OCTOBER 2017
Create Fresh at TVNZ The TVNZ building in central Auckland has been refurbished but that is not the total extent of the channel upgrade. To show us the latest developments we are in the bowels of TVNZ in Studio 1A with Keith Bremner from Gencom and Lindsay Chalmers, head of News and Programming at TVNZ. Ed: This looks like something very special; a purpose-built studio that came about because of someone’s clever idea. Tell us about it Lindsay? Lindsay: TVNZ recognises that it needs to position itself for the future, and that means lots of things. What does “future” mean? Our delivery platforms are all changing, we all know that, every broadcaster’s going through that. Our audience is changing as well, so its needs and the kind of content that it wants is also changing. We really want to find the ideas that are going to marry those two changes together – and the talent that will deliver that. So TVNZ has come up with “a cunning plan” that we’ve called “New Blood” and that’s to highlight and put some wheels under both talent and ideas that we’ve got internally and, actually, what we bring in externally as well. So this is really kind of branching out and just trying to find new ways to create content and deliver that to an audience which we all know is changing. That is the premise of what we’re looking at here in this studio. Ed:
And where can we see the expression of that?
Lindsay: There are a number of activities that TVNZ has put forward including Banter which is a low cost, bit on the fly I guess, weekly quiz show that goes out on Duke. We’re near the end of the season of that to be fair – we’ve just got one more episode to go and it’s been very successful. We actually have discovered new talent here in Tim Batt, our presenter, a very clever man, along the
Keith and Lindsay in Studio 1A at TVNZ.
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lines of a John Oliver type talk-show host. That’s one example and there are others not related to this studio. Ed: Well I guess it’s a work in progress – you’ve got to set up the facility first and then put the people in there to see what they can do, and that’s not only the talent, but also the technical people, studio management and the people who are writing the scripts – the whole shebang. I think it’s great that you’ve kept it in-house and you’re not taking the space of one of your major broadcast studios? Lindsay: That’s right. This is our third production studio. We have a News studio and that’s worked heavily every day. We have another client-based studio – that’s where we push a lot of our work that is external and client focused. The one that we’re in here now has seen activity on and off but it’s been fairly quiet in the last couple of years, so it’s been great to actually put a show in here and reach a different audience, different demographic, different channel, being Duke. Ed: So the people who are coming in here, your presenters and technical people, are they already employed by TVNZ or have you brought new people in? Lindsay: Some yes, some no. It’s a real mixture actually. For most studio work, we rely on a fairly broad contractor base, because shows come and shows go, so we bring the talent in as we need it. So there’s some really skilled, well known contractors that we’ve brought in for this show; there’s some new talent that has literally come off the street; and we’ve moved people that are not traditionally used to doing production – they’ve come out of a News environment – to direct for instance, and have led that show from the beginning … so basically designing the show, learning how to use the new tools that we have implemented in here, and putting that show to air. It’s been a real mixture of new external, new internal and a good bedrock of good studio skilled people, who have been your mentors and your coaches and trainers, etc as well. Ed: When did the first meeting with the people who were going to put it together happen? Lindsay: February 2017. We had about a month’s worth of internal activity before we engaged Gencom, and then it was a fairly rapid deployment from there, so yes we worked with Keith and his team – here’s our idea, here’s what we want to achieve … Ed:
And we haven’t got any money?
Lindsay: We never have any money, and here’s some sort of product choices that we’re interested in, but how do we put all that together, how do we make TV out of this and actually really importantly, how do we integrate it into some of the core systems we’ll still need to integrate to? It’s a relative island here, but it’s not a complete island obviously. So that engagement took, I think, broadly around three months. So it’s pretty quick when you think that’s a “from scratch” – that was working with a bare control room and a studio that had lights, but we replaced the cameras, replaced the sets, everything else.
Keith and Lindsay on the ‘banter’ set.
Ed: Now, of course, the question from the other equipment suppliers out there is going to be “why didn’t we get to hear about it?” Why did you go straight to Gencom? Lindsay: We’ve obviously had a long relationship with Gencom around build work, because this is very much a build work piece of activity for us, as we’ve got long-term relationships with a number of other suppliers around the country as well. Ed: For different purposes? Lindsay: For different purposes, absolutely. But this was very much an integration build piece of work and especially around the urgency that we had in this particular project, Gencom was absolutely our go-to partner and they have not disappointed. Ed: Because they’ve shown you that they’ve done this sort of thing well before? Lindsay: They’ve done it before, absolutely done it before and you know, this is another example where they’ve done it again.
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Ed: Critically, it’s not a standalone arrangement, it’s got to fit in with the rest of your infrastructure? Lindsay: Yes and so I guess that’s the benefit in working with Gencom – they know a lot of our infrastructure already from other work that they’ve done and have been aware of that’s happened in here. So that all led to that urgency that we had … we needed to get this done quickly, we had a commissioned show – really early on in forming the whole idea that we had, suddenly we got a show that had been commissioned for this studio, so that really added pace to what we needed to do, and we achieved that. Ed: ( Gazing on the swarm of Fresnels above my head … ) Now technically, these lights look as though they’ve been in the building for some time already? Lindsay: Yes … so although I say that this project pretty much started from scratch, of course the studio was already built. It’s a “fit for purpose”, purpose built studio. The lighting rig that you can see is pretty much the existing rig that was in here though we’ve augmented it a little bit. It’s actually lit as two halves. What you can’t see behind the velvet curtains is a green infinity wall – it’s got a curved base and everything – which will have its own purpose in future shows. Ed: I can see also that there are some very large air conditioning units above? Lindsay: They’ve been there since the Ark pretty much but again they are purpose built studio air-con. Ed: I’m sure Keith would have liked to have re-kitted you with LEDs to reduce the tropical ambiance. Lindsay: He did suggest it, but look we had a budget and … Ed: … and young talent can get hot? Lindsay: Yes, it’s part of the initiation ceremony – so you can see, there are bits we’ve replaced and some we haven’t. Ed: I guess the critical path is from camera through to delivery, and that’s all new apart from the pedestals? Lindsay: Yes, it’s all new apart from the pedestals which are a source of much amusement. We’re absolutely on old peds here, very old peds in fact. They get us through a show and then we have to re-gas them – again! Yes, it is amusing, and I’m sure you’ll take a photo of these with what looks like a tablet mounted on a pedestal – that’s the Blackmagic studio camera. But look, they actually work and that is the point – they were low cost, they integrate into this suite of product that we’ve bought into and they’re easy to use. This is really important here because we’re trying to create an environment where we encourage potentially non-TVNZ, or actually non-TV more importantly, trained and focused people. But they
Keith reliving his youth.
