SEPTEMBER 2017
Vol 239
At the Pro Audio Show Last week’s Pro Audio Show in Auckland was the biggest and best I’ve ever attended – not too bad for a 10 year old event. There were 9 exhibitors and we are going to find out from the NZVN supporters what they had on offer starting with Sound Techniques. Stephen Buckland was there in glorious figure hugging tails – he hasn’t got his top hat but he is Master of the Spinning Wheel. Ed: Stephen, what can people hope to win at Sound Techniques? Stephen: We’ve got the Wheel of Fortune and we’ve got little gift bags from Rycote, Lectrosonics, Sound Devices – probably the best prize of the day is a $55 rental discount and there’s a booby prize which is whatever we’ve got left over after that. Ed: But people come to Sound Techniques for more than spinning a wheel don’t they?
Stephen gives the wheel a spin for those rolling up.
Stephen: Well yes they do, but this is a trade show and we all know trade shows can be laborious. You and I have been to many of them …
Stephen: That’s usually out of the trade show Grant – remember what stays in Vegas we leave in Vegas! So we thought we’d just try something, you know clatter of the wheel, bring a bit of attention our way.
Ed: They don’t all have bikini mudwrestling in the interval?
Ed: And there are 9 audio industry suppliers here and you’re all friends, you’re all sharing, everybody can come
W
ARNING! Because our deadline was so close to the Pro Audio Show, some of these interviews have not been proofed by the interviewees. This means that there may be errors or inconsistencies, not due to their mistakes, but to the increased level of cognisant deterioration of the interviewer and his mildly deaf and demented secretary, Miss Hellfinger. We apologise in advance. We’ll keep taking the pills.
in and have a look at all the different product and compare? Stephen: I think we all subscribe to the thought that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and yes, Company B might try and get some of our customers and we might try and get some of theirs, that’s the nature of the game, but really the best thing we can do is grow the industry and also its standing in terms of the general public. Ed: And it’s an honesty check too – if you’re saying your product’s better than Brand B, then they’ve got a chance to have a look at Brand B and say “no, that’s actually not true”? Stephen: That’s correct. The other thing is that, at Sound Techniques, one of our basic premises is to try and improve the status of audio recording and this is one step along the way. Ed: So have you had a look at some of the competitors and found something that you think “oh wow, actually that’s better than what we’ve got?”
Ed: Okay, but they do sell competing product, and obviously one of the competing products is in the speaker area, but you’ve got some very nice looking ADAMs here. I know you’ve had ADAM for a number of years, but is this any new product in the range? Stephen: Sadly we haven’t got any new products here on the stand. There are new products, but they’re only just coming into the market now. Ed:
And how will they improve the ADAM sound?
Stephen: Well they’re actually for the higher end studio, so although there’s people like that coming to the show, probably not for the sort of general audio engineer. Ed: Having said that Stephen, when you’re setting yourself up to show your clients the work that you’ve done and you’ve put a lot of effort into the audio side of your video presentation, you want them to listen to the sound on decent speakers and not just the little ones that come with the Samsung?
Stephen: There’s nothing here that I would say that was better than what we’ve got if we’re comparing apples with apples, but I’m intrigued by things like the gear that Murray Tregonning and Associates are showing, because that’s the sort of thing we get asked – “if we want to do communications on set, how do we do it?” Well I know nothing, and it’s not a field that I really want to get into, but to be able to say “well look, he’s got the gear, see if that works for you” that’s good. Even companies like Protel, who readers would probably appreciate we compete fiercely with in certain areas, there are other areas where I’d have no problem getting people to contact them if they had the product that was going to suit the person’s requirements. Ed:
That’s very big of you Stephen.
A quality lineup of ADAM monitors.
Stephen: Well it is kind of big of us, but it’s helping people really. We’re looking at retaining customers. Ed: And if you can help your customer by telling them “well you go there and you’ll get a good product at a good price, you’ll get good service” they feel better about you as well? Stephen: That’s correct. Also remember Protel is one of our Rycote resellers and we’re the distributor, so we’re quite keen if they can get Rycote business that we can’t, well fantastic.
Stephen: That’s correct and ADAM monitors are clinically correct, so you’ll hear every blemish in the soundtrack. It’s like putting the sound under a microscope, obviously an audible audio microscope, so yes, in a mixing room or to hear back stuff and hear how good it sounds or alternatively how not so good it sounds, they are a very good way of doing that. We’ve got an auditioning room back at Sound Techniques where people can bring in their recordings and we can plug them into our system and play them
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back. First reaction is “oh I thought there was a problem in that area” and the second one is “yes I need a pair, because I can now tell” and then, when we see them a couple of weeks later, they will probably say “I’m so glad that I bought them because what I’m hearing back is actually what I expected to hear. Ed: Shortly I’ll talk with Mark Grooby about Rycote’s plans and, for Sound Devices, we’re going to talk in a later issue with somebody who’s a serious user of their product – just give us a little teaser on that? Stephen: Well we had Larry Elliott on the stand for a couple of sessions. Larry’s particular interest is recording classical music which he does with a professional approach but I think you’d probably say it’s more of a hobby for him. He can go into, say, a chamber music session, set up his recording equipment and capture the event. He bought a Sound Devices MixPre-6 and about a week or two later, he sent me a copy of the recording of this chamber group and I reckon it could have been pressed immediately onto a CD and been saleable. Whether it would or not I think probably depends on the musicians, but the quality – using a very simple setup he captured the sound in the room. Ed: So sometimes you can actually get the perfect sound if you record it properly in the first place and are not reliant on fixing it in post? Stephen: That’s right … although with music recording, so much is done with overdubs and stuff, but Larry’s a purist. He uses the smallest number of microphones that he can, and I say again, to capture it as it is on the day.
Ed:
So it feels as though you’re actually there?
Stephen: Yes, when you listen to it back it feels as though you’re there. Ed: We’ll look forward to that another day. Now microphones, you’ve got some Lectrosonics here. You’ve had people coming in and listening to those? Stephen: Yes, but the main thing they’ve focused on with Lectrosonics is showing how their wireless designer software works, so you can integrate many systems into a crowded RF environment. I have in my pocket the miniature transmitter and we also have the Lectrosonics PDR – the Personal Digital Recorder – built to the usual Lectrosonics standard. It’s made out of a machined piece of aluminium. There are two situations where it’s particularly useful … one is where the director decides he wants to do a long lead shot of the person on horseback riding into the distance humming a tune, and he would like to capture the tune. Of course, the person rides off, the lens zooms, the person gets out of radio frequency range, they have this little recorder on them, they can plug their standard Lectrosonics microphone into it and it will record to an SD card. The other opportunity is where a director says this person’s going to be climbing up the side of Ngauruhoe, we’re going to be over here on a long lens, you’ve either got the choice of running after them with a boom or you could put the little Personal Digital Recorder on them and record it. You can put timecode into it, so your file is timecoded, synchronise it with the camera, wave goodbye to your performer and watch them disappear into the distance and come back with a pristine recording.
