TECH Technology and technique for production, post and playout
July/August 2014
COMING SOON... COMING SOON... COMING SOON... CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Trade secrets The post-production tech and talent behind some of this year’s biggest shows, pages 15-34
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Key installations and upgrades at broadcasters around the world Page 12
28/03/2014 10:56
How Radio Northampton ditched its studio kit and made BBC history Page 36
Quantel chief executive Ray Cross on the company’s acquisition of Snell Page 38
Up close and personal with AJA’s first-ever camera, the Cion Page 40
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CONTENTS
Inside this month JULY/AUGUST 2014
NEWS & VIEWS
22
05 LEADER Celebrating present and future creative excellence
06 INDUSTRY NEWS The Commonwealth Games will see more BBC 4K trials
08 PRODUCT NEWS Avid has added new tools for its MediaCentral platform
09 FACILITIES NEWS Prime Focus has forged deals with DNeg and Reliance
10 PEOPLE The latest appointments in facilities and technology
12 INTERNATIONAL NEWS The big tech stories from around the world
IN-DEPTH ORIGINAL
GRADED
27 40
17
15 - 34 CREATIVE REVIEWS We celebrate the best creative and technical work from some of the UK’s leading post-production facilities
36 ViLoR How the BBC is moving its local radio stations to a centralised equipment and infrastructure model
WORK 38 INTERVIEW Quantel chief executive Ray Cross on the company’s acquisition of Snell and its plans to take on EVS
06
36
TOOLS 40 PRODUCT ANATOMY Up close with the Cion, AJA’s first camera
INFORM 42 POSTSCRIPT DPP delivery methods and JJ Benson’s tech Q&A
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July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 3
The most anticipated entertainment market of the year. 4 days of screenings, networking and inspiring keynotes. 1,700 exhibiting companies showcasing their latest programmes. 4,600+ international buyers looking for fresh content. 13,500 participants on the road to success. Endless opportunities.
13-16 October, 2014, Cannes – France
mipcom.com
LEADER
From the editor Issue #17
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Young Talent Awards The celebration of excellence continues with our annual search for the brightest and best under 30s who work with technology in the fields of production, post and delivery. If you know of an outstanding individual who you think deserves to pick up a Broadcast TECH Young Talent Award, be sure to nominate them. The categories include: camera operator/grip; colourist; engineer; lighting technician; online editor; producer; runner; sound production; sound post; VFX; and women in technology. The deadline for entries is 12 August, and the awards ceremony will take place during the Production and Post Forum in November. For more information or to request an entry form, email: jane.maguire@mb-insight.com.
EDITORIAL Broadcast TECH Editor George Bevir, 020 3033 4207 Broadcast Editor Chris Curtis Production Editor Dominic Needham Group Art Director Peter Gingell Contributor Matthew Campelli SALES Sales Manager Sonya Jacobs, 020 3638 5057 Group Commercial Director Alison Pitchford, 020 3638 5058 Business Development Director Patricia Arescy, 020 3638 5063 Conference Director Charlotte Wheeler, 07702 381809 Media Business Insight, Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton Street,London EC2A 4HJ. Broadcast TECH is published by MBI, publisher of Broadcast
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July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 5
News & Views
ith so much good work on our screens over the past few months, we thought it was about time that we shone a light on the vital contribution of UK post facilities, so we’ve devoted the bulk of this issue of Broadcast TECH to a series of extended Creative Reviews. We asked some of the leading facilities to pick a recent project they were most proud of and then reveal all about the work they did. So over the next few pages, editors, colourists, dubbing mixers and their colleagues lift the lid on the tools and techniques they used to cut, grade, mix and polish some of this year’s best programmes. george.bevir@broadcastnow.co.uk
INDUSTRY NEWS
NEWS & VIEWS
BBC goes live with 4K for Glasgow The BBC will achieve the world’s first live Ultra HD (4K) production over IP at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Unlike the broadcaster’s behind-closed-doors experiments of Ultra HD transmission of three World Cup matches, screens in Glasgow will allow the public to watch some of the events in 4K. The Commonwealth Games trials will also allow the BBC to introduce a 4K live IP production element for the first time, using a suite of technologies dubbed ‘IP Studio’. BBC Research & Development, which is leading the trials, will produce a series of Ultra HD outside broadcasts and conduct a separate test taking the live multicamera feed from trackside to a viewing environment. Just as with the World Cup trials, there will be DTT and IP distribution of the 4K coverage, in conjunction with Arqiva and BT, to the BBC and partner sites in London and Salford.
4G streaming trial
Commonwealth Games: events will be screened to the public in 4K “The concept is to introduce software and IP into the overall chain so it can be used alongside existing technology like DTT,” said BBC R&D controller Matthew Postgate. “IP will enable us to be more flexible with services we already produce, and introduce new kinds in the longer term.” This greater flexibility of infrastructure will enable the BBC to deliver “a 4K service to people around high-volume, concurrent events over DTT and, equally, 4K on-demand over IP,” he added.
4K signals at frame rates of 55p from four Sony F55 cameras will be taken straight into specially configured PCs containing video processing cards, for conversion into IP. The data will then be fed over Virgin Media’s dark fibre network to an IPoperated production gallery built by the BBC at the Glasgow Science Centre. Within the exhibition centre, members of the public will be invited to see the results encoded in H.264 and HEVC, the pro-
BBC R&D will use the Games to broadcast live footage over 4G in collaboration with mobile network EE, manufacturer Huawei and wireless telecoms product and services firm Qualcomm. The project is part of the broadcaster’s efforts to overcome problems associated with streaming, such as buffering. The R&D team will also demonstrate its work with University College London (UCL) on a live virtual reality broadcast. A panoramic, 360 degree video camera and a 3D audio microphone will be placed into the SSE Hydro Stadium in Glasgow, which will stream live feeds to an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in the Glasgow Science Centre.
posed compression format to the home. A sound mixer and commentator for the output will be based in London so that production collaboration over IP can be tested across several different locations.
BBC offers to share VoD expertise with C4 The BBC is ready to discuss sharing with Channel 4 its resources and expertise around developing video-on-demand technology in the UK. In January, C4 called on the corporation to partner with other PSBs to develop and improve content distribution platforms. BBC director general Tony Hall has now said he would be “very happy” to sit down with C4 chief executive David Abraham to talk through the proposal. Hall extended the offer during a Culture, Media and Sport Com-
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4oD: developed in isolation mittee (CMSC) hearing this week, where he was asked about the idea of top-slicing the licence fee. C4 is unwilling to accept direct public funding because of the
danger that it may compromise its independence, but it made a nuanced case around co-developing technology in its submission to the CMSC’s BBC inquiry. It said this would save PSBs time and money, which could be put back into content budgets. “The BBC spends many millions of the licence fee on research and development, much of which is focused on its online proposition and iPlayer, while other PSBs develop broadly similar propositions in isolation,” C4 said in its five-page submission.
It is not yet clear when Hall and Abraham will sit down, or how formal the discussion will be, but C4 was upbeat about the development. A spokesman said: “We welcome discussions with the BBC about working together to share expertise and resources in areas such as technology and distribution. As we have made clear, C4 is not seeking public money to fund content, as we believe the independence of our commercially funded model is a better way to deliver our unique remit.”
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Mounting points for V-Lock or Anton Bauer battery mounting plates
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Easy to access standard broadcast connections, no custom cables
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Removable handle with multiple mounting points
XLR connectors with phantom power for professional external microphones
HD-SDI video out and 12V power for monitoring
Compatible with quick release tripod base plates
Unique user upgradeable sensor and lens mount turret
Built in rail mounts for large lenses, matte boxes and more
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Product NEWS
In BRIeF Apple updates ProRes Apple has launched ProRes 4444 XQ, which it described as the highestquality version of ProRes, with a data rate “to preserve the detail in the highdynamicrange imagery generated by today’s highest quality digital image sensors”.
Fujifilm launches SSD Fujifilm has launched its HQPro Series 2.5inch 7.0mm Solid State Drive (SSD). The HQPro Series features 19nm MLC (multilevel cell) NAND and is available in 60GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB.
Upgrade for Mocha Imagineer Systems has released Mocha Plus, replacing its Mocha AE product. Chief mar keting officer Ross Shain said: “Adobe Creative Cloud custom ers now have a clear distinction between Mocha AE CC and Imagineer’s upgraded version.”
Adder launches KVM Adder Technology has launched three new products: the Adder Link Infinity 1002 digital KVM extender, which adds redun dant network operation and network teaming; the CCS4 Pro switch; and the XDVI Pro DL extender, for switching between disparate systems.
AG-AC90A unveiled Panasonic has released a suc cessor to its AVCCAM AGAC90 camcorder. The AGAC90A has the same three 1/4.7type CMOS sensors, but also includes two new recording options: PM mode, which captures video at 1280 x 720 and 8Mbps and is intended to support uses such as sport analysis; and CS mode, which records at 720 x 480 and 3.5Mbps, for IP usage.