probably have had some experience with the type of equipment we’ve got here and so we want to welcome them in – this is the new face of TVNZ you know, we’re saying “hey, you may have perceptions about us but come on in, have a look, we want you to use the gear we’ve got, we want to work with you, we want to see what we can develop out of that.” That’s really led to the product choices that we’ve made with a lot of support from Gencom. Ed: So tell us the workflow. You’ve obviously got the Blackmagic studio cameras with the massive viewfinder, but you put your own lenses on there I see? Lindsay: Yes we do have our own lenses, and there’s another story to that.
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Ed: Oh, because the workflow’s not full 4K I understand? Lindsay: It is nearly 4K. There are some pieces that we couldn’t quite achieve. To be fair, we’re 4K in terms of production, but when we go live to air clearly we’re not 4K. So if we were to do all post out of here, do the studio activity but actually post edit that, yes we can be 4K. Ed: Now Lindsay, I’ve counted six cameras in here? Lindsay: Yes, actually it’s even more than that I think, so a full complement is around 8 or 9 for a tiny studio, which sounds bizarre, but the reason for doing that is, if you get those angles right, you reduce the number of camera operators you need to do a simple show. Relatively speaking, it is a simple show in terms of studio. So we have an operator running a traditional pair, able to move that camera and get some tracking shots and more mobile shots but all of the other cameras are fixed, locked off with specific shots – either tight shots of guests or wide shots etc – and we just cut between them. There is a degree of less flexibility around that, but again I’d say the type of show that we started out with in here didn’t need all of the flexibility you would have in a traditional studio, and we made it work and it looked really good. Ed: Because that’s the thing, with decent lighting you can actually make a quite basic camera still give you great pictures? Lindsay: Sure, and as you’ve already pointed out, it’s a pretty traditional lighting rig in here, but there’s a lot of light up there for a small studio, so lighting itself wasn’t an issue. Ed: On the choice of cameras, Keith, you’ve supplied the Blackmagic Studio, but then you’ve got some other smaller ones? Keith: Well the main three manned cameras are the Blackmagic Studio cameras, but we’ve complemented those with five of the Blackmagic Micro cameras with detachable lenses and they’re set up to grab the head shots of the guests, without the need of having to have a cameraman behind every camera, which is part of the point of this – to keep it simple and easy to operate and keep the cost down for them. The little Micro cameras are a 4K resolution camera as well, so again in the studio here we can create a UHD 4K
show and obviously that’s not going to be broadcast on TVNZ, but YouTube and other online delivery platforms to allow TVNZ to produce and get UHD content out there. Ed: Which is actually a critical point – that for your standard TVNZ broadcast specs, output from this arrangement is not something that would fit those specs? Lindsay: It doesn’t fit within it right now, no, but I think most broadcasters would say the same – 4K will happen at some point – how we distribute it, that’s different. It may not be the way we distribute today, it’s probably going to be solely online, but just like we said many years ago, “HD – oh that’ll happen sometime”, well it happened. 4K will happen, it’s about distribution I think. But for now yes, this is very much a 4K island within an HD infrastructure. Ed: And our grandchildren might see 8K? Lindsay: They might … I like 16 myself! Ed: Okay, now Keith, how did you put this together? You must have been a bit gobsmacked when you were brought in and faced with this particular challenge, and I guess you weren’t given a lot of time? Keith: The brief from the outset was a combination of “it’s got to be quick and low cost” and “it’s got to be 4K” which – what’s the word for that – dichotomy? Ed: Well yes, it could be, but in today’s environment, it’s pretty amazing what you can pass off as “4K”? Keith: Yes and it’s thanks to revolutionary companies like Blackmagic that enable that – to actually bring UHD to the table at an affordable price point. But other than that, it’s a conventional studio operation really – cameras, switchers, graphics, audio – but we just had to find more affordable ways of doing things. Ed: But also you had to take into account what equipment was already available at TVNZ that would fit?
