1) The Time I Produced A Concert Film at Madison Square Garden

July 2nd, 2019 was one of the coolest experiences of my life, and here is the story of it!

Arguably my favorite band in the world is Hillsong United, a group from Australia that writes music for churches to sing, and they have incredible shows and tour world wide. I had the amazing chance to volunteer in 2017 at their conference in Australia, and work on their EMPIRES Tour in 2016, when they did the live recording for that album in Houston.

When I got called for Madison Square Garden, I was thrilled for the opportunity to work on another project with their awesome team. We spent about a month in pre-production, working across phone calls and emails getting everything together for such a massive recording.

Not many people may know everything that goes into a recording, but we had to organize everything from camera rentals, labor unions, truck rentals, and even where to park the truck with all of the equipment overnight. We had a fantastic team consisting of people from all over the world, and finally the day had come to land in New York.

The show was July 2nd, which means we had to do a camera prep at Abel Cine New York on the 1st, so I flew in on the 31st of June. My buddy Marco (also the Director of Photography on the show) picked me up from Laguardia in his rocking equipment van, and we went over to his place in Brooklyn where I’d stay. Conveniently, Abel Cine was a block away from his apartment. We got to the apartment, which was the upstairs loft of a bagel shop (faithful supplier of our breakfast the next day) and then immediately got on the subway and went to 34th street for church at Hillsong! This was an awesome time and I got to meet a few of the crew members for the show that were volunteering at church that night. After an eventful subway ride back to Brooklyn, we had a few of the crew guys over the night before the prep and just hung out, it was about the only down time we had the entire trip, and was really fun to meet everyone!

JC (1st AC), myself, and Andrew (utility) before the prep day.

Monday morning came quick, I woke up at 8AM and walked down to the bagel shop before walking over to Abel Cine. After a five minute walk, I arrived in “Industry City” and went to the 4th floor where Abel was. Abel Cine is one of the largest camera rental companies in the US, and they were giving us a killer package for this show. We had 15 camera packages prepping at Abel, along with walkie talkies, switcher systems, communications, cable, and support. We prepped all of the equipment from 8:30am-8:30pm, just to shove everything into a box truck for the night as they’d drive to MSG to stay for the night. Abel showed us amazing hospitality in staying open late for us to get everything done!

78 cases from Abel Cine packed into a 16 foot box truck to head to MSG, July 1, 2019.

On July 2nd, the day of the show had finally come. I was one of the only personnel allowed in the venue before “load in” that was to begin at 10AM. I arrived at 8:30 and met the folks that were on the tour, and picked up the media from the night before. They had recorded close ups on stage the night before in Boston so that the footage we capture at MSG wouldn’t have two camera operators in the shots right in the middle of the stage. Load in began at 10 and started with a dog sniff/bomb search of our truck and van, along with credentials issued for the entire crew. The arena at MSG is on the 5th floor, so it was a steep ramp ride up a fork lift for all of the equipment, and we had everything in our prep room by about 11am. After load in, the AC’s (assistant camera operators) built out all of the cameras and I got to work directing the labor unions on where we needed cable drops, along with trouble shooting issues throughout the day. My walkie talkie was my best friend as I had to stay in touch with the crew of over 50 people for the film capture alone, not including touring crew, labor unions, and promotors.

The camera prep room on the 5th floor at Madison Square Garden

A 12 hour day goes by very fast when you’re running around the worlds most famous arena. The time for the show had come, and our director Steven had a production meeting to go over shots, movement, media, and answer any questions from operators. Everyone suited up and rolled out to the arena for the opener, and I got on comms and was available to troubleshoot anything that came up during the show. Needless to say, I stayed busy, as once 20,000 iPhones came into the room we had radio interference issues with the wireless video systems, a crucial part of the director being able to see all of the cameras. Here is a photo of me crawling under the stage to pull a cable to a camera that had a wireless box go out:

Jack Mayo crawling under the stage once the show had started to pull a cable to a camera on the other side of the arena.

Before I knew it, the show was over, and we had just captured one of the most incredible moments in history, a sold out Madison Square Garden lifting up the name of Jesus, with a band from Australia. The entire team performed flawlessly aside from the technical issues that were probably my fault, and we all got an incredible memory and an awesome project to put on the portfolio, when it comes out in 2021, that is.

Standing Left to Right: Jack Mayo (Producer), Ezra Cohen(Co-Director), Steven Lester(Co-Director), Marco Andre(Director of Photography)