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Ed:
And speaking of timecode, Timecode Buddy?
Stephen: Well Timecode Buddy – we’ve got a complete timecode system here including their UltraSync, which is their tiny timecode transmitter receiver. There are others on the market of a similar size and they’re all priced competitively, but it is the only one that I know of that has an actual LCD display on it, so you can see the numbers and the data working. All the others have little flashing LEDs. Plus also it’s got sync out, so you can do Genlock into your camera as well as timecode out. Timecode Systems have a complete system of four or five devices, they all communicate with each other wirelessly and there are two ways that they do that. So no longer when you want to jam sync one device to the other do you have to run from one side of the set to the other and plug it in and run away; you can do it all from just the one position. Two different ways that it works wirelessly – one is running on I think it’s about 868 MHz wireless frequency which is gazetted in New Zealand and elsewhere for data ( which is what timecode is ) and that will work over a reasonable range – maybe 100 or 200 metres. The other version runs over WiFi frequencies and that integrates with an app which you can run on an iPad or iPhone or an Android device, and on the screen it brings up your various devices and then you can control them all from the central platform. It also has such things as alternate screens which will show you the timecode that’s running, the director’s name, sound engineer, various people basically, as a slate. So a camera can point at that to make sure that it’s maintaining sync. I even know of people who will have on their phone this or similar apps operating, so when they’re on a documentary shoot, the camera operator will just point the camera at their phone, photograph the screen and they’ll know that they’re keeping in sync together. You can see over my
shoulder there’s a timecode slate, so Timecode Systems is integrating into a Denecke slate and that’s time of day running over there, and again that’s all part of this wireless network that we’ve got here. Ed: And for the smaller user, you can just clip it onto a GoPro and you’ve got timecode on your GoPro? Stephen: Yes, there’s a special version for GoPro 4 which will provide timecode to a GoPro. Again, it will talk as part of this wireless network that you’re setting up. Ed: So it’s a solution looking for people to make use of it? Stephen: Funnily enough, I think timecode has been around since about the 1960’s. It first started off for the music recording business where they wanted to
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sync rock concerts, filming on stage with audio recording which was being done on a separate recorder, and we’ve represented Denecke I think since we started, but it’s only really in the last year or so that people have started to realise – especially the wireless capability – just how useful it is on a set, because there’s a lot more multi-camera shooting going on. Even the MixPre-3 and 6 will accept timecode in and it will stand their files with timecode so you can synchronise with the camera if you wanted to. Ed: It’s certainly very handy for those of us still using tape to record vision? Stephen:
That’s right yes.
Ed: Now for those who missed coming to the show here, we’ll give you a little bit of time to pack it up and move it back to the offices, but they can still come and see you can’t they?
Diana, Stephen and Ozan.
Stephen: That’s correct. We’ll have all this gear back in the office. Give us a day or two and we’ll have it all up and running as it is here. Anytime anyone’s got some questions and wants to try something out and see it working, give us a call. Ed: I was just thinking of lapel microphones. You do the Lectrosonics packs, the transmitters receivers, but also you do a range of lapel microphones and that was one thing that stuck in my mind, probably from nearly 10 years ago, visiting the Countryman stand at NAB and listening to the difference between an omni-directional and a uni-direction lapel mic. I was really impressed by the better quality that you get out of the unidirectional? Stephen: That would be true. It’s a bit hard to do at a show like this, given that microphones aren’t the only thing we sell. We’ve probably held back on the lapel mic scenario, but we sell TRAM mic lapels, we sell Sanken, we sell Countryman. Those are brands that we directly represent and there are other brands like DPA and others that we also supply. One of the things we do have here, which is a bit hard to describe, is a large range of accessories for applying these same lapel microphones, because you can buy the best lapel mic in the world, but if you don’t know how to put it on your subject, the results are going to be as bad as if you put on the worst one. It’s one of the things I’d like to think we specialise in – a huge range of little nick-nacks. It’s like trying to build a better mousetrap and each time a new thing comes out it’s better than the one that was out before that, and we at Sound Techniques specialise in that. If you’ve got a microphone and you want a clip or something, or some way of sticking it on your subject, just give us a call and we’ll do our best to show you what the options are. Ed: Some talent don’t like a large length of duct tape on their bodies? Stephen: No well now there are various hyper allergenic materials that will stick to you and don’t pull
off your chest hairs when you want to remove them. There’s a little clip that will hold a Sanken COS-11. There are four different versions – one goes on to a tie, one goes on to your collar, one goes on to a standard shirt, the other one clips on to the cusp of a bra. All these things will hold the lapel mic stably in position – and in a good position, so you get good sound. Ed: Mind racing in many directions but eventually under control. I guess there are harder jobs than applying lapel microphone to talent? Now, you’ve had the opportunity to introduce your new helper to the public? Stephen: Yes Ozan Turan is here. He’s our newest member of staff, he’s been with us for about 5-6 weeks and we thought this was a good opportunity to introduce him to the market and for the market to meet him. Ed:
And what’s his track record?
Stephen: He’s a musician, he’s got his own home recording studio. I believe he has a background in finance, but that’s many years ago and he’s following his dream of making a living out of audio engineering and audio related activities. Ed: So what does he bring to the Sound Techniques team? Stephen: He’s got good practical knowledge – his first role has been to take care of our rentals department and that is quite a challenge for anybody because even though we have our rentals set up with prepared kits, you can pretty well guarantee that, let’s say, half the rentals people don’t want the kits we put together, they want half of the kit, or they want the kit with the other cable, or they want 2 kits but they want them to be linked together. So for someone who hasn’t actually had hands on experience with location equipment, yes quite a challenge, but he’s done very well in most cases, because at the entry level basically it’s all to do with signal flow. You’re plugging in basic boxes and getting them to work. I think probably the hardest thing for him has been the existing customer
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who rings up and says “I want what I had last time.” Fortunately, we have some records and that helps, but you know there are often little peculiarities which Tim who used to be doing this job, and even I kind of know of, but they’re not necessarily recorded somewhere. Ozan has managed to get on top of most of that. Continuing at Sound Techniques, we have Mr Rycote Asia-Pacific, Regional Sales Manager Mark Grooby.
hear the local voices. We are looking to promote the Rycote brand in the market to better serve Asia-Pacific. I look after from Japan through to India and geographically it’s quite a big and important area. Ed: But specifically New Zealand; surely the market here’s been very well represented by Sound Techniques over the years that they’ve been looking after Rycote?