Keith: We did, we had to reuse a lot of their existing equipment and ensure that it could operate with the new. But in terms of taking a project and doing the design and build, it’s like any other – it has to be carefully designed and then built, not the other way round, and with great people like our very resourceful David Valois as our project manager, who used to actually work here at TVNZ so he knows the ins and outs of this building very well and also the people … so Dave was able to take this one “head on” and achieve what we had to in the time frame that we had. Of course, early on in the process, TVNZ said “oh by the way, we’ve got a new show for the Duke channel called Banter which starts on the 13th of April” which gave us the hurry up and we had to throw a few more people at it to get it done in time. But there’s nothing like working together with a customer where you’ve both got the same end game and you’ve just got to work together on the design and co-operation and we’ve always had that with TVNZ, and this was one of the There is a Blackmagic Studio camera in there somewhere. better cases where TVNZ Page 6
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Ed: But I guess, on the audio side, you went somewhere else? Keith: Yes, we looked around for a cost effective digital smart audio console and ended up with the Behringer X32 which is a great machine. Everyone who’s had their hands on it is quite amazed at what it can do for the price point it is. It’s really smart and capable. Ed: And you didn’t have to do anything tricky in the glue products to make things talk to existing equipment – legacy stuff? Keith: The video part of it is fairly easy really. The tricky part comes with control systems and interfacing equipment that need to talk to each other. Using Blackmagic cameras with a third party servo controlled lens and getting camera control and lens control One of the Blackmagic Micro cameras in Studio 1A. working nicely, both in a manual and automated from the Blackmagic environment at the just threw whatever resources they needed to at it, and same time is always a challenge. I never expect things we did, and we came up with it. to just work out of the box … they rarely do, but with Ed: So how much of the workflow is actually good people on your team we overcome most of those Blackmagic product? tricks. Keith: All of the cameras, the Atem vision Ed: Because you want this to be a teaching switcher, the Hyperdeck media players, the conversion environment, or that was part of the brief – there’s no equipment – you know SDI to HDMI etc, frame point in having some piece of fancy kit if it’s not actually synchronisers, a Blackmagic web presenter for streaming out, and also the Videohub SDI video router industry standard, because then people won’t learn how to hang it all together. to use that standard?
Page 8
certain level of backup in place, and they’ve got enough here for what they’re doing. Of course, providing this level of facility for TVNZ might seem a bit unusual, but for a lot of other people around town it’s quite the norm. Ed: Yes I know we’ve certainly seen some streaming services where there are no camera operators, it’s just all point of view cameras and it seems to work? Keith: Yes, or just the Facetime camera on the laptop. Ed: Yes – we don’t want to sink to that level Keith. Any other design features here? Keith: Did you notice the 4K set? That becomes a factor when you’re starting to shoot in such high resolution that your set elements have to be either very carefully made or made out of natural materials that do look good in high resolution, and this one does look good.
The audio desk and radio mics.
Keith: Yes, true. Audio had its challenges as well with getting a large number of radio mics and a large number of in-ear return talkback to the earpiece systems working. Ed: But in a building like this you wouldn’t have to worry about spectrum surely – you could use out of date radio mics? Keith: No, we supplied all new Shure radio mics – you can see up in the ceiling there what Dave Valois has had to do. He’s had to mount external aerials and aerial combiners and such to get the large number of radio mic systems all working happily together. Ed: Now of course, the other question that people are going to be thinking is that there’s a lot of Blackmagic equipment here and they might think “is that a choice fit for a live environment?” Keith: Well it’s about being fit for purpose and for the purpose of this exercise, which was to foster innovation with TV creators outside of TVNZ to produce something new for TVNZ, the Blackmagic approach is fit for purpose. It works very well and, as long as people know the limitations of that class of equipment, then you live with those limitations and still produce very good content.
Ed: It really is a standalone arrangement – you’ve got the cameras, you’ve got all the cabling and what else have you got in the system? Lindsay: Well why don’t we go through to the control room? Ed: Right, I see a little bit of legacy equipment here too? Lindsay: A little bit of legacy but substantially new to be fair. Look it’s like any studio, the fundamental workflow is “camera through to vision mixer.” You integrate other sources through that vision mixer whether it be graphics, whether it be clips that you’re playing in, etc. We have an audio suite that’s just behind us here and a lighting control box which is original from the studio and still works. There is some old coms equipment in here and that’s part of the integration into TVNZ proper. But the workflow is not different to any studio environment. It’s just some of the product choices we’ve made are a little different, particularly how we insert graphics for instance. This control room does have some history having done a range of programming out of here. It’s
Ed: Obviously, in any facility like this, you have got backup and you’ve got to have planned “work arounds” whatever level of studio it is? Keith: That’s true. The Banter programme for example is actually going out live to air on Duke, so there does have to be some resiliency around it. Someone like TVNZ does expect that, so there is a backup path to an extent – they could certainly hot-cut cameras on the Blackmagic video router if there was a problem with the vision switcher, there are multiple cameras. There’s always a way to get out of trouble in live TV if you’ve got a Page 9
even done Lotto in the past but we’ve stripped out most of that old gear. We had an old Sony 8000 I think it was, desk in here – that was moved out to replace and put in the mixer that we’ve got here now. Ed:
That’s a Blackmagic mixer?
Lindsay: Yes. On the surface, it looks pretty basic, but actually it’s quite a powerful mixer and what we found last night is, we plugged in some different camera sources, untimed sources, and the desk didn’t care about the timing, it doesn’t care about whether it’s HD or SD, it actually just makes it happen. And again, that’s that kind of ease of use, ease of function; for people who are not deeply experienced in TV production and broadcasting that we need – we want this to be easy for them. Actually it is easy, it really is easy. But yes, it’s had some history in here and this is a new history, this is a new path for TVNZ and we’re really excited about it. Ed: Does this studio hook into your standard server arrangement – you don’t need any special storage or whatever? Lindsay: Interesting you should talk about servers. Actually, we use HyperDecks as clip players, so we don’t have anything like an EVS sitting behind here or an Omneon server or anything like that. If we’ve got a clip source that we need to play and inject into that programming – whether it be live or posted later – we’re playing it off HyperDecks. In fact, if you look in that panel over there you can see four LED screens, that’s the four HyperDecks that we have. Ed: But you must have a connection to your main server? Lindsay: No we don’t, other than bringing it through on a tieline, so we’d play that clip from another server remotely in some other part of TVNZ and we’d bring it through into here. We actually don’t need to, it’s purely standalone. Anything that we create that is a clip that we need to inject, yes we’ll edit that on whatever software we choose to use, import it to the HyperDeck and play that in as needed. Ed: Have you got an editing facility attached to this studio? Lindsay: That’s to come. What we’ve got here is the first flush of this standalone environment. There are some ancillary rooms behind here that we’re going to be fitting out as breakout rooms, edit suites etc. We have pre-purchased some of that already, so we’ve got a couple of edit systems that we’re going to put together that will sit on a small NAS. That gives us the
ability to do any post activity rather than live out of this studio environment. We’re going to put just a single field kit into that as well. We’re still deciding what that product choice will be, but again we want it to be something that non-TV production people would be familiar with. We’ve played with the idea of a C100, but it will be something of that ilk. Ed:
As long as it’s not an iPhone?
