Barry O'Kane: The Quiet Man at the Cabaret Dashboard
“Knowing many musicians personally that have had their livelihoods decimated, I think it’s great that instead of artists having to ask people for donations that we do it on their behalf.”
The Duncairn’s Virtual Cabaret gave us the opportunity to view live, self-recorded performances by artists ranging from Lisa Hannigan to John Spillane, Ríoghnach Connolly to Damien Dempsey, and so many more. It was fronted by professionals - local radio and television presenter Lynette Fay and musician Conor Caldwell. However, were it not for the background heavy lifting and backstage tech support by graphic and web designer Barry (Baz) O’Kane, the Cabaret simply would not have taken place.
As a: “Promoter, DJ, Marketer, Graphic Designer, Business Consultant, Web Designer, Tech Support and now, thanks to the Virtual Cabaret, big-shot Film Producer,” Baz is a freelancer who has been working with The Duncairn’s Artistic Director Ray Giffen for a decade. “I first met Ray about 10 years ago while working on another project and over the years we’ve been involved in putting on some fantastic events together. From there the relationship has grown to the point where I can decipher what is going on inside his head (no mean feat!) and help in putting the ideas into practice. The Duncairn’s ethos of community, activism, nurturing talent & promoting local arts is the main reason I’ve kept involved – that, and the fact that I’m a huge fan of folk music makes it a perfect match.”
All of Baz’ skills are put to use by The Duncairn, but the marketing of the venue and its events is his main focus: “as well as taking late-night coffee-fuelled phone calls from Ray to listen to his latest hair brained schemes! I’ve been involved with promoting most of the events in one way or another, however I was very proud to have worked on the Other Voices project – having been a fan of the show it was great to be a small part of bringing it to Belfast. I’ll also take some credit for suggesting Blindboy do his first ever live podcast show here back in 2018 – the podcast has gone on to be massive and he does the live recordings all over the world nowadays (well, not at the minute of course).”
So, it was a no-brainer that when it came to developing and executing the Virtual Cabaret, Baz was the man to turn to. As each artist recorded their contributions for the show, they would send them to Baz who would: “curate, edit and mash them all together into a coherent 2-hour show. Throughout the week I would market the events, design the posters, send out newsletters, make trailers and push it all across the social media in the hopes of raising some funds. I also set up all the technical stuff in the background so when Saturday night arrived, we would all be having a lovely artistic experience at home and not staring at a blank screen.”
Needless to say, the challenges have been many and varied. “Some of the main technical issues with having artists record their own videos as opposed to a studio environment is the difference in quality of various phones, audio levels being different, some videoing in portrait and others in landscape and lighting issues. While most viewers will be forgiving on the picture quality, nobody wants a sudden burst of sound in their living room halfway through the episode to kill their relaxed vibe! The challenge is to tweak each separate video clip so that we end up with a coherent, flowing cabaret show that everyone can relax and enjoy. The other challenge has been choosing which songs make it to air and which are left behind – as some artists have sent us 3/4 videos and we might only have time for one, it’s often a tough decision to make. I’m currently putting together a show to showcase every artist’s submission over the course of a weekend, like an online festival.
It was a steep enough learning curve putting it all together, but a wide skill base ensured that Baz had a solid foundation to start from. “The graphics and web stuff were all old ground for me so it wasn’t too difficult. Prior to the Virtual Cabaret, the longest video The Duncairn team had edited was probably about 30 seconds, so it was a fair jump to go to 2 hours! I have had to teach the basics of Final Cut Pro X video software, compression for streaming and the ins and outs of ‘going Live’ across several platforms at once. Luckily, with the lockdown, there has been plenty of time to further enhance my own skills and those of the team. I have also been lucky to have found a perfect assistant editor in Eimear Devlin who recently joined the team of volunteers from London where she is currently working.” (She had attended a documentary filming making course at The Duncairn a few years back).
However, Baz also boasts the best perk of the job amongst the team that put the Virtual Cabaret together. “The highlight of being involved in this project is being the first person to hear the performances that the artists send through. As the videos come direct from their phones I get first listen on some of my favourite artists and that’s been quite special. It’s also been brilliant to see the response and how people react to what we’re doing – we’ve had people tuning in from Madagascar, Kenya, Chile and the UAE and the donations have been flying in from across the globe.”
“The number one aspect of the cabaret is raising money for out of work artists. Knowing many musicians personally that have had their livelihoods decimated, I think it’s great that instead of artists having to ask people for donations that we do it on their behalf. Fair play to our audience – they have responded amazingly, and the donation figures have been solid throughout the series. Unfortunately, gigs were the first thing to be locked down and it looks increasingly like they’ll be the last thing to open up again, so please do what you can to support artists. We’ll see you back at the Duncairn when this is all over.”