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Avid releases new modules for Mediacentral Platform Avid has announced the avail ability of new modules for its MediaCentral Platform. Introduced at NAB earlier this year, MediaCentral sits at the heart of Avid’s range of tools for editing, distributing and storing video and audio content. New Avid Media Suite modules that operate on the platform include Media Director, Media Index and Media Distribute – all of which are available to pur chase now. Media Director has been designed to speed up filebased workflows in reality TV, post production and broadcast envi ronments. Avid said it is “ideal for productions that command high volumes of footage”. Media Index accelerates and extends file search and retrieval across multiple Interplay pro duction systems, regardless of where the media is stored. An “optimised, highperfor mance search engine” provides
Avid: MediaCentral modules include Media Director, Index and Distribute functionality to find clips and sequences across multiple data bases and global facilities. Media Distribute is the new name for Interplay Pulse. Avid said it would help to simplify, accelerate and unify distribution of content to multiple channels and devices. Meanwhile, Avid has released software updates for its S6 and System 5 control surfaces.
The System 5 version 6.0 update provides full support and integration with Dolby Atmos, including 9.1 panning of bed channels and integrated monitor control of the Dolby Rendering and Mastering Unit. The S6 version 1.2 software update includes the ability to map channels onto the surface from any Euconconnected digital audio workstation.
The Foundry unveils Colorway system The Foundry has launched Color way, an application for making changes to 3D objects and scenes. The company said the software would “accelerate the creative design process” by giving users access to a simple environment where they can develop looks of 3D objects and scenes that can be shared with clients. A Colorway kit that allows users to import and export their files into The Foundry’s 3D mod elling, painting and rendering software Modo was released earlier this month (11 July).
Colorway: trial version available Compatibility with Maxon’s Cinema4D will be available soon, the Foundry said. “The process of creating a final look in 3D can be slow and frus trating for designers and clients,”
said product manager Matt Brealey. “Simple changes involve roundtripping back into a 3D application for time consuming re rendering. With Colorway, these barriers are removed, giving artists the ability to make almost limitless realtime changes to an image.” The software includes Color way Presenter, a free desktop app that lets clients pick the images they prefer and make realtime changes. A trial version of the software is available now, ahead of a com mercial release later this year.
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FAcilitiES NEWS
Prime Focus creates global VFX giant with dNeg deal
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Silverglade Post has installed another 128TB of Avid Isis storage, taking its total storage capacity to 256TB for 15 HD offline editing suites. The kit was sourced and installed by Root6. Silverglade has also upgraded its grading suite to Baselight version 4.4.
Leavesden expands
Mr Selfridge: Double Negative’s TV division produced VFX for the ITV series diversify the business and to expand its global footprint for some time. We looked at other ways of raising finance to expand, but the Prime Focus deal was a clear winner for us. “Our TV division, which has just completed its first year, is absolutely rocking and rolling. I am very excited about TV and think it will soon erupt. Vancouver opens up other opportunities.”
Reliance MediaWorks Prime Focus has joined forces with India-based Reliance MediaWorks, which has paid around £12m for a 30.2% stake in the group. Under the deal, Prime Focus takes on the firm’s facilities and studios business. The deal gives the combined entity a presence in 20 locations, including the UK, India and the US.
Gorilla expands with GloWorks facility Gorilla Group is expanding with the addition of a 40edit suite facility at Cardiff Bay. The Cardiffbased postpro duction company has started equipping the premises at the GloWorks creative industries centre, which it hopes to open by September. ITV’s recent exit from Culver house Cross provided the impetus for the move and Gorilla also intends to vacate its prem ises at the facility, by the end of July. It will retain its Cathedral Road and Penarth Road facilities,
Silverglade adds to Isis
GT Academy: starting in September along with its presence in Soho via The Joint, which it acquired last year. “GloWorks started off as an attempt at consolidation but has ended up being an expansion,”
said Gorilla managing director Rich Moss. “We need to service more of the kind of productions that often need eight or nine suites. We also need a 24/7 working environment.” As well as an eightbay server room, a Baselight grading suite and 5.1 dubbing suites, the facil ity will be Gorilla’s centre for AS11 file delivery, with dedicated space and kit for QC reviews. The first project to be based at Gorilla’s GloWorks base will be reality series GT Academy, from early September.
Warner Bros has begun construction work on three new multipurpose sound stages at its Leavesden site, including one 35,000 sq ft stage and two 17,000 sq ft buildings. The expansion, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, will take the studios’ total number of sound stages to 13.
Pinewood wins appeal Pinewood Shepperton has been granted planning permission for the £200m expansion of its Buckingham shire site. The decision clears the way for Pinewood to double in size, which the facilities group said would “address the clear need for additional capacity in the UK”. The 1 million sq ft develop ment will include 12 large studios and stages with supporting workshops and production offices.
Flix opens Space site Manchester post firm Flix is to open another facility at The Space Project. Flix will operate five edit suites and an ingest area at the new 360,000 sq ft drama and TV studio complex, which opened in May. The initial focus will be on picture post, with capacity for data wrangling, ingest, offline and online.
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neWS & VIeWS
Double Negative’s (DNeg) merger with Prime Focus World’s creative services subsidiary has created a visual effects giant with around 4,500 employees and a joint order book worth £88m. The combined VFX business will trade under the Double Nega tive brand and will be led by DNeg’s current management team of managing director Alex Hope and chief executive Matthew Holben. DNeg will have a minor ity share of the newly formed business, while Prime Focus World will take an 80% stake. Prime Focus World is based in Mumbai, India. Double Negative has a presence in London and Singapore, and the deal is expected to speed up the Soho firm’s charge into the tax haven of Vancouver – which cofounder and chief executive Matthew Holben believes could boost its burgeoning TV division. Holben said: “We have har boured a desire to expand and
In BRIeF
news & views
people
Scott Holmgren
Matthew Shell
Fred Tay
Mark Cooke
Clear Cut Pictures
Pebble Beach Systems
Doghouse Post Production
Ross Video
Managing director Scott Holmgren has resigned from post-production company Clear Cut Pictures. Holmgren, who joined the London facility less than two years ago, has left to work with his wife on her e-commerce business. However, he did not rule out a return to the post-production sector at some point in the future. He said: “It’s a great company and team and I wish them well.” Clear Cut has begun the search for a new managing director.
Matthew Shell has joined Pebble Beach Systems as proposals and solutions manager. He joins the automation and channel-in-a-box systems provider from Imagine Communications, where he held product marketing and business development roles for products including video server, storage and integrated channel playout solutions. He has also worked with Philips Broadcast, Grass Valley, Leitch and Tektronix.
Doghouse Post Production has appointed Fred Tay to the role of senior colourist and VFX specialist. Tay will work alongside company director, colourist and online editor Mark Richard Adams, who said he was thrilled by the appointment. Tay joins Doghouse from Big Bang Post Production, where he worked for the past nine years on genres including natural history, documentary, factual and children’s programmes.
Mark Cooke has joined Ross Video in the role of technical sales specialist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. EMEA director of sales David Dowling said: “Our EMEA team has grown by a factor of 10 over the past couple of years and that should send a strong message to the market about our intentions. We now have one of the leading EMEA sales and technical teams in the industry.” Before joining Ross, Cooke worked for Tyrell.
Daniele Siragusano and Ram Krishna Tripathi Samaveda
Adam Glasman and Rob Pizzey
Dean Sinacola
Ralf Schimmel
The Space Project
Lawo
The Pie Factory studio manager Dean Sinacola has joined new Manchester facility The Space Project. He will be stage manager at the recently opened drama and TV production hub in Gorton, and will be responsible for managing 55,000 sq ft of production space across five sound stages. Sinacola started his career as a runner at Manchester post facility Sumners before rising to head of production. He worked at The Pie Factory for eight years.
Studio Hamburg chief executive Ralf Schimmel has joined Lawo as director of global sales. In his new post, he is responsible for the strategic orientation and co-ordination of worldwide sales activities for all products, systems and solutions from the Lawo group of companies. The company said his appointment coincides with the expansion of its international activities, audio, video, software and IP networking technology product portfolio.
Goldcrest
FilmLight Daniele Siragusano (pictured) and Ram Krishna Tripathi Samaveda have joined FilmLight to provide workflow information, consultancy and training to clients who use its Baselight grading system. Siragusano joins FilmLight from German post facility DVE (Digital Video & Effects). Colourist and editor Samaveda is working towards a doctorate in colour perception and management.