Lindsay: No, it will be a proper camera fit for purpose. So that’s to come and that’s going to happen relatively soon as we finish off this entire environment and then begin to open it up more. Ed: So you’re saying that all the programmes going out of this studio are live? Lindsay: That’s what we’ve done so far, yes. All live programming. Ed:
Then all your audio mixing must be live as well?
Lindsay: Yes, fully live. So we have a sound op in here of course and here’s our audio desk. We’ve got a Mac terminal – really that’s just there for us to pull down Spotify music for incidental music into any of the shows that we’re doing with a Spotify account that we have. Ed: There’s nobody in here at the moment, so it only fires up just before the show goes out? How long would they spend in here for a half hour show? Lindsay: They’ll come in around mid-afternoon, start to rehearse, integrate some of the clips that they’ve created, get them into the system and they’ll rehearse those clips into the show itself. So they’ll have, I think on average about four hours of preparing the show, rehearsing the show, and then we go to air at 8.30. Of course, being a talk show, you’re never quite sure where it’s going to go, and that’s the entertaining value of that particular show heavily relying on the talent of Tim Batt. I think we really have found someone interesting in Tim. So at that level, the first thing we’ve put through this environment, we’ve actually ticked some boxes of discovering some talent and giving them some air time. Ed: So how does the rest of the TVNZ hierarchy view this – are they pleasantly surprised and looking forward to more? Lindsay: Yes, and I guess that is the point – looking forward to more. The piece that I haven’t spoken about is the notion – you’ve heard me talk about those who aren’t TV people or within TVNZ itself, inviting them in. The tag I guess that we’ve given those people is “YouTubers” so they’re probably already doing this, but they’re doing it from their home or out of their garage or whatever it might be right … Ed:
That’s where most of us started.
Lindsay: Most of us started there, and so they’ve already been creating. We’re really interested in working with those people so when we’re ready, we’re going to begin to invite these people in. That’s the next phase and that’s the bit that we’re really looking forward to. In the next 2-3 months, we’ll be ready to do that. Ed: And I guess, depending on which government we get Saturday night, you might try and get some of that money that Jacinda has promised Radio New Zealand? Lindsay: laughs I don’t think that’s going to happen somehow. Yes, we’ll see what happens on Saturday night I think. Ed: Everything is recorded on the Blackmagic HyperDecks.
Watch this space eh?
Lindsay:
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Watch this space, yep.
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Postproduction at Images & Sound
broadcasters and distributors. So you’re absolutely We are in the offices of Images & Sound with Steve right, the system in the mixing theatre especially is Finnigan and Grant Baker. This visit came about being really put through its paces compared to what we because, at the recent Pro Tools Show in Auckland put can do with the same software in another room that’s on by Protel, I met Steve and he invited me here to making a 30 second radio ad or a TVC. have a look at what they do. Let’s see if he made a wise decision shall we? Ed: Steve, you’re the audio “go to” guy and, after our tour of the sound booths here, I observe that you really seem to cater for all levels – from a simple TVC right up to a feature film and, pretty much, you’re using Pro Tools all the way through? Steve: That’s right, we’ve got a lot of Pro Tools systems and, more importantly, a lot of very talented people who run them, from being able to mix an international quality feature film, right down to the guy who is better placed mixing a 30 second TVC or 60 minute Documentary or Corporate video. There’s a huge range of skills in the Steve and Grant in the engine room. building and it’s what really Ed: Just looking at the feature film suite, one would makes us successful and it’s really why we came up get the impression that “wow, this is a top end facility” with our by-line of “complete post production” because, and that anybody who’s got a smaller production, might not just in the audio side, but in the vision side too, we be frightened into thinking “no no no, we need to look really wanted to cater for everybody – and do it well, somewhere else”, but in fact, I’ve seen the different not just say that we do it well. booths and you do have the small facility for a little TVC Ed: So you’ve got Pro Tools in each booth, but I or a small doco or just something for broadcast. Those guess, in the feature film one, your operator is using producers have the opportunity to come in here and many more of the features than one would in a you can look after them at a reasonable rate? corporate? Steve: Oh absolutely. In our main mixing theatre we’re really giving the system a good workout – such as 500 plus tracks of audio running simultaneously with multiple plugins and 3 computers working at the same time. I’ve mixed a lot of TVCs and docos in my time, but sitting back and looking at what our guys do with the films and dramas blows my mind sometimes, because it’s a whole different level with the way they have to set their sessions up with their bussing and plugin organisation. If they don’t set it up well at the beginning, they’ve got a dog’s breakfast at the end when it comes to providing deliverables for different
Steve: Absolutely and, and as I mentioned to you on the way around, when you said “what’s this room go out at per hour?” I couldn’t even think of that because we don’t tend to work like that – we tend to look at a production budget and project and put clients in the right space with the right person. Ed: Because if you do it right that time, they’ll probably come back? Steve: And that’s how we live our lives. We’ve never forced anyone to come in here and we hate trying to go out there and do the big sell and “oh you’ll love it when you’re here.” Get them in the door and, if they
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Ed: Because there’s so much you can do yourself these days – you can have your own version of Pro Tools and you can do your own mixing, but I’ve often thought when I’ve finished a project and I’m very proud of the vision side of it, that I’m really not sure about the audio. I used to look upon the audio as a secondary part, although I know now that it isn’t true. What does somebody do, or how do they approach you to say “look, I’ve done this project but it doesn’t sound great. Can you give us some advice and what could you do to it to make it sound a lot better?” Where do they start? Steve: I guess that they first have to recognise that they do need help.