Ed: Mark I understand you actually hail from New Zealand many years ago? Mark: Indeed, I’m actually from Greymouth where I attended Tai Poutini Polytechnic doing the audio course. It’s interesting being here today, there’s so many people who are ex-Tai Poutini, especially in Auckland. Ed: And they remember you. But now you’re presenting Rycote in the region, and how is your addition to the Rycote family going to assist the dealers and the customers in the region? Mark: One of the joys is me being in the local market and being able to Page 8
Mark: Yes, it’s just supporting the guys to help get the brand more known. They’re well known to most broadcasters, but there’s a newer market coming out, young guys creating media. There are a lot of new low market brands that are coming out, so we want to make sure we’re still at the forefront in an aspirational brand as such, to the younger guys coming through the industry. Ed: But do they really worry about the sound – I mean some of the stuff you see on the internet is just garbage in terms of the technical quality of it? Mark: That’s true and unfortunately it’s one of the things that you’ll see in … Ed:
I don’t think a windjammer’s going to help?
Mark: Well one of the things we want to do is to try and build aspirational things where they see proper people and they want to know what’s the difference between what they’re doing and what a professional would do. It’s kind of like an “educational with marketing” premise to that. Obviously the kids have grown up in the era of YouTube and that’s where they’re learning all their techniques, but they’re also being given false or one-sided information on how to be a sound person. Ed: So how are you going to get the right way across to them? What channels? Mark: Basically, we’re doing a bit of an education thing through our products. We’re also starting to push our products into different users and get them to talk about the different techniques. For us, one of the harder things is being an older brand. Everyone knows
Rycote, but there’s an expectation that people still don’t understand the quality difference between some of the lesser brands compared to us. That’s one of the harder things and it’s an ongoing marketing process. There’s also more engagement with users. As a brand, one of the things Rycote does is that we talk to people, we listen to people, all our products are designed by users or from feedback from users – what they like and they don’t like, what solutions do they need to make them better. So we live that kind of experience. As you know, we’re live on the forums, we’re always interacting with people, so it’s part of the education side of it, our message. Ed: I’m glad to see that you’re still making the fluffy wind protectors, but you’ve also got the Cyclone with the fabric and it seems as though the Cyclone must be at the top of its game. I haven’t seen anybody who’s come up with a better design than that Cyclone. Mark: Yet again, the Cyclone is a direct reflection of what experienced users have asked us for. It was primarily designed by film people in the UK wanting the next step above the standard WS 4. The 4, as a system, has been around for a long, long time, so for the next 3 years, Rycote as a brand is actually expanding, we’re getting bigger, but we’re also going to have a lot more advancements in product. Expect to see stereo Cyclones and all the different kinds of combination of stereo from EMS, MMS. Ed:
And 22.2?
Mark: Ed:
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Long pause.
Well let’s hold our breath for that one eh?
NZVN
Triad-Orbit Stands Firm And on one of the smaller stands – small but perfectly formed – and still very important – we have Nigel Russell from Oceania Audio Sales with his fantastic Triad-Orbit product range. Ed: Nigel, you’ve had people through, they’ve been interested, they’ve seen them and I know I’ve talked to a number of people who have said “we’re really interested in these products?” Nigel: Yes, we’ve had a few through and we’ve been able to show them the wonders of the Triad system – “stand Lego” – so yes, it’s been good. It’s been very, very good. Ed: And what have they been impressed about – the weight of them? Nigel: Yes, definitely the weight. As I said to you earlier, the heft of the thing, so they ain’t going anywhere fast and just I guess the versatility of the system. It’s kind of one of those things where, as I explain the system, you can see people’s eyes light up as they think “yes, I could see that in my application” or perhaps if I did this and that, and added one of these bits then we’d be there. Ed: Because that’s it, it’s that flexibility of the arrangements, the bits that you can clip on and because they are so sturdy, you can clip on sturdy arms and extend their use? Nigel: Pretty much. As I say, there’s the single boom, double boom, the clamps and all hinge around the quick release system. Again, there’s a couple of slight variations in that where if you’re hanging things upside down there’s an extra protection in the little groves that will lock the thing off, so you’ve got that extra safety mechanism built in. Ed: I know somebody was telling me today that some people would put a $10,000 microphone on a $200 stand which is a bit silly, especially if somebody knocks it over, but with a Triad-Orbit, it’s going to be very hard for someone to knock that over? Nigel: It certainly will and you can guarantee if you’re hanging a mic out over a distance as well, it ain’t going to droop. You don’t want droop. Ed: Another interesting application I saw here for the first time was speakers, and somebody’s put quite a good sized speaker on one of the Triad-Orbits? Nigel: Well as long as the base of the speaker is threaded with a ⅜ or a ⅝ thread, you’re good to go. Ed: And not too many kg? Nigel: No exactly. I wouldn’t be putting a large 12 inch two-way wooden box on there, but a 6½ inch or a studio monitor should be fine. Ed: And of course lights – Ideal? Nigel: Well of course Ideal for lights and we have the light fittings now for those as well and for most things like GoPro’s and all the camera threads are now supported by the Triad range. The lighting fitting is called IO-RL http://www.triad-orbit.com/iorl and IO-H5 and IO-H6 are lighting stud fittings. Ed: The tabletop situation must be a big seller? Nigel: Yes, the tabletop situation, that is a single plate but with the clamping system to allow you to put a laptop on, and then all of the holes that you see here are all threaded, so with a ⅜ thread, you can screw any of the other fittings into that. This little guy, the IOR38, is one of the quick release systems, but with a ⅜ thread on the rear so you can screw anything with that thread into that unit. If you want to run your laptop with a little desk light or something like that, or bring a
mic-stand off that … options, options. I’ve got one guy, one of my clients uses it with a little synthesizer he has on there, and then he has a couple of the clamps with the OrbitalArm which he then runs his iPad and his microphone from. So it’s all in a compact little setup and it doesn’t take up much floor space, but he’s got 3 items supported on the one stand. Ed: And some very interesting rubber straps for holding down odd shaped items? Nigel: Odd shaped items and also they have like a croc-skin cabling system for tidying up all your cables. That comes in three sizes which will go across each of the diameters of the arms of the stands – so to keep everything strapped in and nicely tidy. The cable controls system is called TO-Cable Control http://www.triad-orbit.com/cc Ed: So it is a developing system – new stuff’s coming out all the time? Nigel: Absolutely. Whenever they do a show, there’s new SKU’s coming out every year from these guys, again, as people feedback and come back and go “well what about one of these” or “if I want to do this, how do I do that?” If they haven’t got something for it, you can guarantee they’ll have one pretty soon. Ed:
So keep in touch?
Nigel: I’ve gone to them on a couple of occasions and gone what about one of these … oh just wait, we’ve got one of those coming out in summer. Ed: But also readers, if you’re looking at stands hopefully we’ll have an announcement soon as to where they can come and see these stands, apart from your showroom. And hopefully we’re going to get some wider viewing possibilities? Nigel:
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Coming soon to your favourite retailer.
NZVN
The Protel Audio Range Meanwhile, at the Protel stand, there’s a huge range on offer from microphones to speakers and René Bullinga is in charge. René: We’re proud at this show to have Riedel’s new Bolero system on the stand. We have spoken with you about Riedel Intercom before and about the Riedel Matrix systems – what we have here is the latest iteration of the Riedel system; the new Bolero beltpacks and their artist frame … Ed: Which we saw at NAB and readers can go back and read the full story of that ( NZVN May 2017 ), but here there’s actually one in the country for demonstration. Is it going to stay here Rene? René: This particular one won’t, but we will be getting one coming back very soon.
