:29

I know as a speaker you're all usually stressed and worried about it too . You have to hype yourself up and maybe not everyone , but I think the majority speaking is a stressful thing , even if you really enjoy it .

David Hill 14:42

And it's one less thing to worry about , because when you get up there and plug it in and it doesn't work , that can just cause high anxiety and stress and make it even harder for you to present yeah , I think that's definitely some sound advice that I'll be taking with me going forward to carve out some time on the schedule to test everything out beforehand to make sure that everything's working with the video , because that's an important component of these presentations not just the presenter themselves , but also wanting to be able to see the material that they've put together to kind of help highlight whatever it is they're talking about .

Cindy Backman 15:18

Yeah , and to figure out your speaker notes if they have a monitor , a confidence monitor or anything , or to make sure you have it properly on your laptop and then the slides up on the screen , because I'm sure you've been to events and seen speakers struggle with getting that set up correctly too , and when you can come in and test it , you can make sure you know on your laptop . Okay , this is what I need to do , and it's not always the same each place you talk . It's very interesting how it all works together with different equipment .

David Hill 15:54

And that's the struggle of modern software developers , I guess , who just got to deal with technology all the time . So I guess I kind of wanted to take a step back from the specifics of your job with Confreaks and doing the video and the post-production and everything . Do you have any stories or experiences or fun memories from attending RailsConf over the years that you'd be willing to share with us ?

Cindy Backman 16:21

My all-time favorite keynote I won't say all-time favorite , because they're just different . They're different , but it's up there . Exciting one yeah , a very exciting one was at RailsConf 2016 in Kansas City and the Closing keynote was done by Paul Lemire , and he was someone at Spotify that helped do all their stuff and he did a lot of music in it .

David Hill 16:56

I remember this one .

Cindy Backman 16:58

They had the sign interpreter and there were two female interpreters there and there were two female interpreters there and Paul had played all this music and especially at the end . The video is like an hour long and about 56 minutes at the end . There's just so much music and the interpreter is up on stage on the other side of the stage and she was very pregnant too . Her interpretation of the music was just incredible and we got a little bit of footage on it .

Cindy Backman 17:32

But then I know tons of people were filming it and at the time on twitter , when it was a better place and stuff , we requested that if anyone had filmed some of that , if they wouldn't mind sending it into Confreaks , because we wanted to try to get more of the signing into the video and that and it was just so cool . There was so much excitement and applause , not just for the speaker but for the person that was signing . It was amazing . It's like she was dancing but reading , signing everything , and it was just really cool to learn about Spotify , but it was so incredible to watch that .

David Hill 18:15

From what I remember , it wasn't just that , it was music . He was showing how these algorithms they had built at Spotify were looping the music , cutting over to other parts of the song so that it could effectively go forever and transitioning to other songs . It wasn't , she just knew these songs . She had to , like on the fly , be able to follow along with what the song was doing , the energy of the performance . I remember at a certain point , when he finished some music and was getting ready to go to another talking point , she got an ovation because she was amazing .

Cindy Backman 18:55

It was so incredible . That was a very memorable talk presentation .

David Hill 19:00

Yeah .

Cindy Backman 19:01

Just learning . All the stuff that you could do or that people do with it was Spotify and that . But then seeing someone have that ability to share music with deaf people in the way that she did was just amazing . It was very cool . That was one of my favorite presentations . There's been so many interesting ones at different events it's kind of hard for me to specifically remember what conference it's at In 2019 , we filmed 34 conferences that year .

Cindy Backman 19:39

Wow , I was at 30 of them and so a lot of them run together . I don't remember exactly . Was this talk at RailsConf ? Was this talk at RubyConf ? Was this talk at one of the PowerShell conferences or DevOps or whatever that we've gone to ? But I knew that one was for sure .

