Emily Malone, head of Live Events at Disguise, is speaking at the LDI 2024 Women In Tech Keynote Brunch on The Transformation Of Live Concerts To Cultural Phenomena, and is a member of the panel discussing the inside story of Justin Timberlake's Forget Tomorrow tour. Malone shared some insights into getting a start in the industry, learning C++, the benefit of having someone to negotiate on your behalf, and how AI changes content creation.
LDI 2024 Events
- The Inside Story of Justin Timberlake's "Forget Tomorrow" World Tour
- Women in Tech Keynote Brunch: The Transformation of Live Concerts to Cultural Phenomena
Live Design: How did you get your start in the industry and what attracted you to it?
Emily Malone: It was theatre that got me interested in the industry. I loved watching plays and musicals. It fascinated me how a room full of people could be transported somewhere else, and their disbelief suspended so completely. I loved the idea that from a blank slate and an empty stage, a group of people came together to create, and their creations could have such power. I got my start working at the National Theatre as a video operator. While I was there, we had a particularly busy few weeks coming up with a couple of shows in tech rehearsals all at once. My boss asked me if I fancied having a go at being the video programmer for one of the shows. I leapt at the chance and never looked back.
Live Design: Before Disguise, it looks like you worked on every major tour going through Europe including Ghost the Musical and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory– well maybe not, but you have worked on a lot of different projects in different places. Did you consciously try to work on every type of show to expand your experience or is that just how it played out?
Emily Malone: A bit of both! One of the things I love about live events is that there is naturally so much variety. I’ve always liked a challenge, and I’ve always been drawn to trying new things. I’m a firm believer that you’re more likely to regret a missed opportunity than something you tried which didn’t pan out. Sometimes decisions came down to wanting to travel somewhere I hadn’t been before, or to use some new tech I hadn’t used before. Of course the project itself plays a significant part, but possibly the biggest factor was the people. This was in part because I always wanted to work with people I respected and admired, but also on a more human level.
They tended to be long days, frequently away from home for extended periods. You work very, very closely with your immediate team, pretty much living in each others pockets, and if you’re on comms you quite literally have their voices in your ear all day. For me, enjoying working with my colleagues was super important. It wasn’t all just about having a laugh (though that did feature quite highly), it was about knowing and trusting their expertise, and knowing you could rely on each other in a fix.
Live Design: I saw on LinkedIn you have recent certifications in various software, including C++. Is this approach to education – learning while working versus going to get an advanced degree something you would recommend to early career designers?
Emily Malone: I think learning while working is an absolute must, regardless of whether you’ve done a degree course or not. It’s such a fast moving industry, nothing stays the same for long, and there’s something new to discover everywhere you look.
There’s no doubt that a degree course gives you a fabulous start. It structures your learning, teaches you not just about your discipline but about the industry, and provides crucial networking opportunities. I did a diploma course at RADA that led directly to getting hired at the National Theatre for a job I probably wouldn’t have known to apply for otherwise. There are some amazing courses available which I would recommend looking into if you are wondering how to get started. That said, vocational higher education isn’t for everyone, and one of the great things about this industry is that there’s not only one way into it. In video programming and design alone I can think of people who started out as artists, software developers, lighting designers, domestic electricians, musicians... it’s this rich tapestry that makes this industry special.
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Live Design: What prompted you to learn C++ ?
Emily Malone: We use a lot of C++ at Disguise, and I wanted to not just use our products, but contribute to them. I started off at Disguise as a Senior Support Specialist, which I really enjoyed, but over time I became more and more attracted to the prospect of being able to implement feature requests and fix small bugs myself. I wanted the ability to see things all the way through to their resolution. Tasked with getting to grips with C++, Python and Javascript, I moved over into the development team as an Associate Product Engineer, a role designed to take real world production and product experience, and blend it with software engineering skills. It was a steep learning curve, but there was lots of support within our team, and it was incredibly rewarding to talk with someone using our software and be able to code a workflow tweak that would help them in their everyday use.
I can trace back various significant steps in my career to not knowing something, seeing someone else’s expertise in it and thinking, 'I want to be able to do that.’ Watching the Disguise dev team work was very much one of those moments.
Live Design: What other training or education options do you lean on? Are there additional ones you would recommend to others?
Emily Malone: At various points I’ve spent a lot of time on LinkedIn learning, or on YouTube. There are, unsurprisingly, a huge number of resources available for learning to code, but there are also some brilliant YouTube channels from industry professionals wanting to pass on the knowledge and experience they’ve gained over the years. I also lean on friends and colleagues a lot. We all tend to want to upskill ourselves, and to share what we’ve learned once we’ve figured it out. There are a number of communities such as Frame:Work and the Video Design Community which are full of helpful people willing to lend a hand (or a brain) to a problem. My advice to others would be to get involved in communities like these.