René holds the Riedel beltpack.
Ed: What sort of people should see this apart from broadcasters? René: People doing television production, film production, anything that requires intercom – small productions, large productions, sport, media events and theatres.
have the same profile so work very well side by side. From there we move up to our Flagship Avid S6 system, which is a modular control surface. This is the domain more of TV production, film production and now, with the direct integration of the
Ed: And hire companies. I know that theatre can’t afford much so they tend to hire things? René: We have various levels of intercom, this is our most advanced one. The Bolero beltpacks, if you recall from the previous article, they’re DECT-based; they provide high quality audio and they are selfnegotiating in terms of frequencies and the likes of that. Ed:
So you’re not limited to 2.4 gig?
René: They actually operate in the 1.9 gig band. I know at the moment there seems to be a lot of talk about things being compressed and interfered with in the 5 gig band and the 2.4 gig band. These being DECT -based technology, and in combination with some very clever implementation of the technology by Riedei, are highly resistant to interference. So, these are the new beltpacks which we have on offer, and there’s also the Riedel Mediornet Matrix systems for transmission of audio, video and data distribution. Ed: And then right beside us we’ve got what looks like a very large Pro Tools setup. Now we covered Pro Tools recently with the new software that was available, but this looks very hardware based? René: Yes. We did the Pro Tools 12.8 release of software at our event recently, but what we have here are the varying levels of Pro Tools control surface. I always like to point out this particular control surface here which is based on an iPad. The price on this is fantastic in that it’s a free download from the App Store and that provides you with entry level control of Pro Tools, both fader control and channel control. Then you can add to that the Dock system which the iPad sits into and it becomes the screen for the Dock; and then we can expand as we have here, to having the S3 16 fader surface next to it as well. The S3 and Dock surfaces Page 12
Just add your own iPad.
Dolby ATMOS panning and Dolby RMU control capability into Pro Tools, that functionality is made available to the S6 Control Surface as well. As you can see from the central section, we have touchscreen ATMOS panning on the surface itself. Ed: This is a huge advancement from some mixing desks I’ve seen. René: With this being so tightly integrated into Pro Tools and Pro Tools being the only software in the market to provide that level of integration with ATMOS, it by nature becomes the only control surface for ATMOS on the market. Ed: And right next to it we have KultTube on which I see a VU meter – something I haven’t seen for quite a few years? René: Being a Pro Audio Show, this is one for the audio geeks. It is a tube compressor from the German company SPL. SPL’s history in the market is in high end mastering equipment and, in probably the last 15 years they’ve started to release a lot more in the way of audio production equipment. The KultTube is a tube based compressor; we also have there in the rack an SPL Vitalizer which is a stereo expander and enhancer, an SPL Track One which is the channel strip Mic preamp that we recommend for use in a lot of voicing and ADR suites. And then above that, an item which we use a lot
in OB land, is the SPL Madison which is a MADI to analogue, analogue to MADI converter – a really economic and useful piece of kit for picking up analogue in the field off the end of a piece of fibre. Ed: And then speakers, the Genelec series … five different speakers in a range of sizes? René: One of the things Genelec have done in recent times is that they’ve released a new series called “The Ones” which are 3-way Smart Active Monitors. They do not look like any other speaker on the market, but there is some very sound engineering behind the design. The 8351 we have here has been out for about a year, but Genelec have now released this design in the smaller form factors as well. Just to very quickly cover the 8351’s and subsequently the 8341’s and 31’s – Genelec have been granted quite a number of patents in the audio engineering design sphere, and this design encompasses most of them. It’s very, very clever engineering. We have basically a coaxial speaker design where the source of the audio is from the one distinct spot for all 3 drivers. The benefit of this is that it gives you very good on axis and off axis imaging from the speaker. Also, with the way they’ve designed this speaker, you have concealed bass drivers allowing them to make the entire front of the speaker the wave guide, which again adds to the imaging capability of the speaker. At first glance, you might say okay, we can’t see the bass drivers, so how are we hearing them, but as you see there’s a small detail through the bottom and the top of the speaker and the bass wave forms are so long that they are transparent to that. Ed: Is Genelec moving to this design through the whole range? René: There are some technical reasons why they can’t make speakers in this range too small. They are a 3-way speaker and there’s actually quite a lot of stuff inside the speaker that’s very difficult to make into the smallest form factors. But they have brought it down to the 8030 size form factor which is an impressive feat!
The one from “The Ones” is easy to spot. Page 14
Ed: Does it make them a lot more expensive?
– their high end studio condenser which you might use for voiceovers or the likes of that. It has both tube and solid state output stages. This means you can totally change the tonal characteristics of the mic to suite the voice by freely moving between tube and solid state, or a blend between the two, until you get the right sound out of the microphone. Ed:
And I see a shotgun there?
René: Not a shotgun, that’s actually a pencil condenser, so unlike a shotgun which is a hyper cardioid polar pattern and is designed to reject the sounds other than what it’s directly pointing at, this can be either cardioid or omni in its pattern. Ed: So there are no shotgun mics in the Lewitt range?
Neumann versus Lewitt.
René: Naturally a 3 way speaker is more expensive than a 2 way, as there are three amplifiers and drivers in the monitor rather than two. It’s very evident what you get out of that on listening! Ed: And that’s something we can’t show here today people, so to hear them, you just have to come into Protel and listen for yourself? René: Absolutely and we can then explain a bit more about the DSP technology and how that works as well. Ed: Okay. And down the far end here there seems to be a range of microphones? René: What we have on display at the Pro Audio Showcase here is our primary distribution brand of microphone – Lewitt. These are an Austrian designed brand. All their microphones have some distinctive thing about them. As an example, the 640 TS which has just been released, ( and this is the first one in the country!), has a dual capsule design. One of the key things with that is in addition to doing multiple polar patterns and MS Stereo, it also has multiple outputs on the microphone. For example, if you are using it as an ambient mic and you happen to have it set to a cardioid microphone pattern, in the recording process, you can actually take the separate feeds from both capsules and then later in postproduction in Pro Tools, you can say “I wonder what that would sound like in an omni pattern”, and you can use the plugin to take those two feeds and produce what it would normally reproduce if you set it to an omni pat-tern.