Alana enjoys colouring in with this consol.
come back ( and they normally do ), you’re away laughing, because that makes the job enjoyable too. I spent years trying to tout advertising agencies into the building to work with me by cold calling and boy it was hard work, it was horrible, I hated it. A lot of those paid off and I made some really good friends and clients out of it, but the ones that didn’t, boy you just felt like you were bashing your head against the wall. So, yes, you’re exactly right, people in the door, enjoy the experience, hopefully they’ll come back.
We’ve actually got a couple of clients now who we record voiceover for; then they shoot back to their offices and mix it themselves. One of them, he’s not a sound engineer, but he does a pretty good job. It’s a voiceover, he’s got some music and a couple of sound effects and he does it. A couple of times I’ve tried to say “hey look, for an extra 20 minutes I could nail this for you and have it done.” “No no no, I want to do it” and it’s absolutely fine, away he goes with the voiceover and he does what he needs to do. That isn’t that common actually … most people who come in here want our our expertise I suppose. And that’s the thing, once they’ve recognised that they need some help …
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Ed: So when they want your input, what do they come to you with, what do they physically bring to you? Steve: Well, if it was a TVC or if they’d made a corporate video, presumably they’ve got a project sitting on an Avid or Premiere or Final Cut or something. We talk them through what they need to export out of their system – and these days it’s generally an AAF file or similar, with the vision and audio tracks embedded into it; and then we’d have a look at it. If they wanted to know how much time they needed to book, they might send it to me first, and we would evaluate it and say “okay, I see what you need to do here; we need to tidy up, let him add some sound effects and we need to smooth that music out and tidy up those edits.” Ed: So if somebody comes in with a 30 second TVC, what’s it going to cost them if they’ve already done a good job themselves? Steve: If they’ve done a good job with the vision and they just want to add a voiceover to it, maybe there’s a couple of onscreen grabs, a bit of music … they could be out the door in an hour. If someone says “oh gee, the street traffic’s horrible, what can you do about that”, we might need to pull out a few tools and try a bit of noise reduction. That stuff can take a bit longer because you’re fiddling and trying a few things, but normally only a couple of hours. In our main commercial suite here, we can probably put out 10 commercials a day depending on what they are. Some of them will be voiceover music, some of them will be a bit more complicated. Ed: So that’s it, you will have a look at it for no charge and you’ll tell them “we can do it for a couple of hours, but I would suggest this amount of time is probably going to be necessary if you want to make it 100%? Steve: Yes. You can generally see the script, have a pretty good idea about it, and also maybe find out who the voiceover talent is you’ve got coming in. Because, if you’re getting the client themselves or an inexperienced VO, straight away, you’re going to take at least an hour … Ed: … just to calm them down. The recording is going to take you a day!
different features and now they’re very similar products. The biggest downside with Fairlight is that there aren’t that many people who can use it, so calling in a freelancer to use Fairlight isn’t really an option, but we’ve got 3 guys in-house who can use it, including myself, and for what we need it for, it’s a great tool, just obviously nowhere near as prolific as Pro Tools is in the global sense. Ed: But I guess in any audio booth, having a decent microphone is pretty important so do you guys go in for ribbon microphones for example? Steve: No we don’t really, that’s very much a “musical taste” tool. We’ve had ribbon mics in the building in the past when the audio side was Mandrill Audio Post or Mandrill Studios. So we’ve still got Neumann’s from those days but generally, for the day to day work that we do, we’re using Sennheiser mics and things like Sanken COS-11 lapel mics, because we’re working with actors and we’re trying to recreate locations and environments to match what they used on set or on location. If it’s for a voiceover only, then we might use a different Sennheiser or an AKG or one of the Neumann’s to try to get a nice warm close mic sound. But look, because a lot of the stuff we do is relatively fast turnaround, we don’t have half an hour to set up microphones like you do in a music recording studio. We tend to use the same mics fairly regularly, but they’re all certainly very good microphones. Speaking of good quality, I think it’s time that we talked to Grant Baker about the image side of this operation. Ed: Grant, this is your baby, you have some history in this area? Grant: Yes, I’ve been here for about 20 years, and before that I was working at TVNZ for 10 years, mainly as an editor and a sound recordist, so I’ve sort of got a range of skills. Ed:
So you’ve worked your way up from U-matic?
Grant: Yes U-matic, 2 inch quad tape machines, 1 inch machines, film … so yes, I’ve seen it all. Ed: What was your favourite – perhaps the “clunk” when the U-matic locked up and you knew that it was recording?