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Goldcrest has confirmed its recruitment of Company 3 colourists Adam Glasman (pictured) and Rob Pizzey. The duo have joined Goldcrest’s burgeoning picture post department, which includes former Company 3 colleagues chief technology director Laurent Treherne, commercial director Martin Poultney and head of production Rob Farris. Glasman and Pizzey will work at Goldcrest’s Lexington Street facility.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
AuSTRALIA
ABC selects Imagine for national router upgrade Imagine Communications has won a contract to replace all video routers in the television service of the Australian Broadcast Corporation. The national broadcaster will replace its existing routers with infrastructure based on Imagine’s Platinum large-scale router system and its range of facility signal distribution functionality, including
fibre input switching, audio management and integrated multiviewers. The contract also includes “hundreds” of Magellan control panels for accessing the routing platform. Imagine Communications senior vice-president for Asia Joe Khodeir said: “Routing on a
national scale can be a complex technical challenge, and this will be one of the largest router projects of its kind undertaken in the southern hemisphere. “The extensive scalability, powerful integrated capabilities and forwardlooking design of Platinum routing solutions make them the ideal choice for broadcasters taking a long-term view of their operations.”
BAhRAIN
NEWS & VIEWS
Viz Mosart systems to power Al Arab launch 24-hour news channel Al Arab, which will launch later this year, is being built around two Viz Mosart studio automation systems from Vizrt. Viz Mosart will be used to help deliver a consistent user experience and workflow to help staff who move between the channel’s studios. The automation system in Al Arab’s larger studio, which will house a 24-hour rolling news live broadcast, will control equipment from firms including Snell, Sony, Calrec, Avid and Vizrt.
The Viz Mosart system will integrate closely with Avid iNews and the LSB Virtual Studio Management switching and management system. The second studio will be used for news features and packages to insert into the rolling news output, where Viz Mosart will interface with the Avid Airspeed 5000 editing environment and Vizrt graphics. It is the first major sale of Viz Mosart licences since newscast automation solutions specialist Mosart became part of the Vizrt group.
KuWAIT
KBS installs Calrec’s Omega audio consoles Kuwait Broadcast Services (KBS) has installed two Calrec digital audio consoles in its Kuwait City facility. The broadcaster’s Studio 8, which is dedicated to sport programming, and Studio 11, which broadcasts classical music programming, have taken delivery of Calrec’s Omega console. Each of KBS’s Omega consoles contains 24 faders in a 40-fader frame to allow for future expansion. The consoles can process up to 160 channels each, due to Calrec’s
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Bluefin high-density digital signal processing technology. Italian integrator ARET Video and Audio Engineering and Kuwait Cable Vision provided the consoles, workflow customisation, training and support following a governmentissued public tender process. “KBS is a flagship customer for us that is taking advantage of our consoles’ reliability to advance itself in a budding broadcast market,” said Calrec Middle East sales manager Anthony Harrison.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Creative Review From finishing a reality show deep in the heart of the Welsh countryside to recreating 50 years of TV looks for a celebration of BBC2, UK post-production companies are adept at turning their hands to any kind of project. Over the next 13 pages, we celebrate the work of some of the leading facilities.
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July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 15
IN-DEPTH
s s a l c r e t s a m
CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
24: Live Another Day Encore London and Hollywood maintained 24’s stylised look for the latest series of the action drama Post Encore London/ Hollywood Client TCFTV UK Productions Brief Provide dailies and post-production services for the 12-part, Londonbased series of the longrunning drama. Encore London looked after digital dailies, including ingest, synching, grading, deliverables and archiving the original camera material, as well as VFX pulls and ADR. Encore Hollywood was responsible for the online edit, grade and VFX. Key people in London Head of production dailies Jon Gray; dailies ops/colourists Darren Rae, Michael Davis and James Slattery; dailies producers Alex Parrett and John Bush; ADRs Adam Davidson and Darren Jennings; VFX exec producer Meg Guidon; VFX supervisor Grahame Andrew; online and VFX editor Adam Eddy Key people in Hollywood Online editor Heydar Adel; series colourist Kevin Kirwan; postproduction supervisor Janelle Lopez TX July, Sky 1
P
redominately filmed with Arri Alexa cameras in Log C ProRes 422 (HQ), using additional AVCHD and GoPro cameras for pick-up shots, each day’s footage was delivered to Encore London on drives, ranging anywhere from three to six hours of content. Files were then ingested and processed, with Rec 709 LUT colour applied initially using Colorfront On-Set Dailies. Footage was then synched and metadata added before four deliverable formats were rendered: Avid DNX36 for editorial, ISO DVD for production, QuickTime for DoP Jeffrey Mygatt’s iPad reviews, and MP4 files, which were uploaded to the Dax Platform for collaborative review. At the start of each day, DNX36 material was copied to shuttle drives and delivered to editorial, then pushed to Encore Hollywood via Aspera. Original source material was archived to LTO-5 tapes and shipped to Encore Hollywood at regular intervals. Having received the offline edit, senior editor Heydar Adel, who worked on all eight previous seasons of 24, conformed the episodes using Avid Symphony to create a cut with high-resolution source footage. He then added secondary fixes and effects such as gun muzzle flashes using Adobe After Effects and integrated shots from the VFX department. The show’s trademark split screen added a layer of complexity to each edit, but Adel was still able to complete the first pass in about five hours, with another three to four hours for VFX. Content was then routed to senior colourist Kevin
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Kirwan for grading on a Linuxbased DaVinci Resolve system. Having viewed a selection of previous episodes at the outset of the project, Kirwan, with additional guidance from Mygatt, maintained the show’s well-established and stylised look. Unlike more traditional programmes where a colourist can ripple a change through a scene, split-screen scenes required Kirwan to colour the panelled shots cut by cut – a complex process that produces visually striking results. At the end of each session, files were sent to London for notes from Mygatt and the producers, with Lopez providing feedback in the bay. Both Kirwan and Mygatt used calibrated, consumer-grade Panasonic plasma televisions for monitoring at 1080p. Once colour correction was complete, a process that took on average 12 to 13 hours, the episode was sent back to Adel for final titling and graphics, including the show’s clock counting down in real-time. With the bulk of the VFX composites created by Encore Hollywood, VFX exec producer Meg
‘The show’s trademark split screen added a layer of complexity to each edit’ Guidon worked alongside VFX supervisor Grahame Andrew to co-ordinate the early stages of production and as a contact point in London for Encore Hollywood. Adam Eddy worked with Andrew and used Nuke to design a thermal camera effect. He also stabilised and cleaned up the helicam footage.
Sound system Encore London handled ADR, primarily using Pro Tools HD. Associate producer Ashley Contino and sound editor Pembrooke Andrews supervised recording sessions in London from Los Angeles using various combinations of ISDN, SourceConnect, phone patch and Skype. An Electrovoice RE20 mic was used to catch the loud shouts and energetic performances that define the show.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Born In The Wild Splice had to bring together various formats to achieve a unique look for each episode of the doc series
B
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ORIGINAL
GRADED
IN-DEPTH
orn In The Wild was shot on a variety of cameras including Red, Sony F55 and PDW-F800, Canon 5D (below) and GoPro. It also required an eclectic mix of archive. Splice head of grading Chris Rodgers found the challenge in the grade was working to the strengths of each format, while matching them as closely as possible. He used various techniques to give each episode its own distinct look and set a colour palette for each location and animal. For example, in the elephants episode, he used a film display rendering transform when converting from Sony S-Log to Rec709 to avoid the vivid colours he felt were associated with video. This shifted the primary colours so that electric green grass swung towards yellow, and royal blue skies became more cyan. For the orangutan episode, the challenge was to retain detail with material shot under jungle canopy. Although there was bright sunshine, only dappled light made it to the ground, which meant the location was difficult to expose. Rodgers decided to grade for the subject of the shot, but in doing this the highlights would burn out. He then recovered detail in the highlights using Baselight’s compositing features; isolating highlights and then reintroducing detail from the ungraded image if necessary. The multi-paste function in Baselight was invaluable because it allowed Rodgers to copy and paste grades from Channel 4’s version to the PBS version, or vice-versa,
reducing the time needed to grade the two. Adam Dolniak completed the online edit using Avid DS. One of his tasks was to stabilise the cinematic drone shots and wire camera shots. He achieved this by using optical stabilising in the Boris image restoration toolkit to smooth out bumps without compromising the movement of the camera. Sapphire Rack Defocus blurs were used to complement light leak transitions into and out of GFX, maps and archive. The archive used was at various frame rates, which created noticeable duplicated and dropped frames when completing conversions in Avid Media Composer. To reduce the artefacts, the footage had to be run through a Carbon Coder.
‘Each episode was given its own distinct look, and a colour palette set for each location and animal’ Dubbing mixer Joe Cochrane crafted the mixes in ProTools 11, building the environment for each location using supplied wild track sound, which he layered with extra background atmosphere. The show featured male and female narrators, so it was vital to get a good balance between the two to ensure a transparent mix. ProTools 11 offline bounce features were essential in recutting and reconforming the material for the US.