Cindy Backman 20:01

And there's always people like Brandon Weaver with his book talks and the lemurs that are just great because it's technical , but where I sit and not filming or going from room to room to make sure everything's working correctly , the equipment all the time and when I edit , I don't know all the tech stuff and I don't know the programming stuff , because that's not what I do , and when we're filming and that we have so much to pay attention to , we're still not hearing everything what is being said . So just how some of the speakers are so engaging when I don't know exactly what they're talking about or understand it . I still love to listen to a lot of the talks because the speaker's just very engaging . Or does the voice fluctuation to where it's very interesting to listen , even if you don't know exactly what they're talking about ?

David Hill 21:03

Oh yeah .

Cindy Backman 21:04

And Brandon's definitely one of those or the game shows . Don't want to specifically say people's names a ton , because everybody is so great .

David Hill 21:14

For me , the ongoing kind of story that I've been getting through doing this podcast and talking with people who have had experiences at these conferences that's been the ongoing story for me is that just the community and the people have been so great to get to meet and get to know and to work with . Yeah , I guess that's the big thing that I hope I'm able to highlight with this podcast is just the amazing community that's grown up around Ruby and around Rails and that's a big part of why so many of us have stuck around as long as we have .

Cindy Backman 21:49

It is a great community even from my point of view , because everybody is really so nice . I love watching how many first-time speakers there are at the conferences and honestly I can't think of one at Rose Compton that where if someone says this is my first time speaking , they immediately get clapping . People are excited . That is awesome . We're so glad you're speaking and trying this . The more you do it , the better you get . But I love the support that the community gives to everybody , especially those first timers , the first ones at a it , the better you get . But I love the support that the community gives to everybody , especially those first timers , the first ones at a conference , the scholars and guide program , which is fantastic at REL's conference , and just how supportive they are with people doing things for the first time because talking is scary .

David Hill 22:42

It is , and it's funny that you said that it's because my first time speaking at a conference . That's exactly what happened . I mentioned it was my first time and immediately there were people clapping . I was just , oh yeah , nobody came here wanting to see someone flub it on stage . They came here because they want to learn something and they want to see the speakers do well , because they want to see what they have to say .

Cindy Backman 23:06

I feel like , on the outside , looking in , there's support . There's not a ton of competition I'm sure there is and I don't see a lot , but from what I do see , it just seems like there's support and you want each other to succeed and I feel like a lot of that is in like the open source realm as well , or open source wouldn't work . So it's a very supportive community . I actually spoke at RubyConf in 2014 in San Diego and my talk was called On the Outside looking in , because I go to so many events and everyone really is so kind and I do talk with speakers a bit .

Cindy Backman 23:53

When we go up and help with laptops , if the AV company cause a lot of times , the AV company will do that , but if they don't , we'll come up and help and I feel like I get to know people , but I get to know them more than what it really is . It's just kind of interesting because I feel like I know a lot of the speakers because I've edited their talks and you start to see that speaker at multiple regional events and stuff like that and even other programming language events . I'll run into some of the same people . Oh , I know you , but they don't really know me because I'm just behind the camera , I'm behind the scenes doing stuff , but yet I see their talks . I see them .

Cindy Backman 24:32

I'll work with them a little bit , helping them get laptops set up or they have questions or want some special filming if it's a game show and we film a little bit different for editing the videos and stuff . But they don't always know me Right , but I know them . I've seen your videos how many times . But it's definitely a very welcoming community , one of my favorite , where I've felt welcomed and actually a part of the community and not just , oh , you're crew people , which makes it fun .

David Hill 25:05

I'm glad that people who aren't necessarily even Ruby developers feel that way , coming into our really weird tech space . Thank you so much for joining me today , cindy . It's been a lot of fun getting to see a little bit behind the curtain for what you do to help make our conferences a success , and I can't wait to see you at RailsConf .

Cindy Backman 25:28

Thank you so much for having me . This has been a fun opportunity to be able to talk about the events that we do . Thanks again , thank you .