Grant: Actually my favourite was the ACR-25 commercial cassette replay machine – that was a Steve: Yeah, been there. If you’re getting Mark nightmare! Perry in, you’re going to be 10 minutes, so there are all those variables that you’ve got to take into account. But like I say, we’ve got a lot of experience in the building to look at that and help people, absolutely, it’s a big part of what we do. Ed: OK, but apart from Pro Tools, what else do you have – what other facilities do you have for audio sweetening or audio work? Steve: Well Pro Tools is the main one, though we have a few other little offline tools that we use for general things, for file processing and making different versions of files for different purposes. The only other major piece of equipment we have is Fairlight which is an Australian product. We got it mainly for our commercial work, just because we liked the speed and how it handled vision and AAFs but particularly it’s ADR package ( dialogue replacement work ) for our films which we do a lot of. When we bought it for that particular purpose, it was streets ahead of Pro Tools. Pro Nich Cunningham with all the audio buttons, knobs and sliders Tools has caught up in a lot of ways, with that young lads’ dreams can handle. Page 14
Ed: Anyway, you’ve got none of those here today. We have toured the booths here and the first one we looked at was the colour suite?
Cumberpatch is the operator in your photo and he does all of our on-set visual effects supervision and TVC work.
Grant: Yes, Alana Cotton is one of our colourists who are running one of our two Baselight suites. Baselight is a colour grading tool by a company called FilmLight out of the UK and that’s a product that’s used in all the high end post houses around the world. Ed: This is it – in your postproduction video side, you are getting many clients coming here with nearly finished projects, but they need that colour grading to make them really stand out. Is that what happens? Grant: Yes. We do a range of different jobs. Typically we’re taking them through from the material that’s been shot, we’re doing the offline edit, the online edit, the colour grade, the visual effects. As our name says, it’s complete postproduction, but more and more we’re getting clients who have edited their own short film, music video, and they’re just coming in to do the colour grade and then taking it away to add their own graphics or do their own visual effects or whatever.
Ed: You mentioned that this material is going to some sort of central storage system. You must have started off with a small central server in the early days and then added to it. Has it become a bit unwieldy that you’ve got so many different bits of storage or are they all able to talk amongst themselves?
Ed: Okay, so take me through the process. I understand you’ve got a lot of Avids here that you use for offline? Grant: Correct. Normally we get camera material delivered to us each day that we process, we back it up, we create viewing copies, we create Avid media, we load that into our Avid shared storage system and then offline editors come in and cut the material. Once that’s been approved, we then reconform the high res camera material which might be shot on RED or ARRI or Sony F65 or Panasonic, and then pass that into our grading suite and match up all the shots and then add in graphics and visual effects, before it gets passed through to the sound guys to then do a sound mix to. Ed: And a lot of that material is coming in in a RAW state? Grant: Correct yes. So most of the high end cameras are shooting what we call “RAW” which allows us more latitude in the grading and avoids the camera material being clipped or overexposed on location. Ed: Now you said before that some people take your Avids out and actually have them on site when they’re doing a particular production? Grant: Yes, we’re finding more and more productions want to be close to their editors and so a lot of the shows we do are editing as they’re shooting which makes a lot of sense to have the Avids set up at the studio where they’re shooting, just to make that process as efficient as possible. Ed: Then they just send the material to here and, at the end of the job, you get your Avid back?
Grant: The storage has definitely evolved over the years as the amount of data has increased to the point of needing extra air-conditioning units because we’ve got so many servers. We are constantly upgrading and phasing in new ones and phasing out old ones – moving with the technology basically. Ed: Is that one of the areas of technology that’s really important to you, having that storage and managing it? Grant: Absolutely. Data management and storage has become a big part of our business – you know a bit like a car, as soon as you’ve bought it, it’s out of date, and we constantly need to upgrade and refurbish the servers with larger drives and faster connectivity. Ed: But then there’s always the Cloud – you could move everything to the Cloud surely … well that’s what some manufacturers tell us? Grant: The internet speeds in New Zealand make the Cloud less attractive. Certainly the size of the files that we’re using means that it’s much better to have them on-site unless you need an extra archive or backup. Ed: And to help you in that you’re on a fibre connection here? Grant: Yes we’ve got 3 fibre connections running into the building and we tend to max those out on a constant basis. Ed: So it doesn’t matter where you are in New Zealand, clients could still deliver material to you and you can return it to them? Grant: Completely, yes. We’ve got a private network that allows us to send stuff all round the world at super high speed. Steve: And if any of our clients or other studios are on the same fibre network, then we can also collaborate too. There’s encoding / decoding tools that we can use to talk to them in real time and show the
Grant: Yes. We tend to move Avids round from location to location, or set them up in the building and operate here. It just depends on the production and where they’re located, but yes, we’ve set Avids up all round the country. Ed: Now, apart from colour grading, the top end finishing of the projects you’re doing on Autodesk? Grant: Yes. Flame is our main online tool. We run a combination of Flame, Flame Assist and Flare – which is a sort of a cut down version of Flame – and all the suites are connected with high speed 40 gig interconnectivity and the large shared storage server. Brenton
Brenton knows how to join these nodes. Page 16
material in real time. And the Cloud thing … it’s worth mentioning that it’s a very important part of anyone’s workflow, but it’s more about the size of the files and we use the Cloud every day for streaming rushes to clients. That’s part of it. You can run Avid media via the Cloud if it’s well set up, because it’s smaller data, smaller bit rates, but anything like 4K files, camera files, forget it. So it’s got a place in the workflow but you just can’t suddenly go “oh great, everything’s in the Cloud.” It’s a good option for archiving if you’re confident with the security. Ed: I do remember from that Pro Tools presentation, that Cloud collaboration is certainly big with Avid because you can collaborate with anyone in New Zealand or the world if they have a Pro Tools system?
Action in one of the main audio suites.