Post Splice Client Windfall Films Brief Complete the picture and audio post-production of the four-part documentary series about the weird and wonderful births of elephants, kangaroos, dolphins and orangutans for Channel 4 and PBS. Key people Colourist Chris Rodgers; senior online editor Adam Dolniak; dubbing mixer Joe Cochrane; post producer Romana Waliczek TX June, Channel 4
July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 17
CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
CCTV: Caught On Camera
IN-DEPTH
Molinare dealt with different types of footage to bring to life stories from both sides of the camera
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he three-part series was a complex project, largely due to the subject matter. “Huge amounts” of CCTV footage needed to sit neatly alongside the observational and talking-head elements, which were shot on Canon XF305 and 5D cameras. The series told stories from both sides of the CCTV cameras, which meant that sound recordings often switched from surveillance footage and police radio comms to location recordings as the actuality played out. For dubbing mixer Steve Speed to create a smooth and accomplished soundtrack, a lot of time went into the restoration, equalisation and balancing of the various source dialogue and sync recordings. This allowed him to give full range to the mixing of the music, to enhance the drama at times and, when needed, to treat the stories with the necessary subtlety. Because of the large amount of footage involved, senior editor
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Laurence Thripp ran two Avid Media Composers in parallel. One suite concentrated on subtitles and the blurring of faces, while the other focused on title design, graphics and other traditional aspects of the online work. The two sequences were then combined to create the final master for transmission. Using a Baselight grading system and Sony BVM-F250 OLED monitor, colourist Andrew Daniel and the production team initially set about finding a consistent look for the CCTV footage. They also wanted to capture the natural look of the viewing rooms: dark and voyeuristic. For the ‘Towers’ episode, which focuses on the 24-hour-aday monitoring of residents of Southampton’s 19 council-owned tower blocks,
Post Molinare Client Blast! Films Brief Picture and audio post-production for the three-part series about surveillance workers and those they monitor. Key people Dubbing mixer Steve Speed; senior editor Laurence Thripp; colourist Andrew Daniel TX June, Channel 4
‘The saturation of individual colours was cranked up to draw attention to particular locations’ the production team wanted the GVs of the buildings to appear as warm, filmic and slick as possible. The same went for the director-shot footage of a lift. For this section, Daniel decided to create a darker, more “urban sci-fi” look. He brought out the texture of the lifts by introducing pockets of contrast into the panelled walls. In other episodes, Daniel composited shots of the sky to overcome the challenges of some particularly blown-out skies. He also cranked up the saturation of individual colours to draw the viewers’ attention to particular locations, such as pushing the reds and knocking back all other saturation for scenes set in a red-light district.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Enchanted Kingdom Technicolor used its colour grading expertise to deliver a stylised look on this ambitious 3D nature film Post Technicolor Client BBC Earth Films and Reliance Entertainment Brief Carry out the grade, conform and produce deliverables for what BBC Earth Films and Reliance Entertainment describe as “the most ambitious 3D nature film to date”, creating an immersive 3D experience with a stylised look to differentiate the seven locations where it was shot. Key people Senior colour supervisor Peter Doyle; stereographer Pierre Routhier; DI editor Grace Lan; project support Niklas Aldergren; DI producer Begonia Lopez TX TBC
Idris Elba: narrator of the 3D film
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ith a cinema release and broadcast TX planned, the brief called for a stylised yet immersive look, which required an extensive period of colour design. Senior colour supervisor Peter Doyle, who has handled digital colour grading on films including The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter films, says the film’s inspiring African images and locations provided a chance to employ some of the most advanced imageprocessing techniques available to film-makers. The digital assets came from 16 different sources, ranging
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from 8K footage from a Nikon D800 to 5K Red Epic content, delivered in a variety of forms – from bracketed to time-lapse and extreme high-speed. Once Technicolor had received the rushes, all the data was indexed and databased, conformed and debayered. It was then 3D colourand depth-matched, graded in 3D and rendered. With 30% of the source 8K stereo bracketed time-lapse, data and render management were of paramount importance. The core elements of Technicolor’s toolset were its Baselight grading system and Capture One software for Raw conversion, rendering and asset management. “The ultra-high resolutions put greater pressure on the quality of filters and colour transform to maintain best-quality image processing,” says Doyle. “Designing an extremesaturation, hyper-realistic look
‘Designing an extreme saturation, hyper-realistic look meant we hit the limits of working in RGB’ Peter Doyle, Technicolor meant we hit the limits of working in RGB. We therefore colour-equalised in RGB, graded in LAB and converted direct to XYZ. This gave the colours an intensity and lushness that would have been extremely difficult to achieve in RGB. It also allowed us to finesse the control of dark greens and yellows, which was essential to building a convincing ‘jungle’ look.” Doyle says the look of the grade also put enormous pressure on the accuracy of the left/right colour and depth match, as well as challenges encountered shooting 3D on location.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Welcome To Rio Clear Cut’s challenge was to bring uniformity to films shot on a variety of cameras in different environments
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Stylish subtitles In the online edit, Dan Preston-Bear was freed from the shackles of traditional subtitling methods, opting for captions inspired by comic-style speech bubbles that flow naturally around the screen.
Post Clear Cut Pictures Client Keo Films Brief Complete picture and audio postproduction for the latest addition to the Welcome to… strand, which reveals what it is like to live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Key people Colourist Enge Gray; senior dubbing mixer Ben Newth; head of online Dan Preston-Bear; sound assistant James Evans TX May, BBC2
Newth said that iZotope RX3 and Waves X plug-ins were used to deal with some of these problems, and he was particularly happy with the results achieved using iZotope’s de-clipper. “It was important that whatever fixes were applied, it resulted in a natural sound that didn’t sound like it had been tampered with,” he adds. When the dialogue was off-mic, Newth mixed in the radio mics for intelligibility. He then drew out clicks, notch equalised and added a short reverb to try to add distance to the voice and mimic the sound quality of a boom mic. In scenes where only radio mics were used,
‘It was important that whatever fixes were applied, it resulted in a natural sound’ Ben Newth it was often the opposite mic, with its wider perspective and less scratchiness, that sounded better. Scenes were also helped by careful selection of atmospheres and spot FX that supported the recorded sound and emphasised the storytelling. For preparation, sound assistant James Evans sought out favela sounds and created some himself.
July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 21
IN-DEPTH
olourist Enge Gray felt that the subject matter and feelgood nature of the films warranted a warm appearance with an injection of Brazilian samba, so he created different looks from test shots and settled on a saturated, warm look using a palette of strong reds, yellows and pinks. Gray’s biggest challenge was adding a sense of uniformity to the films as they were shot over the course of a year in various situations using different cameras and in different lighting conditions. The standout aerial shots were acquired using an octocopter and were quite “stopped down”. The Nucoda Film Master and its DVO toolset were “outstanding” in helping to get the aerial images in harmony with the rest of the material without adding noise. Gray was able to push the image just that bit further than would usually be the case and then reduce or eradicate any noise that did creep in, to create the desired look. Senior dubbing mixer Ben Newth wanted to use as much of the natural sync sound as possible to maintain the show’s integrity. He prefers boom and gun mics to be used over lapel and radio mics – not just because of their sound quality, but also because they can provide more audio information for the listener. “They give us a perspective that, by their nature, radio mics rarely can. This quality of sound really helps the storytelling,” he says. Capturing location sound can present problems, and this project was no exception. Rustling, off-mic recordings, the innate problems with audio captured by GoPro cameras and recordings from incredibly loud and bassy street parties resulted in distortion and clipping.
CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Happy Valley DaVinci Resolve and Baselight were used to give the drama a natural feel and a dynamic, nuanced look
IN-DEPTH
Post Dock10 Client Red Production Company Brief Complete picture and audio post-production of the six-part crime thriller in which a staged kidnapping spirals out of control and a rural police officer finds herself at the centre of a series of brutal crimes. Key people Senior colourist Jamie Perry; head of audio Mark Briscoe TX May, BBC1
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hot in and around Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire with an Arri Alexa at ProRes 444, daily rushes were delivered to MediaCityUK on Sony SxS cards. The production team decided not to use a digital imaging technician on location, opting instead for Dock10’s MediaSilo-based dailies upload service. The rushes were then copied onto Isilon nearline storage and LTO6 for deep archive storage. The native ProRes images had a milky look due to the Log-C encoding, so the rushes were processed in DaVinci Resolve, which applied a natural appearance and encoded the footage to DNx36, the working codec for the assembly and fine cut. The final sequences were graded on Baselight 2 by senior colourist Jamie Parry, who used layers, mattes and shape tracking in addition to subtle effects such as ‘camera shake’ to bring a dynamic, nuanced look to the programme. For one particular scene, in which a character was hiding in a cellar, it was important to give a sense of the darkness without ever losing the actor’s performance. Tracked shapes were used to darken down one side of the actor’s face, and subtle shaping enhances the direction and fall off of the light. Head of audio Mark Briscoe worked closely with director Euros Lyn on the sound design to ensure the gritty audio complemented the dynamic visuals. Additional location recordings were used to create a sound mix with an edge, and helped to keep the ambience of the valley as authentic as possible.