Live Design: What has been your experience as a woman in the industry? Some people I talk to have not felt any discrimination, others encountered endless challenges.
Emily Malone: I’m fortunate to say that my experience as a woman in the industry has generally been positive. I’ve found live events to be a liberal and inclusive space, where for the most part, people are judged on their skills, ability and personality. I’ve spent a lot of time being the only woman on a team, or one of very few women in the room in a technical role, and while that’s obviously not ideal, it’s been rare that I’ve been made to feel like I don’t fit or that my gender has impacted the way that people work with me.
I’d be lying if I said it has all been smooth sailing. There have been occasions where I’ve been overlooked in a conversation, or assumptions have been made about my knowledge because people are expecting to see a man. But that’s nothing unique to our industry. If anything, it happens more frequently in life outside of work.
I think it’s important to recognize that challenges don’t have to be outright discrimination. It can be uncomfortable to walk into a room where you’re in a staggering minority. You wonder what assumptions people might be making about you, or even worse, if you’ve been given the job because of your gender, not your qualification.
My experience as a woman in the industry has been a good one, and things have improved, but I’m sure everyone can agree that there’s a huge amount that still needs to be done to make Live Events an equitable working environment.
Live Design: It looks as though you formed your own company, Zero Origin, as a video programmer. What was behind that decision? Did having your own company versus being a freelancer provide more security? Is this something you would recommend to other industry professionals starting out?
Emily Malone: I started Zero Origin with my husband, who also works in the industry. It allowed for a layer of separation between the two parts of our jobs, the person on site who might be chatting with someone from the producers office or production company during a tea break, and the person who then needs to negotiate a fair rate and be paid on time.
Live Design: You moved up through several positions at Disguise to Head of Live Events and you’ve been there more than five years. Can you describe the scope of the position and what you like about the company?
Emily Malone: As Head of Live Events, I’m both an advocate and evangelist for Live Events at Disguise, and for Disguise within the world of Live Events. It’s a balance of internal leadership and external outreach, focussed around positioning Disguise to best enable creators to push boundaries and deliver unforgettable experiences. What I like about the company is the people who work there, the close ties to the people and projects using our products and services in the industry, and the relentless drive and innovation. It’s a fast paced place to work, but that means there’s never a dull day. I’m surrounded by incredibly smart people, internally and externally, who are a constant inspiration. What excites me about Disguise, and my role at Disguise is the opportunity I have to impact and contribute to the industry I’ve always been so passionate about.
Live Design: Where do you see in the future of the video industry?
Emily Malone: I see the future of the video industry in live events as something closely intertwined with video in other industries. Some of the people who moved away from live events during covid into related fields such as broadcast and film have come back now, bringing with them knowledge, techniques and tools from those other disciplines. The level of cross pollination between video for live events and video for other industries will only increase with the inclusion of more COTS equipment, and with the increasing emphasis on networking and IT skills. We saw examples of that this year with Eurovision running video outputs from Disguise using ST 2110, and how IT infrastructure and network architecture were of vital importance. These shifts in technology will allow for bigger, higher resolution video with superior color accuracy due to the increase in bandwidth available. Technologies like this will not only bring higher image quality, but carry the added benefits of redundancy and extensibility; significant considerations for concert touring.
We can’t talk about the future without mentioning AI. AI has many applications in video, from depth inference, to upscaling, to generative content creation. It is expanding the possibilities not only of what can be done, but the scale it can be done at and who that’s accessible to.
Audiences are expecting more interactivity, whether it’s uploading selfies to the giant video wall at the Adele concert in Munich, wearing light up wristbands at Glastonbury so that they become part of the show, or using a snap integration to add AR to their experience.
I’ve mentioned scale already, and that comes hand in hand with the potential created by the temporary venue format used for Adele in Munich. Not a tour, and not a residency, it bypasses some of the restrictions inherent in these types of shows. Shows in temporary structures don’t have to fit into an existing venue and they don’t have to fit into a touring schedule. The venue itself can become a part of the creative vision, welcoming audiences into a world designed especially for them.
Live Design: You are giving a keynote at LDI on "The Transformation Of Live Concerts To Cultural Phenomena.” What do you hope the audience will take away from that?
Emily Malone: I hope that they will walk away fired up about Live Concerts, and share in my excitement for their future. The world has been a turbulent place over the last five or so years, which has been felt across live events of all types. Without a shadow of a doubt live events are back though, bigger, brighter, and bolder than ever before. There’s something remarkable about thousands of strangers coming together to a concert, temporarily joined in that shared experience before going their separate ways again. With the likes of the Sphere and Adele in Munich, this is happening at a far larger scale. They are no longer simply concerts, but fully encompassing immersive experiences, which opens up a world of possibilities.