Steve: Yes we can, and with audio … it’s a heck of a lot easier to collaborate audio in the Cloud than it is vision, just because of the file size. But then you’ve got issues around the packet size of the file and then lots of little audio files. So it’s all doable, but it comes down to the same old adage, just because it’s doable doesn’t mean you should do it. We’ve got lots of people we work with around the country, composers, different sound designers, but actually we don’t ever need to be working with them in real time. It doesn’t really need to happen. If there was an absolute panic on and we had to mix something and the composer hadn’t had time to upload us the files overnight, then maybe we’d have to link up with him and he’d have to play his score out in real time from Wellington or something … but that can also create more problems than solutions. Ed: But that’s not only the need for Cloud collaboration. It can mean that you’re just connected with those people and you can pass material on and it just sits on the Cloud until the other person wants it? Steve: That’s true and we do that every day. Cloud collaboration to me is more about real time collaboration, which I’m still a bit sceptical about for most uses at the moment. But yes, absolutely, apart from our in-house guys, we’ve got freelancers all over the show we use – London, Wellington, up in Northland … I’ve got a guy who works for me up there a lot and we’re using shared storage all the time. Grant: We’ll collaborate with a number of engineeers outside the building and the Cloud will allow us to evolve the way we work with them properly, and it’s only been through limitations that we haven’t necessarily done it that way previously. Now like a lot of these things, we’re evolving into newer ways of operating, just a slight change in how we’re currently doing it.
and where it might go, so we know how we can serve them. Grant: New Zealanders are renowned for being early adopters of new technology and sometimes we can jump a bit too quickly, but there’s certainly a lot of activity happening in the virtual reality and AR space so it’s going to be interesting to see how it evolves. Ed: And 360 degree television? Steve: I’ve just turned 50 I can’t turn my neck around that far. Grant: Doing a lot of high end finishing, we need to stick to our knitting and do what we’re good at doing, but certainly be aware of what the new technology’s doing as well. Ed: Because you’re there to serve the customers, not to create content yourself? Grant: Yes and no, but “yes”, at the moment, we are just serving our customers. Ed: Sniffing a possible cunning plan under wraps. What do you mean by that? Grant: We’ve found over the years that we need to remain nimble and reactive to changing environments and technology. Trying to collaborate with our clients to do as little or as much as they need so the ease of access to the technology has meant our clients are able to do more and more themselves in-house, and it’s what add-on services we can do to supplement what they can do, or fill the gaps with what they can’t do that has kept us in business. Ed: So always looking at ways to support your customers so they can do a better job, makes you look better and they don’t go elsewhere. It’s sort of Customer Service 101 isn’t it? Grant: Absolutely yes, very much so. Ed: And for the future –it’s always speed isn’t it?
Ed: Other emerging technologies are “virtual reality” and “augmented reality” – are you going to jump into these “feet first” gentlemen?
Grant: Yes, the data sizes are getting bigger and bigger and you just need to move them faster and faster basically, so there’s a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
Steve: Well everything we do is based around client demand. We’ve jumped head first into a few things in the past and then we’ve gone “well, we thought that was going to take off, but actually it hasn’t.” I can remember we were mixing TV shows in 5.1 before TVNZ could actually accept them, so we’ve got to be careful that we react and jump at the right time. We’re learning about it and keeping our ear to the ground and just seeing what our clients are doing
Ed: Whether you’re dealing with images or sound? Grant: Either way, absolutely, it’s got to happen quickly. Complete Post Production – full stop. NZVN
Steve: And file sharing and the collaboration you mentioned earlier – being able to run servers and fast high quality servers so you can have various parts of the process happening simultaneously, as efficiently as possible. That’s really what it’s come down to now, streamlining processes and speed, as Grant said.
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IBC Protel Product Highlights 1. We’re in the offices of Protel on the North Shore of Auckland with Ken Brooke and Ken is delighted to run through two of the product releases that you will find at Protel. Ed: Ken, I see you have mounted a Canon C200 on the new Sachtler Flowtech tripod? Ken: Yes, and we presently have stock on hand of Canon C200 and the Flowtech 75mm range of products at both our offices. Ed: So what makes the Flowtech different to existing tripods? Ken: I’m glad you asked. The Flowtech will revolutionise the way you are able to work. They are made of carbon fibre, hence they are extremely light and don’t flex. They have been performance tested in extreme conditions – you will see videos of them being used on beaches getting wet. The legs don’t rust and have built in channelling so you can rinse the salt off them. They are easier and faster to deploy using the unique quick release brakes, they adjust to height in an instant – a faster set up than any other tripod I have ever sold – giving the camera operator ultimate versatility and improved workflow. You can go from extremely low, ground-level shots to elevated shots in an instant. Page 19
gimbal rig or jib arm for complex yet smooth camera moves. Ideal for indie filmmakers, the EVA1 records to readily-available, lowercost SD cards. The camera can record in several formats and compression rates, and offers up to 10-bit 4:2:2, even in 4K. For highspeed capture, the EVA1 offers 2K up to 240-fps. In terms of bitrates, you can record up to 400-Mbps for robust recording. A complete breakdown of recording formats will be available at the time of the EVA1’s release.
All Flowtech tripods have built in magnets to hold the legs together when folded making it very easy to carry around. Ed: Very impressive. Once you have one of these, you probably would never need another 75mm tripod again as it looks like it would last a very long time. What else from IBC is worth a mention Ken? Ken: Well the Panasonic AU-EVA1 Compact Cinema Camera is certainly going to create interest. This is a brand new 5.7K Super 35mm cinema camera and we think it is positioned somewhere between the Panasonic Lumix GH5 4K mirrorless camera and the VariCam LT 4K cinema camera. By starting at a higher native resolution, the 5.7K sensor yields a higher resolving image when down sampled to 4K, UHD, 2K, and even 720p. The increased colour information results in a finer, more accurate finished image.