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ORIGINAL
The design for the flashback and retrospective scenes was achieved by drafting in the temp score music and working with the sound design so the two married. The last stage of the workflow involved the director and executive producer attending the final mix and viewing the finished version of graded pictures and audio mix on a domestic monitor, to replicate, as closely as possible, the viewing experience at home.
GRADED
‘For a scene in which a character was hiding in a cellar, it was important to give a sense of the darkness without ever losing the actor’s performance’
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Last year’s winners WITH THANKS TO 2013 SPONSORS
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Production Base Supported by
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EDITOR
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SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT
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Creative review MasterClass
Harry And Paul: Story Of The Twos Recreating the different looks of programming from the entire history of BBC2 was a major challenge Post The Farm Client Balloon Brief Picture and audio post-production for the one-off biography of BBC2 that formed part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the channel. Shot in the studio and on location with an Arri Alexa, the programme parodies in the region of 50 different shows and there are 150 of BBC2’s favourite presenters, actors, comics and politicians on parade, most of them portrayed by either Harry Enfield or Paul Whitehouse. Key people Audio engineer Stewart Marshall; colourist Perry Gibbs; senior FX editor Barney Jordan; editor Dan Evans TX May, BBC2
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he main challenge for The Farm’s creative team was to emulate the different looks used throughout the entire history of BBC2. Free experimental reign was given across the project, and problems were created on purpose to better recreate the old styles of recording. The footage was conformed into a series of copies, including HD, DVD, VHS, composite Beta and component Beta. Effects were then layered and blended by colourist Perry Gibbs using Nucoda Film Master (pictured below) to create the many different period looks for the 90-minute spoof. Barney Jordan used Avid DS to add film artefacts such as scratches and grains to correlate with the time period sent up by each sketch. Time was taken to research, in detail, each original title sequence to ensure that the embedded FX matched the originals from BBC2’s programming history. Jordan recreated the exact title fonts, graphics, idents and logos and then animated them with new shots that enhanced the organic guise of the programme. These were then embedded within the pre-grade before Gibbs selected certain shots to integrate into the period look. Jordan also had to recreate entire studios for the gameshow scenes, which included rebuilding background and floor GFX and specific name badges for
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Harry and Paul’s characters. Dan Evans completed the online edit with Avid Symphony. Stewart Marshall, who mixed the audio with Pro Tools 11, used original tape sound, the Vintage Filter plug-in from Air and lots of compression to reproduce the sounds of the periods featured. The war documentary sketch, for example, required mixing stilted repeated sounds to emulate how shows like that were made in the past.
‘Barney Jordan used Avid DS to add scratches and grains to correlate with the time period’ One of Marshall’s biggest challenges was to make the audio sound dated. As recording and mixing has changed so much over five decades, he used archive and YouTube references to create an audio template for each year of BBC2’s life.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
The Driver Colourist Ross Baker’s challenge on the series was to ensure it didn’t end up looking too grim up North
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ORIGINAL
GRADED
ORIGINAL
GRADED
IN-DEPTH
olourist Ross Baker took on the challenge of working to director Jamie Payne’s style, which favoured natural light over a more conventional look, all while keeping the overall tone subtle enough for its home on BBC1. “The key was to not to leave the drama looking too dark or moody,” says Baker. “We really needed to avoid the feeling that it’s drab in the North, but at the same time, we had to portray David Morrissey’s character Vince’s monotonous life and the reason why he needed a little excitement.” Director of photography David Luther used an Arri Alexa in 2K Log C, which Baker says provided the latitude to push the images in different directions and allowed him to enhance key areas of the image while sticking to the overall “moody” look. The opening scene of the first episode called for a “bright autumn day with deep blue skies overhead and fat, scuddy clouds,” which Baker says could have been tricky to achieve anywhere in England, let alone Manchester. “Jamie, David and I wanted to keep the scene intense and slightly on the edge of cool greens, but within the brief of a ‘bright autumn day’. I used a custom LUT as a layer tool to bring in midtone curves, which added to the contrast. I then set about pushing cooler colours into the mid tones and warmth into the highlights to achieved the desired look.” Using the LUT as a layer tool instead of an input or final profile tool provided greater flexibility, Baker adds.
‘The key was to not leave the drama looking too dark or moody’ Ross Baker Another notable scene takes place inside a police interrogation room. “Jamie was very keen on making this as bright and clinical as possible without losing skin tones. Again, using keys and various shapes to rotoscope the faces, we pushed the brightness of the room without losing highlight detail and skin tones,” says Baker.
Post Halo Post Client Red Productions and Highfield Pictures for the BBC Brief Picture post production of the 3 x 60-minute drama series about a frustrated minicab driver who tries to turn his life around but makes a terrible decision. Key people Ross Baker TX TBC, BBC1
Making a match One of the biggest challenges was matching footage from a Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera and an Arri Alexa, both of which were used to capture David Morrissey’s reactions during a driving scene. “The Blackmagic camera worked perfectly in tight spaces, but during the chase scenes it was hard to achieve the perfect exposure with such a range of variable light,” says Baker. “[The Blackmagic] sometimes lacked the range and depth needed to match the Alexa. To bring the two into line, we used shapes to track areas to defocus or bring up key reflections in the rear-view mirror.”
July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 27
CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
BritCam Footage in a variety of formats and frame rates had to be seamlessly combined by the Prime Focus team
IN-DEPTH
Post Prime Focus Client Leopard Films Brief Provide a fully integrated, robust workflow based around Prime Focus’s datamanagement system Rapta through all aspects of post to final deliverables. Key people Colourist Alex Gascoigne; online editor Andrew Penfold; senior dubbing mixer Phitz Hearne; dubbing mixer Liam Milner; post producer Charlie Jordan TX April, Pick
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he show uses mobile body cameras to capture footage of the situations experienced by the UK’s frontline services, including taxi drivers, bailiffs, first responders and regional police forces. As a result, the rushes came in many different formats and frame rates. Rapta, which creates simultaneous back-ups of footage to multiple storage locations, was used to consolidate and organise all the files prior to editing and final post. Prime Focus says the system was “invaluable” for the volume and variety of acquisition formats used in the production. Some footage was shot with GoPro cameras (below). The production also used CCTV footage and other forms of user-generated content (UGC), while other rushes were shot with a Canon XF305. The varying formats and UGC proved challenging from a workflow perspective as a range of aspect ratios and frame rates had to be accommodated. With the material varying in quality and type, the full Symphony toolset was used for blurring and frame resizing. Alex Gascoigne used Baselight to highlight the action and create a sympathetic and consistent grade across the images. Andrew Penfold, who completed the online, says: “It was important that we delivered this unique format of footage in an honest fashion, protecting the public, while keeping the integrity of the real-life situations.” But it was the audio, which was often indistinct due to the nature of the recordings, that presented the greatest challenge to the team.
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Senior dubbing mixer Phitz Hearne says: “A large aspect of this programme is based around verbal communication, some of which was sensitive in nature, so the challenge was to ensure that discretion was maintained without affecting the revealing content. “The director wanted to use as little on-screen subtitles as possible, so we spent a lot of time cleaning and noise-reducing the sync with our bespoke toolset.”
‘It was important that we delivered this unique format of footage in an honest fashion’ Andrew Penfold Britcam was the first time Prime Focus had used a toolset comprising iZotope RX3 with Cedar Dialogue Noise Suppression and extensive Waves Restoration plug-ins.
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The Million Pound Drop Creating a near-live viewing experience required comprehensive recording of all cameras and audio Post Evolutions Client Remarkable Television Brief Provide location recording services and post-production for the seventh series of the Davina McCall-fronted quiz show, in which contestants attempt to answer seven daunting questions in order to stop a million pounds in cash slipping through their fingers. Key people Ingest supervisor Adrian Bell; lead location engineer Alex Everitt; online editor David Frisby; dubbing mixer Nerys Richards TX July, Channel 4
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o maintain the energy of previous live shows, it was essential that the record was as near a straight run as possible, though for both speed and to maintain complete flexibility in post-production, comprehensive recording of all cameras and audio was essential. Having worked with Evolutions on a number of highprofile, near-live shows, and keen to have both a “bulletproof ” recording system and a smooth transition to edit, line producer Marcus McKinlay opted for Evolutions’ studio record system, known as ‘Luther’. It offered the means to record eight camera feeds, a stereo mix and 36 ISO audio feeds for the three-hour
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record of eight shows across three days. Each record feed is completely duplicated, allowing total redundancy while creating an additional LTO for archive purposes. All media recorded at the studio was delivered to the edit in its native resolution, grouped and ready, negating the requirement for any digitising, transcoding or preparation. The edit had instant access to all camera streams and audio stems, allowing complete flexibility without the need to separately ingest, sync or search through drives for audio stems or additional media. The instant access to multitracks including all ISO audio feeds and mixes provided greater flexibility and the potential to speed up the process, saving the client time in the edit.