René: No shotgun mics in that range. I’d also like to point out that we have a reasonable range of the Neumann microphones on display here, which are very much a staple of the broadcast market over many, many years and in particular one of the ones which we do a lot of these days is Neumann’s entry level microphone, the TLM102 which at around a little over $1200 is by far and away the cheapest anyone’s ever been able to get into a Neumann microphone. It has that traditional Neumann characteristic of being the microphone you’re going to own for 20 years. As well as that, it is a great voicing microphone for ADR etc. Ed: I was a little bit concerned that in a corner here we have Eartec Comstar which is yet another beltpack communication system, but you’re saying this is no comparison to Riedel? René: There are some similar technologies in what’s used in the Eartec range, but Riedel is the Flagship. They are also in the DECT wireless arena, but
Ed: This is quite a versatile microphone I imagine, so you could do one person or you could do a trio or …? René: It can either be used as a stereo mic or a mono mic in different patterns. Another example of Lewitt’s slightly different approach is the LCT940 Page 15
they’re designed for a price point and that price point is quite a bit lower. In saying that, the quality you get out of them is very good. Now what’s new in this range is the UltraLITEs. The UltraLITEs are fantastic in that for up to four headsets, you don’t need any base station or beltpacks. Everything is in the headset itself and as with all the stuff in the Comstar range, really simple to use. You basically turn them on, you’ve got five volume settings, 1 to 5 and you’re talking. We’ve been selling them to drone operators and people like that because obviously, having a hands free intercom system where you can converse with a producer or a client whilst you’ve got both hands on the controls of your drone, is a really good thing to do. They’re also good for small film crews and what we can do is expand the system up to seven headsets for a small film crew, by using the little hub system Ed: And is your range more limited in this Comstar system? René: Your range is about 400 metres from the base station. Ed: And headsets?
the
range
when
you’ve
just
got
the
René: When you’ve just got the headsets again the master headset is effectively a base station, so your range is about 400 metres. Ed:
In a circular pattern from that?
René: Ed:
That’s correct, yes.
Providing there are no buildings in the way?
René: Yes … things like concrete and iron girders will create problems for it, but with those limitations … Ed: Again it’s worth a test and if your budget can afford it, you go Riedel, but if you’re struggling Comstar may be the choice, but at least come and try it? René: Yes. One of the options we have with the Eartec range is the Comstar range as opposed to the UltraLITE range which we were just talking about. The Comstar range is a really good way of getting an extension on to an existing wired system in that the Comstar works off a base station, the base station has an interface unit which can be plugged into the likes of a Clear-Com or RTS system. This then becomes a wireless node of the wired system.
have our Zaxcom equipment. Zaxcom is our wireless recording equipment and one of the key aspects of the Zaxcom gear is its ability to do “on the beltpack” recording with time stamped audio and IFB. You also have wireless control via Zaxnet of what’s going on in the recorders. Of particular note that we have on display here is the new ZMT beltpacks – the tiny little one that you see there, which they produce in a number of varieties. This is the standard just straight beltpack recorder / transmitter, but they also do one of these at that size specific for using with microphone booms. One of the really neat things about that is that it’s small enough to actually put at the top of the boom, meaning that you don’t have the weight of the cable on the boom. Also, because they all have the built-in IFB circuit, you can have a small ERX IFB beltpack so you can monitor the audio that you’re getting out of that transmitter. Cool eh? Ed: A lot of cool things Rene – I’m just sad that people have missed this show, but you’ve been busy? René: Yes, very much so. However, if people have missed the show, we do always have this stuff in stock, so they’re welcome to swing by anytime and have a look. NZVN
Ed: And in the glass cabinet? René: What we have here is a few of our smaller items, but not necessarily our lesser items. In addition to a range of USB and Thunderbolt audio interfaces and some real true recording studio peripherals, we also Page 17
Editing for FREE Here’s another interview with Andy Wild at Atomise and we’re now talking about the Media Composer option for anyone starting out. Ed: Andy, I know this has been tried by lots of different companies that produce editing software and I think Avid have had a free version in the past, but this is something rather special? Andy: Yes, many moons ago, there was a thing called Avid Xpress Free – I think it was called – and that was a very much cut down DV editor. Then that disappeared – basically Avid shed all their models – we got rid of the MC400, 800 and the 1000XL and that kind of thing and Avid shifted into its “software-only” model. All we have now is Media Composer which you can buy with the NewsCutter and the Symphony options on top – and there are some additional plugins like ScriptSync and others. But there’s always been an appetite for people to say “oh, I just want a basic version of Media Composer so I can learn the ropes and get a feel for how it works” so Avid announced Media Composer First – probably nearly a year ago. They produced a thing called Pro Tools First as well as Media Composer First. Pro Tools First landed probably a good 6-7 months ago now, and again, that’s a cut down version of Pro Tools, but that’s always been available. Pro Tools has had that culture, the free versions and the lite versions are almost the cut down versions of the full version but this is the first time I’ve actually seen Media Composer in a lite variation. It’s not that the interface has been watered down, it’s basically that some of the features have been removed.
Andy is still at his computer.
Andy: Yes, they become out of control very quickly and, to avoid that, I think organisation is key. Anything that is very big and of that scale, you have to be very regimental and organised in how you arrange your bins, so you can just find things. It’s as simple as that. Media Composer First still has the same underlying engine and functionality that you get within the full blown Media Composers, it’s just a reduced set thereof. Ed:
Ed: So in fact, the free First version would be better than MC 8.6? Andy: Aaah yes it would be from a performance point of view, because it is based on 8.9, but it’s more the fact that some of the features are removed to make it lite. The obvious thing is that there are a reduced number of video and audio tracks you can work with and, for some people, the biggest thing is that there’s a restriction to the number of bins it can have inside an individual project. So if ever you look at some of the very big film projects, the actual Media Composer project itself can run into thousands of bins and folders … Ed: Yes I’ve seen a timeline for The Hobbit and that was incredibly scary.
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Andy: Sadly no, it’s really designed to be an educational tool to give people an idea of how they would use the interface. They can create something in content completely, they can export it to a QuickTime movie, they can export it directly to Vimeo and YouTube as an option now as well. Ed:
And that’s 4K?
Andy: Unfortunately at the moment it won’t do 4K. On the Avid website, there’s a comparison that puts Media Composer First alongside the full-blown version of Media Composer. You can see here some of the key things, some of the things that are supported. We can see that some of the actual codecs are much reduced, but we’ve still got things like transcoding’s limited, we get four tracks of video and 8 tracks of audio, whereas you get 24 and 64 on the full-blown Media Composer. At the moment, there’s no ultra-high definition, it’s only HD right now. I think you can link to ultra-high definition content and maybe transcode it down a notch. I must admit I haven’t tried that, but you can see some of the codecs are reduced, though again, it’s not necessary to say that you would pick up Media Composer First to do your entire edit – which you could do if you’re doing a training video, if you’re doing something like a college project or a university project. It’s still very capable of doing that, but collaboratively, a lot of the export functionality and import functionality has been removed from Media Composer First. But realistically, for most people it’s about the interface and how it functions. Ed: Are you still required to have an “up to date” workstation? Andy: You are going to need a reasonably spec’d machine, it doesn’t need to be as high a spec as a fullblown Media Composer system. I’m running this on a relatively old machine. This is a Z400 – it’s not a 420 or a 440, it’s a Z400 workstation, so it’s not a ridiculously high performance system, but it’s got a decent graphics card – a Quadro 2000 graphics card and 12 Gig of RAM. So the requirements are actually slightly less than a full-blown Media Composer because again some of the features have been removed so it’s not as heavy on the CPU burden.
