WASHINGTON – Two D.C.-area businesses, Big Whig Media, a full-service multimedia center and studio production facility, and Viva Creative, a global event company, joined forces to produce ‘The Call To Unite,’ a 24-hour global livestream created to bring the world together during the COVID-19 crisis.
More than 200 special hosts and guests participated in the event, including Oprah Winfrey, former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, and celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Deepak Chopra, Yo-Yo Ma, Jennifer Garner, and many more.
Big Whig Media was launched by Keith Nahigian, founder of Nahigian Strategies, a 20-year-old strategic public relations firm located in downtown Washington, D.C. VIVA Creative, founded in 2001 and headquartered in Rockville, MD, designs, plans, and produces some of the world’s largest, most engaging live and virtual events.
The two organizations first joined forces nearly twenty years ago working together on a series of summits with public and private sector leaders to discuss post 9/11-learnings. On May 1, the two organizations joined forces again in the midst of a global pandemic to bring hope and healing through this virtual livestream.
“It’s been great to once again work with the incredible teams at VIVA Creative on such an important project,” said Nahigian. “This event was a great chance to help connect spiritual leaders, front-line workers, storytellers, artists, activists and more with the world, so it was a no-brainer that we’d volunteer our services to help make it a success.”
The combined role of Big Whig Media and VIVA Creative was to provide the infrastructure to connect this event to the world, and work to host and produce the full event.
Big Whig Media’s uncompressed HD-SDI connection and transmission through The Switch was a vital part in the technical production of this event. Providing the essential base studio for the production and communications spine that delivered the program via global livestream, many elements of the downtown studio location were used to ensure a great event. Two Sony 4K cameras atop the Willard Hotel were utilized to capture exclusive footage of the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds D.C. flyover on Saturday. The studio’s high bandwidth internet connectivity was vital in linking a 65-foot production trailer, parked in front of the historic Willard, to provide a second control room where producers directed talent, video playback, and production communication systems between several cities. Video editors stationed in Big Whig Media’s five isolated edit suites captured highlights from the program for quick replay on social media platforms.
VIVA Creative directed the development of the overall event – providing the programming, and creating and producing over 26 hours of motion graphics and custom videos with content from around the world. VIVA also developed the event website, Unite.US, where The Call To Unite content is now available on demand.
See exclusive behind the scenes photos of the production of the event below. For more information about Big Whig Media, visit www.BigWhigMedia.com. For more information about VIVA Creative, visit www.vivacreative.com.