‘It was great to be able to verify all media and deliver prepared sequences’ Adrian Bell Ingest supervisor Adrian Bell says: “It was great to be able to verify all media and deliver from the studio into the edit prepared sequences, with all grouping complete and verified by myself. It certainly makes my life easier knowing I will not be getting urgent calls from the edit asking for a specific audio clip or ISO tape.” Evolutions also provided picture and audio post-production services at its Soho facilities, using Avid Symphony to online the series and Avid ProTools for the audio mix.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Cariad@Iaith/Love4Language Shooting from dawn to dusk, Gorilla produced as-live recordings in exceptional circumstances
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orilla was involved in this annual event, which is now in its third series, from planning to execution. Gorilla operations manager Paul Owen oversaw the process, from initial recce through to final delivery, and Gorilla provided camera and sound supervisors, as well as all post-production staff, including a team of five editors. The main challenge was the short amount of time available to turn the programme around.
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Gorilla shot features and edited on site by day, and recorded an hour-long as-live programme for broadcast each night. Quickly processing the large volume of footage provided an additional test. Five cameras were recording for 18 hours to gather around 50 hours of footage per day. Three single-camera crews filmed daily from dawn to dusk, shooting on P2 cameras that fed into Gorilla’s outside broadcast (OB) scanner. Some of the new features in Avid Version 7 proved to be essential on this fast-turnaround show. For example, background processing was used by the ingest team to allow editors to access the media quickly and efficiently. The ability to compress, equalise and limit the master fader on the audio output provided high quality, TX-ready programmes at speed.
‘It was a case of having to create a high-end programme in a location that was anything but high end’ The as-live recording was done through Gorilla’s OB scanner, with the main feed and four cameras recorded through Quadrus, which in turn was connected to Avid Isis storage. The main benefit of using Quadrus was that it allowed the editors to start working with the media as soon as recording started, without the use of Avid Interplay. This allowed for the required quick turnaround of programmes ready for TX. Having to finish the programme on location meant that Gorilla was not afforded any luxuries. “It was a case of having to create a high-end programme in a location that was anything but high-end, making use of any rooms that were available,” says operations manager Paul Owen.
Post Gorilla Client Fflic for S4C Brief Provide outside broadcast and on-location post facilities for the weeklong Welsh-languageteaching celebrity reality TV series, producing daily ‘as live’ programmes from a remote coastal location on the Llyn Peninsula, as well as additional programme content for online channels. Key people Operations manager Paul Owen; senior editors Robin Owen and Phil Hayes; sound supervisor Elis Griffiths; camera supervisor Guto Vaughan TX June, S4C
July/August 2014 | Broadcast TECH | 31
IN-DEPTH
Below: hosts Matt Johnson and Nia Parry
CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
Common LA Post was responsible for offline and online edit, VFX, grading and sound on this gritty crime drama
IN-DEPTH
Post LA Post Client LA Productions Brief Picture and audio post-production of Jimmy McGovern’s one-off drama examining the potential for injustice via the ‘joint enterprise’ rule, through the tale of a young man who finds himself charged with murder after giving some friends a lift to a pizza parlour. Key people Editor Patrick Hall; dubbing mixer Brian Nelson; assistant editor Kyle Ogden TX July, BBC2
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A Post completed the offline and online edit, as well as VFX, grading and sound dubbing, from its Liverpool base. Acquired on Arri Alexa in 2K, the main task was to ensure the simple yet bold style for the film was maintained from set to TX. One of the reasons for shooting the 90-minute drama at 2K was to allow for the creation of film scans for a potential cinema release. HD masters were made for delivery to the BBC. Director David Blair worked with editor Patrick Hall on Avid Media Composer, and later in Avid DS, to grade and complete the various effects shots. DS was
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used for paint work and some screen replacement. This allowed LA Post to cut in Media Composer, relink via Avid Media Access and send files to DS. “Because DS talks to the Arri files, it was very straightforward and stable,” says Hall. DS was also used for the grade. Throughout the film, lead character Jonjo’s (left) skin tone palette changes to reflect the storyline. As the film progresses and his innocence is lost, colour and warmth are removed. At the end of the film, the colours are brought back to reflect the resolution of the drama. “We didn’t want it too gritty, desaturated or dirty just for the sake of it. The aim was to keep it as real as possible,” says Hall. Mocha was also used to aid tracking in DS, helping with the removal of signs on cars that passed through
‘We didn’t want it too gritty, desaturated or dirty. The aim was to keep it as real as possible’ Patrick Hall shots. To make sure the audiences’ focus remains in the right place, Hall also tidied up skylines and cityscapes by removing clutter. Brian Nelson completed the sound dub using Pro Tools. Most of the audio was captured with radio mics. One of the most challenging scenes was the knife attack that forms the centre of the drama. The director gave free rein to the actors to ad lib to increase the level of emotion, which resulted in the need for some ADR and extensive tidying up of dialogue.
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CREATIVE REVIEW MASTERCLASS
This Old Thing Films at 59 took inspiration from the show’s workshop to create a retro look for the vintage clothes series
IN-DEPTH
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eries director Mike Matthews and executive producer Andrew Anderson created a bold style during filming and the offline, which had to be replicated in the Symphony online and Pyramix audio mix to maintain the style while keeping within the delivery specifications. The series was shot with a Sony PDW-800 (pictured), Canon cameras including the C300, 60D and 5D, and GoPros. Moving offline media between Bristol-based Films at 59 and London facilities Suite and Run VT was a challenge, but workflow supervisor David Cawte’s clear specification ensured the process was smooth and quick. The style of the workshop, which is central to the series, was a significant influence on the overall look. The finishing team worked with the warm rich tones, building good contrast and strong highlights to emphasise the natural light flooding in through the workshop windows. The grade was split between Symphony and Nucoda in order to push the colours and vibrancy. Nucoda’s isolation tools were used to make the colours of the clothing ‘sing’ without creating unnatural flesh tones. The isolation tools were also used to make sure items of clothing remained true to their original colour across the multiple cameras that were used to shoot the workshop scenes. Avid Symphony and Boris FX Continuum Complete 8.2 were used by the online team to create graphics
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‘Nucoda’s isolation tools were used to make the colours of the clothing “sing” without creating unnatural flesh tones’ of broadcast standard, ensuring the production team did not need to party outsource these to a third party. The Unity Isis system and Avid offline set-up performed robustly with a wide range of native footage in a variety of different formats, including file-based archive.
Post Films at 59 Client RDF Television West Brief Provide picture and audio post for the show in which Dawn O’Porter shows viewers how to shop for vintage clothes, creating a retro but vibrant look for the 6 x 60-minute series. Key people Colourist Tony Osborne; online editor and colourist Franz Ketterer; online editor and colourist Adrian Rigby; online editor and grade prep Jim Reynolds; dubbing mixer Paul Donovan; workflow supervisor David Cawte TX July, Channel 4
Laying the tracks The production team wanted to use composed music to help the series stand out. Films at 59 was supplied with stems of composed tracks from the offline, which meant one piece of music had as many as 10 separate elements, allowing the audio team to emphasise the contrast in the music. This made the tracklay and mix take a bit longer, but together with prominent sound effects, it contributed to the overall energy of the series.
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Next issue out 5 September Audience measurement: In a multichannel, multiplatform world, how do broadcasters know who is watching their content? Cloud-based playout: An examination of the adoption and potential of cloud-based playout systems VFX: The vital role of previsualisation tools and techniques in getting shows greenlit IBC preview: A bumper preview of the trends and products that will dominate this year’s Amsterdam trade show. Capturing sound on location: Four experts provide tips and tricks for capturing clean and crisp audio
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Feature
Retuning BBC local radio As the BBC begins moving its local radio stations to a centralised equipment and infrastructure model, George Bevir talks to the team behind the project about how it works – and what it could mean for TV
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BC Radio Northampton made a little bit of BBC history last month when it became the first of the broadcaster’s local stations to switch to virtualised equipment and infrastructure. The Virtual Local Radio (ViLoR) project, which has been developed by BBC Technology in collaboration with BBC Local Radio, involves shifting some of a station’s backend broadcast kit to a central, shared location. Editorial teams will have control over the playout system and mixing desks, but audio files will be stored, streamed, mixed and processed in remote data centres in London and Birmingham. ViLoR project director Geoff Woolf first pitched a paper that outlined the potential of Virtual Local Radio back in June 2010. The past four years have been spent making incremental developments to get Radio Northampton live. Woolf ’s premise was to move away from the established set-up
of all of a radio station’s technology being housed locally on site, in favour of two central locations. And instead of using baseband signals, ViLoR relies on streams of audio that are transported over IP. That means hardware-based systems that are used for managing phone-ins, line-termination equipment and audio and transmission routers can be ditched in favour of broadcast-specific applications that run on commodity IT equipment. It is hoped that the project will substantially reduce the cost and time needed to upgrade local radio stations. Woolf says it was a “great challenge” to continually update and refresh the technology used by the BBC’s 39 local radio stations, which, by their nature, are scattered around the country. “Because of the time taken to deploy, it means that local radio can lag in terms of technology. A basic server upgrade could take six
‘Northampton is a first, but significant, step towards us proving the potential for a fully virtualised BBC local radio network’ Peter Coles, acting chief technology officer
months, whereas if you are dealing with a central location, something like that could be achieved in a couple of weeks,” he says. Currently, around 500 bays of equipment are required to support 39 local radio stations. If all BBC local radio stations switched to the virtualised model, that figure could be reduced to around 24, comprising 16 in London and eight in Birmingham.