Ed: This sounds too good to be true that, certainly for people in schools or who were trainees, to download this and work on it themselves, they could become quite skilled in their own home? Andy: Yes … so one of the things it’s doing here is, if you’re an aspiring young filmmaker and you want to get into the Hollywoodesque … Ed:
Or just get a job in production in New Zealand?
Andy: Yes, because realistically now I think it’s relatively safe to say that Media Composer is the dominant NLE system. FCPX is nowhere near as embedded as it used to be. When we lost Final Cut Pro and went to FCPX, the take up wasn’t as great. Realistically, it comes down to a two horse race – it’s either Media Composer or it’s going to be Premiere. Where Media Composer really starts to stand out in the professional environment is in the shared content, the idea of having a single repository held in the middle which holds your projects and your content and everybody can work from it and feed into it, things like that. But if you understand the principles of how to work Media Composer First, you could walk into a job with a full-blown Media Composer quite happily. So you’re learning all the ideas and the ethos behind it and how to trim and where to place shots. So it’s twofold, it’s knowing which button to control where you place the edit, and then also alongside that, Inside the Edit training content, understand why you place it there. There’s the mechanics of it – press button X in order to remove a shot and press this button to insert a shot, but then it’s “well, when should that cut be and why should that copy there?” That’s a completely different training, that’s not the mechanics, that’s the art of editing. So you know you’re kind of getting that completely for free and it works on both Mac and PC systems. Ed: Now of course the big question is certification, so somebody could do this in their home and spend a couple of years and become a really professional editor, but until they showed someone, or until they had a certificate, self-training is not going to help. I know Atomise offers training courses, is this something that
The other great thing with Media Composer First is that it’s very simple to get hold of the licence. You go to the Avid website, just do a Google for Media Composer First, you create an Avid account on an email address, you validate your email address, you then download Media Composer First. Avid, with Media Composer First, are teamed up with a well-known training site which is called Inside the Edit and you get free content from them, so you can download free source content and then there are lessons you can follow about the grammatical … so rather than the technical “which button do I press in order to edit” this is actually the art of learning how to edit per se. Inside the Edit is based completely around that Media Composer operation. So Media Composer First just fits in beautifully with that, and there’s a link inside your account to get hold of the Inside the Edit Media Composer First content free lessons. Page 20
somebody who’d worked on Media Composer First at home and had developed all these skills, could they then come to one of your training courses and do it really quickly and get a certificate to say “yep, I’m actually a qualified editor”? Andy: There’s no reason why that’s not doable at all. As far as I’m concerned the Media Composer operational courses are all about “can you press the right button to do the right thing?” So yes, if they already know where these buttons are, the only difference between First and a full-blown version of Media Composer we’d use is that there might be a few new buttons, and there might be a few new ways of doing it, but I think that would make them a very competent editor and it means that their uptake in learning those new shortcuts will be in next to no time. I think they’d sail through the course and probably would get more from it. Sometimes, when people take the operational courses, they kind of worry that everything needs to be right. You ask them to perform a particular task, but the idea is that we ask them to do the task so they know which button is used for trimming or extending a shot – things like that. But actually, the student then becomes slightly obsessed with “does that edit look right” and that’s not what we’re there to do. The operational course is there to make sure you understand which buttons to press. So if they can use Media Composer First and get their head around editing and become confident with that, it kind of means that they can focus on the idea of learning the different techniques within Media Composer to either improve their speed of editing or improve their ability with the system and work maybe as an assistant editor to start with. So yes, it’s definitely a great springboard and the fact that it’s free means that there’s no worry about anything – you can just get it, use it and move on. The other important thing is that Media Composer First is still in sync with the latest version of Media Composer. Premiere’s a great example where you can buy a cut down version, Premiere Express. It feels nothing like the real Premiere. You pay $80 for it rather than a subscription process and you own it outright, but it doesn’t feel like the same product at all, because it’s like 3 or 4 versions behind, where this is not the case. Yes, with MC First, there are some features removed, but actually, you can see that the content and the way it’s displayed is pretty much identical between the Media Composer First and even this version 6 Media Composer – there’s no giant leap of faith between the two.
Ed:
It’s just ideal for self-paced learning?
Andy: It’s perfect. The other good thing as well is that it’s also great for just seeing how that particular build of Media Composer would work on your platform. It’s a free one, you can try it and if it doesn’t work you need to install a new version. There are all sorts of things it can be used for but it is used first and foremost as an educational tool. You can cut content, but it’s very specific. It’s kind of the idea that you just load all the content in, you cut your project and you spit it out as a finished product, but things like not being able to move a project from this version 6 into this version 8 – not because it’s a version problem, it’s more to do with the fact that it just won’t allow you to open bins from a full-blown version of Media Composer. I believe you can go backwards – I’ll have to try that later on, but there are some operations there. But content wise, AMA links to footage, it works in the same way. You could quite happily sit here and produce something for YouTube and still be able to go back and edit it at a later stage. If you wanted to, there is an option within here to purchase an upgrade. So if you want to take your version of First and say “no, I’m going to make the jump now and purchase a month by month subscription to Media Composer”, you can still do that within the same Media Composer First. Ed: Yes, but it would be more sensible for them at that point to talk to Atomise? Andy: Exactly, yes. Again, we don’t want that kind of bad taste in the mouth – if you think First is great, but then, if you jump into Media Composer fullblown, you might find that you need another 8 gig of RAM and maybe your graphics card’s not quite good enough, because you may well have been operating just on the limit of what your system is capable of. But it’s a good idea, we’ve got some Z440 workstations and this sings along on them. Ed:
And it will do the job?
Andy: thing.