The camera utilises a native EFmount, giving shooters access to the broad EF lens ecosystem, including dozens of cinema-style prime and zoom lenses from numerous manufacturers. Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS) is employed to compensate for camera shake and blurring, which will help smooth out handheld or shoulder-mount shots on documentary or run-and-gun projects. Behind the lens mount, an integrated ND filter wheel in 2, 4, and 6 stops allows for precise exposure control. The EVA1 also allows the IR Cut filter to be swung out of the path to the sensor at the push of a button. Unique photographic effects and night vision imagery are possible with this control over infrared. As a professional video production tool, the EVA1 offers dual balanced XLR audio inputs and 4K-capable video outputs in both HDMI and SDI. In a future firmware upgrade, EVA1 will offer 5.7K RAW output to third party recorders at a later date. Stock should arrive at Protel mid-November and, as an introductory promotion, any EVA1 purchased from Protel before the end of this year will receive in the box 2 x RP-STZA64 64Gb V90 cards which is an $800 saving. NZVN
One of the key features is the Dual ISO – same as the Varicam – but 800 and 2500. This basically means the same noise level and dynamic range at both ISO settings. The EVA1 will include Dual Native ISO. The ability to capture accurate colours and rich skin tones is a must for any filmmaker. Like the VariCam lineup of cinema cameras, the EVA1 contains V-Log/VGamut capture to deliver high dynamic range and broad colours. V-Log has log curve characteristics that are somewhat reminiscent of negative film and V-Gamut delivers a colour space even larger than film. The EVA1 will also import the celebrated colorimetry of the VariCam line. Weighing only 1.2Kg ( body-only ) with a compact form factor ( 17 x 13.5 x 13cm ) and a removable handgrip, the EVA1 can be used for efficient handheld shooting applications and can also be mounted on a drone,
Sachtler and Vinten Win Three Awards for Flowtech at IBC 2017 Flowtech 75 the revolutionary new carbon fibre tripod from Sachtler and Vinten walked away with three awards at this year’s IBC. First up, Flowtech was awarded the cinema5D IBC 2017 Innovation Award. The next was TVBEurope Best of Show Award and finally, Flowtech received RedShark’s Best Accessory/ Rig Award. Page 21
Wireless Intercom For a last taste of what was on offer at the Pro Audio Showcase in September, we’re at Murray Tregonning and Associates with Gavin Rugg, the Auckland rep for Murray Tregonning. Ed: Gavin you’ve arrived here with something fresh out of the box, it’s a brand new product for Murray Tregonning and you’re keen to show it to people. This is a pretty high spec intercom system? Gavin: Yes, it’s the LaON Wireless Intercom. It’s different in a number of ways from the wireless systems that I’ve seen around. First of all it’s in the 5 gig range … Ed: Why is that good? Gavin: That’s good because there’s so much stuff in the 2.4 gig Gavin at the Pro Audio Showcase show stand. range at the moment which is wireless, everything’s getting hammered down there. Gavin: Not that I’ve seen, compared to 2.4. It’s very much a similar sort of range and things like that. Ed: And is that hammered by other wireless technology or mobile phones and other things? Ed: Because normally when you go to higher frequency, you don’t get the distance, it’s much Gavin: And venues – their wireless systems are shorter? 2.4 gig, some of them are moving to 5 now, but most of them are 2.4 and there’s a lot of video links in the 2.4 Gavin: Sure, so with this system, they’ve allowed gig range as well. So everything’s getting really bad. for remote base stations. We can put a remote base station up to 80 metre away on CAT5 and we can have Ed: Is there any downside to going to 5 gig?
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up to 10 of those in a building, which gives you virtually full coverage of wherever you are. Ed: So by reducing the distance to the wired base, it means you’ve got much more reliability of signal? Gavin: Absolutely and it’s all about the stability of wireless for these people. Ed: Okay, now in the technology you’ve got a headset and you’ve got a beltpack? Gavin: So headsets and beltpacks – this unit can take up to 128 beltpacks on one base station and there are five channels on it for five groups. Each beltpack can be on a different group … so you can have one for video production, one for lighting, you can have one for stage production and the beltpacks can switch between whichever group they want to listen to. Ed: Do you have something for the smaller user? Gavin: Well this can come down just by the number of beltpacks we can use. Ed: But you still have the same base station? Gavin: We still have the same base station. If you want one to one, you can actually use a beltpack as a base station and just use another beltpack to talk to it. Obviously the distance is not as great, but you can do that if you just want one headset to headset. Ed: And do they use standard batteries?
Gavin: It lasts for 4-5 hours depending on the type of AA batteries you put in obviously. Ed: And price I guess is pretty important in this area – comparing to the competitors? Gavin: Comparing to the competitors, it’s very much on par or just below. Good wireless coms cost money and it’s stability and that, so it’s certainly not the top price, but it’s certainly not a cheap rubbish price either. Ed: Alright, so if you’re in the market for coms, they can come and see you, you can look at it, but what’s a way of testing it that really tells you it’s going to work for you? Gavin: We have a demo unit here based in Auckland, and I can take that out anywhere. If they’re really keen, I can send it to them down country, if they need to access it and set it up and try it. It’s got four beltpacks with it, so we can try it out in your venue and make sure it works. Ed: So you’d take it to Eden Park and set it up if they wanted it? Gavin: Absolutely, absolutely. Ed: Any day of the week … Gavin: It would be a fun venue to do it there. Ed: And one more little piece of technology?
Gavin: No, they have their own battery charging system. The batteries last for approximately 12 hours, but they do come with a pack here where you can take two AA batteries in it as an emergency backup.
Gavin: If you have a 3 core wired system, we have a unit that will enable you to interface that with our base station, so you can then have wireless and wired on the same system.
Ed:
Ed:
That’s a very handy thing to have, trust me.
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It sounds like a winner.
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