Cost savings That could result in “significant” savings. Woolf says that for the cost of upgrading two conventional radio stations, four ViLoR stations could be built. Savings could also be made through reductions in property and energy costs. Acting chief technology officer Peter Coles describes the project as “an excellent example of BBC innovation helping us to find new, lower-cost and more flexible ways of providing the technology our programme-makers need”.
ViLoR for TV Following on from the Virtual Local Radio project, the BBC is to consider centralising some of the equipment and infrastructure used by its regional TV stations. Project director Geoff Woolf says: “It is something we will look at later this year, but bear in mind that it took four years to get radio to this point, so it is likely to be a similar time for proof of concept for regional TV. Radio is always years ahead of the rest of the industry; network capacity, technology and products [for TV] are just not there yet.”
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Regional TV: BBC will consider copying the ViLoR model
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Virtual local radio (Vilor)
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BBC Radio Northampton: Helen Blaby presents the first show from the new Studio 2
The set-up will also make it easier to integrate tools for managing social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which in turn should help local radio stations maintain a close relationship with their listeners.
London fit-out The BBC team built the Birmingham centre but drafted in systems integrator Dega to help with the fit-out of the London base. Existing suppliers of kit to local stations were also asked to consider how their products might operate as part of the new architecture. “None had thought of using their products in this way,” says Woolf. “The production and playout system we use wouldn’t work on remote virtual platforms – it relied on platforms local to the radio station and required a server in the building – but it now works off site.” One of the most important aspects of the project was making it work over a wide area network (WAN). “Getting solutions to work locally is relatively straightforward but over several hundred kilometres of fibre, it is more of a challenge,” says Woolf. The solution involved developing techniques for coping with delay, so the audience or production team
‘Getting solutions to work locally is relatively straight forward, but over several hundred kilometres of fibre, it is more of a challenge Geoff Woolf, project director
wouldn’t notice the lag as the IP packets containing presenters’ voices, songs and jingles are moved between the station, the central server locations and then on for TX. Woolf and his team introduced delays to the audio and adjusted the responsiveness of control surfaces, such as faders. “The target was to have everything within 200 milliseconds, but we have exceeded that and are now at around 100m/s,” he says.
Mitigating risk ViLoR changes the risk associated with outages caused by kit failure. Currently, with 39 discrete local radio stations, it would be costly to build in a high degree of resilience, so the risk of an outage is relatively high, but the total audience affected by any failure would be limited. With a centralised model, greater resilience can be built in, but should anything go wrong, it would affect a much bigger audience. To mitigate this risk, there are two separate fibre paths into each local radio station building and the data centres.
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IN-DEPTH WORK
He adds: “Northampton is a first, but significant, step towards us proving the potential for a fully virtualised BBC local radio network, and I’m sure we’ll see the industry begin to adopt a similar approach. “We’ll continue to test and iterate the technology to help shape future plans before we decide whether to roll out the system across additional BBC local radio stations.” BBC Radio Northampton will be followed by Radio Suffolk in September, Essex in December and Three Counties Radio in February. The BBC will then decide whether to sign off further funding to support the switch of its remaining local radio stations to the model. Northampton, Suffolk, Essex and Three Counties were selected as part of the pilot because they had some of the oldest kit and were in most urgent need of a refresh. Conveniently, they were also all in the same editorial region. BBC Radio Northampton managing editor Jess Rudkin says: “Throughout the design and installation of ViLoR, BBC local radio producers, presenters and journalists have worked with the BBC’s technology experts, and we now have the best studio equipment in the business. Not only do our new studios and software make it easier for us to create high-quality programmes and give us new editorial options, they can also be installed in almost any building; ideal for radio, which prides itself on being close to its audience.” One of the benefits highlighted by the broadcaster is the potential for ‘pop-up’ radio stations. With much of the equipment no longer needed on site in a local studio, ViLoR could be developed to make it easier for editorial teams to cover local events, such as county shows or music festivals. Enabling BBC Local Radio to move to the same production platform as the rest of BBC Radio would “greatly simplify” the sharing of media, the broadcaster says.
INTERVIEW
Rewiring Quantel Quantel chief executive Ray Cross talks to George Bevir about the heady days of post, integrating recent acquisition Snell and going head-to-head with rival EVS in the highlights market
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tories about the glory days of post-production often include a reference to Quantel’s private jet. It’s become shorthand for an era when the industry was awash with money; it may have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy the latest ground-breaking tools for editing and adding effects to programmes, but those who did could be confident that they would make a return on their investment in a fairly short time. Quantel led those heady days, with the company’s early success built on a raft of firsts: from the development of TV’s first practical analogue-to-digital converter in 1973, when Quantel was founded, to the first practical electronic graphics system, Paintbox, in 1981, and the launch of effects editor Henry in 1992. Such innovation fuelled yearon-year growth throughout the 1990s, with operating profit hitting £42m in 1997. But around the turn of the century, Quantel warned of “depressed” and “difficult market conditions”. That translated into post-tax losses of £14.9m in 2000, which narrowed to £4.6m the following year. “When Paintbox and Harry were developed, the market was in its infancy,” says chief executive Ray Cross. “Now, technology has moved on so much I can’t see Quantel ever being able to justify charging those kind of
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Quantel axed its aircraft in 2000 as it sought to cut costs in the run-up to a Lloyds Development Capital-backed management buyout from parent company Carlton Communications. Cross’s introduction to Quantel came via the private equity fund, which he had worked with at IT firms RHM Computing and Xpert Communications. Initially it commissioned him to report on Quantel’s products and their suitability for market ahead of a second round of funding. prices again. Where we sold a few units at a high price, we are now more likely to sell more units but at a much lower price point,” he says. If Cross had been in charge of the Newbury-based company in the 1990s, it seems likely that Quantel’s employees would have arrived to meetings in less glamorous modes of transport. Cross, who describes his management style as “very hands on”, is incredulous when he recalls the company’s fleet of aircraft. “There was a jet, a twin-engine plane and a helicopter that people could use even for trips to London. It was a ludicrous situation, and not appropriate for the size of the business,” he says.
Inspiration for change The excitement of broadcast compared with the IT industry and his good relationship with long-serving Quantel managing director and pioneering engineer Richard Taylor were enough to tempt him out of retirement in 2004, joining the company as managing director under Taylor. Cross took over as chief executive and chairman in 2006. His experience of the IT sector provided the inspiration for some of the initial changes he oversaw at Quantel. “There was
‘There was a jet, a twin-engine plane and a helicopter. It was a ludicrous situation’ Ray Cross no operational structure to deliver the best quality to customers, so I created a team to look after a customer from the point of sale all the way through their relationship with us. “The operations team then has every resource to look after the customer, from project management to consultancy to software-sustaining engineers. “It also means the R&D team can work full time on new products. If developers make products and also support them, projects can be delayed and customers might not be satisfied.” Cross says that customers of recent acquisition Snell are now keen for the same model to be applied to the company. A new support structure will be introduced at Snell over the next six to nine months, once “everything has settled down”. Quantel doesn’t have a history of making acquisitions, so it came as a surprise to many in the industry when it
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RAY CROSS
Fact file
Quantel: the Newbury-based firm is focusing on content creation and distribution as likely areas of growth; below: Quantel Pablo grading system
Ray Cross Career highlights 2006 Chief executive and chairman, Quantel 2004 Managing director, Quantel 2002 Chief executive, Xpert Communications 2000 Managing director, Hayes Storage 1994 Managing director, RHM Computing/Axis Resources 1990 Managing director, PCL 1970s-1980s Utilities engineer, also built and managed IT outsourcing operations
Cross-selling opportunity “Of Quantel and Snell’s top 20 customers, we have only two in common, so there is a massive opportunity to cross sell, and that is what we are starting to do. There is a wellknown saying that your best customers are your existing customers, and simply because we are part of the same business, people are much more open to buying,” says Cross. Having a common backer has led to speculation that a sale of the combined entity could follow, but Cross is unequivocal in his denial: “I can categorically say there are no plans to sell the business,” he says. “LDC is an evergreen fund, so it’s different to
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other funds that have a lifetime and a need for a return that drives an exit strategy.” But Cross is open to a flotation of the business, although he says it would be at least 18 months before that might take place. The intervening months will be taken up with efforts to combine the companies and their product sets. According to Cross, there are around a dozen areas where Snell and Quantel can “add real value” by merging products, either to improve workflow or create something new. One example is the grouping of Snell’s automation system Morpheus and its ICE channelin-a-box platform with Quantel’s sQ servers (left), which Cross says is a work in progress. Other potential combinations include Snell’s conversion technology being used in Quantel’s IP-based workflow system QTube, while Snell’s Momentum asset management system could be used with Quantel’s news and sport production tools.