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It does the job – that’s the most important NZVN
ARRI Changes the Game with SkyPanels We are in the offices of PLS to talk ARRI lighting and leading us off today we have Mike Wagner, lighting product specialist, from ARRI in Los Angeles. Ed: Mike, we saw an ARRI/Xytech presentation last night to gaffers, DoP’s and NZCS members and there were a lot of very quiet people there because I think they now understand that the question is not “are LEDs good enough”, but more so “what a fantastic tool you have made”? Brett Smith (ARRI Aus/NZ), Mike and Chris (PLS). Mike: Yes, I think people are really starting to SkyPanel, you just put a USB stick in the back and 5 embrace LED technology in general. They see that it is minutes later, you have brand new features in a fixture a workhorse product, that it’s not just a novelty that you’ve owned for years. So that is a real mind anymore. It used to be that being able to put an LED blowing thing for a lot of our customers – I mean who’s into a very thin profile was the pinnacle of LED used to doing a software update on a light fixture, it’s technology. Now it’s more about “how can I use it to kind of a brand new concept really, especially in the light these big multi-million dollar motion pictures and motion picture business. Users being able to do that, so get really great quality”; and then “how do I control when they see the benefit of that, they see that this is them”? The conversation has changed from talking an investment. about colour quality and what’s your CRI, what’s your TLCI – all these numbers that really kind of cloud the SkyPanel is a more expensive light than others because issue. If you have a good colour rendition, this should of this versatility, but that investment pays back be a given in this industry. Our philosophy from the because we are investing in our factory; these firmware beginning is that there should be no sacrifice in quality updates are free of charge, so we’re investing in the moving from traditional to LED fixtures. Certainly with fixture for the future so our customers can continue to the L-Series and the SkyPanel, we’ve made sure that’s rely on it for more and more features. the case, and now we can really start talking about Ed: I discovered at your presentation last night that it more fun things, like “how do you control them; how do was not only ARRI providing looks and filters for the you do some really interesting ways of manipulating SkyPanel and the L-Series, but you can design one them on a set to get the effect that you’re looking for, yourself, you can build it yourself and you can save that to get the look that you want in a very short period of onto your memory stick and you can pass it on to other time.” lights or you can just save it for future reference.
Ed: Because that’s what it was like up until a few years ago; that you bought a light fixture, you put a bulb in it and the colour temperature of the bulb determined what you got, and then you used reflectors or gels or diffusers just to change that effect. Now you’ve got an LED panel with its own computer all in one and it becomes a multi-light, it can do anything, and I think that really makes the ARRI SkyPanel a game changer? Mike: Yes I agree. I think that it’s changed from, as you mentioned, this kind of mechanical and optical engineering to really electronics and software and so, if we have robust electronics and software in there to control the LEDs through software, we can make it extremely versatile. So we can do things like – starting off with some of the basics – let’s control the colour temperature, let’s get some saturated colours in there – hue and saturation. And then you can move to more complicated things like digital gels and source matching and XY co-ordinates and then even some lighting effects that you could programme in there. You can keep adding to it, because it’s all software and you can update the software on these fixtures. On the
Mike: This is the key – the ability to really take some ownership of it. So again, we have some presets in there like gels and stuff like that, but we want to give all of these different kinds of ways of controlling the colour, so no matter what you’re comfortable with – some people might be more comfortable with the colour wheel, so the hue and the saturation, but I’ve had a lot of customers who are very knowledgeable about colour science, and they’re very particular about the colours that they want, and then they’ll pick the X and Y coordinate mode in order to pick a colour. There’s no wrong way to pick the colour, but the important thing is that they are picking the colour based on what they want to be creative –maybe the project that they’re working on or their personal taste, or they might have a sunset purple that they take from picture to picture. They can make many pre-set files – okay, this is the living room scene and these are all the colours that we’re going to be using in the living room; these are all the colours that we’re going to be using in the spaceship scene or whatever it might be, and take them and distribute them among all the fixtures. So yes, the ownership is really important because the creativity is
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what we’re trying to enable with all of these different tools inside the SkyPanel. Ed: You talk about sharing it amongst the other fixtures … well again, it impressed me that the ARRI LSeries, the Fresnel light LED, can also be connected through the SkyPanels and you can have masters and slaves and much of what you can do on a SkyPanel you can do on an L-Series? Mike: Yes, so the software and the hardware is far more advanced in the SkyPanel than the L-Series, but we wanted to be able to connect the two somehow, and so with the master / slave mode, that really gave us the opportunity to say, yes we’re going to transfer some of these lighting elements over to the L-Series. We can’t do everything with that method, but we can do some more with it and we can have the SkyPanel controlling an L-Series fixture and because all of our lights are calibrated, that becomes possible. So you can select a red colour or an orange colour on a SkyPanel and be sure that it’s going to match that same colour on the L-Series because of all this calibration. Ed: I know that SkyPanels come in 3 form factors: single, double and quad “light engine” modules, so in a smaller situation you can do most things with a couple of single light engines. Setting a scene is not just about throwing a lot of light on it; it’s about the quality of the light, creating shadows, creating effects within that. By having the L-Series and the SkyPanel, you’re offering that mixture of potentially hard light and soft light? Mike: Certainly both are still needed. Our goal is that when you see the light on someone, you can’t tell that it’s an LED light … whether you have a hard shadow or a soft shadow, when the light is actually on the talent, that it just looks like a beautiful light – a beautiful colour of light and quality. So we started off with the L-Series, a Fresnel line which gives you nice hard shadows. You can spot and flood the fixture and cut it with barndoors and all of these things, and then we moved of course to the SkyPanel, which is a soft light and it’s a beautiful soft light in that you don’t get multiple shadows, you don’t get strange colour aberrations in the shadows, you get one homogenous beam of light. I think of course that the SkyPanel came along at a very good time, because there’s definitely a trend in soft lighting at the moment within the film business. Previously, a means of diffusion was put onto a lot of fixtures, but now they have this choice to use either or, and I think in the future there’ll probably be even more different kinds of fixtures in the market. The tool bag has grown, right, so it’s not that we’re taking certain tools out of the tool bag, we’re adding tools into the tool bag and now depending on the project that I’m working on, I pick the right tool for the right job. And that’s important, that you have a breadth of product to do all the different things that you want to do. Ed: One of the other speakers on the evening last night was Sean O’Neill who took a user perspective on the ARRI SkyPanels and Sean was talking about some of the larger sets he was working on. He was also working with the M-Series, some very large lights and not controllable in the same way as the SkyPanels – but he found it so easy to combine the two because of the way the SkyPanel can mix and match and can match, not only an M-Series, but other manufacturers’ lights as well. What I’m getting at is that somebody who has got already a number of lights in their kit, adding a SkyPanel means that they now have that extra flexibility, and it means that they don’t have to chuck away what they’ve already got?
Assembling SkyPanels in the Bavarian factory.
Mike: Yes, absolutely. The key in any scene years ago, when you had a mixed lighting environment, like for example we’re in a room right now where we have sunlight coming in, we have fluorescent lights – you pick the light source that you want to be the main light source and then you gel the lights to match. Now it’s very similar, except that it’s all digital and you can do it much quicker and much more accurately. So in your example of the HMIs, certainly the SkyPanels match the colour of the HMIs and you’d have that huge power that the HMIs have and then the beautiful soft quality of light from the SkyPanels, and these 2 things work seamlessly together. There’s always going to be a need for large bright fixtures because, at the moment, LEDs can’t get up to those brightness levels … HMIs are an extremely efficient light, they’re actually more efficient than fluorescents or LED technology, so I think they’ll be around for a while, but the key is that these things work together to make beautiful images. Ed: And from a local perspective, Chris McKenzie, are SkyPanels a good product for you? Chris: Absolutely, yes. I think as we’ve all been saying, it’s a game changer and it’s this iteration of LEDs which are finally giving us something that is usable without the original issues of LEDs which were originally made for commercial applications where they didn’t care about colour rendering, didn’t care about what we want to do with light. What ARRI have done for us is given us a system which is built for our industry, not something that has come out of the general lighting business and been modified. There’s still a lot of that kit around.
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Ed: And there are even plenty of Blondes and Redheads around still aren’t there? Chris: Yes, but only those ones with safety gauzes in them. But it’s still horses for courses – there are still jobs out there for Blondes and Redheads; there are jobs for SkyPanels; there are budgets. I was talking earlier with my team this morning about the lightning effect and now it gives us another. We have Lightning Strikes where you want to light 5 acres with a lightning effect and we’ve now got SkyPanel where you want to do the close-up or you want to do a lightning effect through the window, and that will fit someone’s budget better than spending $1,000 on a Lightning Strike setup. They can do lightning in their little bedroom set, and with the same fixture they can do fire effects, they can do the cop car. It’s about it being a luminaire that can be tuned to whatever you want to do. A cameraman who has got some other panel lights can go out and he can have an S30 and he can dial up the colour. So when he’s doing an interview situation he can clean key the people from the front, but then he can put a warm kicker on them or a warm backlight in the back. Previously, he would have had to rustle round and find some gels to do that, now he just dials up what he wants and it’s there. The interesting thing is that there’s another generation of cameramen out there who probably don’t know colour gels, colour numbers, but actually we’re going to educate them because the system is still putting them out as gels, so a guy who wants a warm colour will go through and go “well, I want a 104 straw” and next time he’ll file that away and go “okay, that worked last time, so I’ll go back to a 104”. So he’s just learned what a 104 is without having to dig through a gel swatch book – you know, which of these 15 gels am I going to buy and remember to take with me? It’s all there, it’s in the fitting and I think that’s really the flexibility for the smaller operators and, as you well know, there’s a vastly larger number of smaller operators in New Zealand than the big boys. So I’d be dead happy if we can sell all of those guys an S30 and an S60. Ed: So an S30’s a single light engine, and an S60’s a double? Chris: Yes and for a 5D shooter or A7 shooter or the C300s and those sorts of guys, that would be a nice little lighting kit, with a Blonde and a Redhead and they’re covered. Ed: But there are going to be situations where it’s an overkill. I can think of a News cameraman travelling by air around the country or just doing quick pickups, it’s still a fair bit to set up as compared to a standard light, and really if you’re just going to light somebody for a
News item, you don’t necessarily go to the extent that you need to adjust for all sorts of colours. And the other situation where you’ve got a TV studio, you want to set it up and just leave it and that’s basically the lighting that you’re going to have. You don’t need this level of technology? Chris: No, you’re right. It’s where someone wants a greater level of creativity in what they’re doing, absolutely. And there are other products out there that will do your little locked off web studio or whatever. I mean, I would dearly love to sell this kit to people that’ll only ever leave them as a tungsten source, but at the end of the day, that’s not the reality of the marketplace so I’d rather have them with an enthusiastic user who would use all the functionality, than have them rusting away somewhere where their whole gamut is not used. That said, you know I’m not talking anyone out of it, if they want to come and buy them … Ed: Well just try them, have a look at them, see what real effects they can produce? Chris: Exactly and that’s why we’ve got a showroom, that’s why we can close the curtains and you can bring your camera in and you can squirt off some frames and look at the cheap LED that you’ve bought off Trade Me and not understand why your pictures always look magenta or green, depending on which side of the river they came from. But there’s other situations as well; you know I’d dearly love to get my hands on parliament and relight the stand-up position there, because there’s a lot of places like that that need work doing on them. Ed: So you could make Winston Peters look about 20 years younger? Chris: think.
No, Winnie’s not able to be helped I don’t
Ed: And talking of lighting solutions, I would imagine you’re confident that ARRI are going to continue to develop this product and, as with the cameras, that it’s going to be a firmware upgrade and that somebody who’s made a good investment in a SkyPanel is still going to be happy in years to come because it’s going to be a new light with the new firmware? Chris: Yes absolutely. I’ve been around and about with Mike for a week or so now and he’s had his ears open the whole time and I can see that he’s listening to what everyone’s talking about and you see it in the fitting. Many manufacturers will go “this is what our fitting does”. You ask “well, who did you talk to about that?” “Oh, we decided that was it.” But ARRI doesn’t do that, they’ve been around for 100 years, they haven’t survived in this industry this long by not
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listening to their customers. That’s the key thing and that’s what I like about dealing with them … that there is a chain there and having contacts with people like Mike and Brett it goes through the chain and the feedback is there and they will evolve. You know we’ve seen a bit of the software in the entertainment side of our business, in terms of the software upgrades with fittings, and some manufacturers do it in the right way for the right reason and others are getting under-developed product. The SkyPanel is an incredibly well developed product and the jump from version 2.5 to 3 was – I won’t say a quantum leap, but it was a reason for reloading software into it, because there’s a lot more feature sets. Ed: So in version 4 you’re looking forward to the glitter effect and the disco ball? Chris: Ummm … yeah, I think they’ve got to go a little bit more pixelated to achieve that, but I’ve been talking to Mike about ideas on that anyway. Happily, it’s not like having a Microsoft computer where it’s upgrading itself twice a week because there’s a whole lot of stuff in there they forgot to put in when they were in such a hurry to SkyPanels illuminate the ARRI SMPTE stand in Sydney. get Windows whatever into the but so many manufacturers go for output, output, marketplace. So it’s solid reasons for upgrading and output, gotta get max output out of this; whereas the that’s good. consideration should be don’t overdrive it, don’t push it Ed: And unlike Microsoft, we’re not expecting them to to its limits, because that will then cost you life. Most actually take any of the features out? of these fittings are going to last longer than you and I Chris: No, and also obviously the thought has in the business, and possibly even Mike, so there is a gone in that the processors in the system are big longevity in it, but also we’ve got 30-40 year old ARRI enough to handle future upgrades and memory and like fixtures floating around in their original iterations, still all key electronics things. You know, we want to burn as good as the day they were built. these things 12-15 hours a day, our fine customers are Mike: Well just to really build off of that, the going to hammer them … future is really interesting and I think it’s a really Ed: Those delicate, nimble fingered gaffers you exciting time to be in lighting in general. There’s a lot mean? of really great products coming out; the possibilities in Chris: The delicate gaffers, the careful and the SkyPanel, I think we’re just still scratching the sensitive people who we work with. But ARRI, as I say, surface, I think there’s so many more ideas that we they’ve built this gear for 100 years and there’s many have that customers keep coming to implement. That’s rude comments been made about ARRI, but I’ll tell you the exciting thing for me, because it really shows people what, it comes out the other end of the production are excited about the product that they’re using and process in the shape that it went into, in terms of they want to make it better – and we do as well. So I reliability and in thinking and you know the think, yes, there’s a lot of future possibilities and we’ll conversations we’ve had about the fact that the just keep building the product and making it better and systems are not being driven as hard as they could be, NZVN better.
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