The results of Quantel and Snell’s efforts will be made available to customers in “early 2015”. Before that, the company is set to go head-to-head with grading panel manufacturer EVS, when it launches a live highlights system into a market dominated by the Belgian firm.
Studio-based productions are expected to be the initial focus of the as-yet-unnamed highlights system, but the OB market could eventually be addressed. Quantel expects to demonstrate a control panel for the system at IBC in September, ahead of a wider launch, and Cross describes the panel as “the start of a wider product set”. Customer feedback from the various iterations of Quantel’s LiveTouch system, which allows users to cut highlights and play out from a single workstation,
will be incorporated into the highlights system. LiveTouch was first touted at IBC in 2011 as part of the company’s Filespeed software for its Enterprise sQ news and sport production system. It has been developed with US sport broadcaster Fox Sports Media, which uses the software in conjunction with Quantel’s sQ View and sQ Edit systems. “It’s down to customer demand,” Cross says. “Customers want to be able to control any port across any number of servers, so the ability to use a highlights system across a business and not just in one location is important. Once a clip has been produced, it is useful if it is available instantly anywhere on an organisation’s network. That will provide a lot of the advantages that Quantel’s sQ brings, but on a wider basis.” The development supports Cross’s assertion that future growth is likely to come from broadcast, rather than post. “People increasingly want to be able to access, create, manipulate and publish content from anywhere to anywhere. Content creation and distribution is where we are seeing growth,” he says.
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WORK
acquired Reading-based Snell in March, creating a company with combined revenues of just over £100m. But the deal made sense. As well as geographic proximity, the two firms shared a backer in Lloyds Development Capital (LDC) and, as there was little overlap between their products, the acquisition served to increase Quantel’s reach across the broadcast value chain.
Product AnAtomy
AJA Cion One standout product launch at this year’s NAB was the Cion, AJA’s first ever camera. The product represents a new direction for the firm, but the decision to launch a ProRescapable camera makes sense for a company that is so closely linked to lens-to-post workflows through its Ki Pro product line. Indeed, AJA describes the Cion as an extension of its range of external recorders.
The camera’s feature set includes the ability to record directly to AJA Pak SSD media at up to 60fps and to output 4K raw data at up to 120fps via 4 x 3G-SDI outputs. It also offers in-camera recording directly to Apple ProRes, including 12-bit 444. The Cion is due to ship over the summer. The price point of around £5,400 ($9,000) will make it difficult to ignore.
SenSor and lenS The Cion has a 4K, APS-C-sized, 22.5mm x 11.9mm CMOS sensor with an electronic global shutter that offers 12 stops of dynamic range. A lens is attached via the camera’s PL mount.
output
Format
Output options include four 3G-SDI main outputs, two 3G-SDI monitor outputs, and two HDMI outputs to supply signals to a variety of 4K/Ultra HD and 2K/HD monitors. The four 3G-SDI connectors allow for the output of frame rates of up to 120fps, as either 4K or UHD. For audio, the camera features one 3.5mm headphone jack.
The camera shoots 4K (4096 x 2160), Ultra HD (3840 x 2160), 2K (2048 x 1080) and HD (1920 x 1080). All versions of ProRes 4444 and ProRes 422 to 30fps are supported. 2K and HD images are “hardware scaled” from the full 4K sensor, which AJA says results in “beautiful over-sampled images” that retain the lens’ focal length. Frame rates up to 50p and 60p are supported at 4K.
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AJA cIon
operation and build The camera, which weighs 3.4kg with the top handle attached (and 2.9kg without the top handle), features a built-in shoulder mount. As well as an “uncomplicated” user interface (pictured right) on the operator side, the camera’s menu parameters are remotely configurable and can be accessed through a web browser via a LAN connection. The Cion chassis is formed of magnesium, while integrated steel rosettes allow for mounting of industrystandard accessories such as handgrips.
Tools
audio input Two three-pin XLR connectors with dedicated line/mic/48v selection switch per input.
Storage The camera records to proprietary SSDbased AJA Pak media, which are available in 256GB or 512GB capacity. The AJA Pak Dock, which is sold separately, allows for the transfer of footage over a Thunderbolt connection or via USB3.
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POSTSCRIPT
TECH Q&A
NEED TO...
JJ Benson
IN FOCus
FOLLOW
brandon butterworth When he’s not posting pics of his recently purchased nuclear bunker, the BBC Research & Development chief scientist is tweeting behind-the-scenes comments about the broadcaster’s latest 4K tests. @bbzaaa
INFORM
WATCH
Foundry’s Colorway launch Didn’t get a chance to watch the Foundry’s live launch of its Colorway design app? The full presentation, which includes talks from product manager Matt Brealey and creative specialist Andy Brown, is available in full online here: bit.ly/u6QQlX LIsTEN
talking tv If you’re keen to find out more about the digital rig used for Channel 4’s Secret Life Of Students, tune in to Broadcast’s fortnightly podcast, which includes an interview with Raw TV’s Joanne Timoney, who reveals all about the tech used to incorporate contributors’ text messages and tweets into the ob doc. soundcloud.com/broadcastnow or via itunes
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The shift to file-based delivery has left the post sector pondering some tricky problems, including how best to transport all those files. For a moment, it looked as if Loft London staff had spotted the Digital Production Partnership’s latest initiative when they tweeted this pic. “No ones and zeros kept in this van overnight,” confirmed DPP chair Mark Harrison. DIARy DATEs
Edinburgh intErnational tElEvision FEstival What is it? Described by organisers as “the annual event for everyone working in television”, 2,000 delegates will attend 60 sessions, including the MacTaggart Lecture from Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham. WhErE is it? Edinburgh, UK WhEn is it? Thursday 21 to Saturday 23 August WEbsitE mgeitf.co.uk tWittEr @EdinburghTVFest
ibC What is it? Europe’s largest gathering for those involved with the technology used for broadcast. The annual trade show and conference attracts more than 50,000 attendees from around 170 countries, with an exhibition of 1,400 suppliers. This year, physicist and broad-
caster Brian Cox will deliver the keynote address. WhErE is it? Amsterdam, Netherlands WhEn is it? Thursday 11 to Tuesday 16 September WEbsitE ibc.org tWittEr @IBCShow
ProduCtion & Post Forum What is it? A two-day event from Broadcast TECH publisher MBI that highlights the latest techniques and kit used in production and post, with keynote speeches from industry leading producers, directors, VFX artists, colourists and editors, and sessions where you can get hands-on with cutting-edge kit. WhErE is it? London, UK WhEn is it? Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 November WEbsitE broadcast-forums.com tWittEr @MBIEvents
how did you get into the industry? My first industry job came from Andrew Boulton, my tutor at the NFTS, where I was studying Sound Recording for Film and Television. Oscarwinning sound engineer Chris Munro had asked Andrew for a suitable, technically minded trainee and he recommended me. That was my foot in the door. What is the one tool/piece of kit you couldn’t do your job without, and why? Tessa tape. The sticky-backed foam is used all the time, from quieting noisy shoes and doors, to padding radio mics. It’s genuinely the most useful stuff ever. What do you wish you’d invented? When I was a kid, I used to come up with inventions all the time. My favourite was spreadable butter in a Pritt Stick-style dispenser for quickly and easily buttering bread. Unfortunately, I think someone else got there first. Which app do you use most regularly and why? I use WhatsApp to chat with my girlfriend in Austria. It’s a really cheap and simple way to stay in touch. Where would you put a webcam? High up on the stage I am currently working on so people could see the madness. What is your dream tv job? Anywhere I get to work with a great crew, close to my house with good caterers and clean toilets. At the moment, I’ve only got the first one. Freelance sound recordist JJ benson won the sound Production award at last year’s broadcast tECh Young talent awards. to find out more about this year’s awards, or to nominate a peer or colleague, email jane. maguire@mb-insight.com. the deadline is 12 august
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1996-2015: 20th anniversary 4 February 2015 | Grosvenor House | London
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For more information, visit us at business.panasonic.co.uk/professional-camera For more information, visit us at visit us at For more information, business.panasonic.co.uk/professional-camera business.panasonic.co.uk/professional-camera
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