NZVN July 2016

JULY 2016

Vol 226

ANZAC Day with Nine News in Sydney We’re here by the Cenotaph in central Sydney on ANZAC morning, it’s 3am and I’m with Martin Huisman.

Martin’s a freelance link tech, today working for Channel 9 and he’s got lots of stories about life in Sydney and working for TV stations, but today he’s the link man.

Ed: What’s required in setting up a link here today Martin?

Martin: We just try and keep it simple today. We’re up here on an existing riser to get a view over the Cenotaph. It keeps us out of the crowd. The crowds will come right back to here and probably further, but this allocated area is restricted to media only and it’s a nice little place to set up.

We’ll set up a camera here, link, just do this little portable where our receiver …

Channel 9 have a receiver on top of Centrepoint which pretty well covers all of the CBD and most of the metropolitan area along with four other sites.

Ed:

What’s Centrepoint?

Martin: You can’t actually see it from here, but it’s a large building, actually a tower, I think it could be still the highest building in Sydney. It’s got quite a long stem, a lot of guy wires coming down with quite a big dish type structure at the top.

Ed: Oh okay, it’s like our Sky tower in Auckland – and you don’t have to be in line of sight?

Martin: No, we’ll bounce off one of these buildings or off the clock tower there and it will shoot into Centrepoint … hopefully.

Ed: Right. Is your cameraman able to rove or is he going to be stuck here?

Martin has aspirations of becoming the top cop.

Martin: We’ll remain here. By the time the service starts, I think at about 4.30am, you cannot move in this area. Channel 7 are giving everyone a live feed from their cameras and we’ll have one News camera down near the Cenotaph. Up here, we’ve got a camera and a reporter who will do various live crosses throughout the morning into Channel 9’s Today Show until 7.30am, as we need to be packed up and clear of this area by 8.00am to make way for the march preparation.

Ed: What about the roving camera – you say that 9’s going to have a camera down there, how are they going to get that signal out? He either takes it back to the station or …?

Martin: He could take it back to the station; he would more than likely walk up here and play it out from this link; or he may have one of the bonded cellular units called a Dejero – which he can plug in and send the pictures back without comng up here. But more than likely, he’ll end up here through the morning and play out the colour and vox pops and all that they’ve been shooting throughout the morning.

Ed: Now Martin, you’ve got your own truck here. Is that something that’s unusual for Sydney?

Martin: There are only a few of us with our own trucks which do terrestrial type linking. There’s plenty of satellite trucks, owned by Getting ready for a link at 3am. companies like Sydney Teleport, Globe Cast, Astralinks, who supply satellite take for a network link truck to get out my way in peak trucks. hour traffic would have meant that I would miss the window to get the vision in time to edit it for the Ed: It gets the signal there? bulletin. Also, back about 9 years ago, internet speeds Martin: Yes, It’s works very well. This is a little were nothing like we needed to send back broadcast transmitter which does high def or standard def so it quality pictures as we have now. So it was a mad rush can get the pictures out in high def if required. with a tape back then to get it to the network, and Ed: So how did you get your own truck … I know, you somewhere along the line, we might meet up with one took out another mortgage and …?

Martin: I’ve been doing freelance camera work for maybe 20 years now and TV networks are all located in and around Sydney and North Sydney and I live out in the south-west, out near Camden.

At best it’s an hour’s drive into the CBD from where I live, with no traffic, it’s about a 50 kilometre run.

So back about 8-9 years ago when I started getting fairly serious with the camera work, I realised these runs into Sydney were not working.

I’d shoot something and, if it was after 4 o’clock, it wouldn’t make it to News.

This was due to either that the TV network were gearing up for their 6.00pm bulletin, or the time it would

The Sky crew with JVC camera and link.

Go to https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/ for more news.

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of their link trucks. So I went and brought a microwave link and the people who sold it to me said I should have a power amp and told me what antennas I should use.

I’d never particularly touched one but then, all of a sudden when I shot something, I could just go up to a little mountain near our place and set up and send the pictures back minutes after I’d shot it. All of a sudden we’re setting live feeds and the networks are ringing and saying “can you do this cross for us and can you do that cross for us?”

Ed: Sometimes having the technology actually works for you. Suddenly it means “aaah, there’s a whole lot of new opportunities”?

Martin: And there are not a lot of freelance link techs just doing News and it interested me because that’s what I was shooting. I was shooting News, I was shooting back then probably a bit more ambulance chasing than doing actual shifts. The guys who were set up to do the satellite and microwave linking, they were looking at more high end business – setting up links at horse racing, going out and doing big events – motor racing etc, but it gave me more bang for my buck.

Ed: Well it must rewarding too?

have

the link is much more robust and a very minimum delay usually around 30 milliseconds. On the other hand a bonded cellular unit has a delay of at least 1.5 seconds and is subject to losing band width due to other cellular activity in your area.

Ed: So the writing’s on the wall, streaming’s not going to go away, there’s going to be a lot more people out there using it and doing it and I guess the channels are going to say “oh, we can send one cameraman out there with a camera with its own little streaming box on it and sorry Martin, we don’t need you anymore.” How are you going to cope with that?

Martin: No they are not going away and the cellular system is getting better, but at the moment microwave links are better and usually preferred for that live cross.

Ed: Well I have to say here that I did a story last year from NAB and that was actually the statement from a small channel in America, that they used both, and they used the microwave link still when it was a critical situation.

been more

Martin: Yes, sort of value adding that I could shoot it and be getting it back to them and the particular network didn’t have to take one of their resources out of the system. I set up a car which had a Clark Mast on it, which was a pop up mast and I put a dish at the top and an amplifier and that got me around for a while. Then Channel 10 bought new Mercedes Vitos and Sprinters and sold off the 2 Land Cruisers they had – the one I bought is in beautiful condition and with all the gear in it – bar the transmitter. It had the mast, compressor and most of the gear you need except for the transmitter. So I bought it at a fairly good price and I have fitted a digital link transmitter and power amp and it works beautifully and doesn’t look bad either.

Closer in the back of Martin’s truck.

Ed: Fully prepared. But I guess with the technology advancing, especially with the streaming abilities of cameras these days, it’s got to be hard for you?

Martin: I don’t know that it’s hard for me because there’s still that perception and sometime rightfully that internet based bonded cellular transmitters are not as robust and stable, and granted there probably is a better quality with a microwave link – there’s stability and robustness, but for the money, these bonded cellular units are certainly becoming quite reliable – bar sometimes a little flicker or a little bit of picture grabbing.

Ed:

The signal caches and there’s a freeze?

Martin: A little freeze maybe occasionally. They’re damn good and they use an MPEG4 encoder. You can get anywhere up to about 4-6 megabits per second transmission speed and that at MPEG4 is a damn good signal. In actual fact, the older ( and when I say “older” only a couple of years older ) transmitters using MPEG2 – I’ve sent back dual stream, one via a link and one via the bonded cellular unit I have, called a Dejero, and the comment from our master control at 9 was the Dejero appeared to have a finer picture, because of the encoding more than anything. But the link is stable,

Martin: I think, certainly as a freelancer, if you come with both camera and link, it makes you more employable.

Instead of them having to gather resources to help you, you come with the whole kit, so I don’t see it directly affecting what I do because I come as a package.

At this point, Martin’s phone rang and we immediately packed up and headed through the crowds loaded with gear. I acted as packhorse for Martin carrying his portable link kit to the N.S.W Police Executive suites a few blocks away from the dawn service. We moved here because there had been a terrorist apprehension and to tell us a little bit more about what we’re going to be doing here we have Chris Urquhart, a reporter for the ‘Today Show’, which is Channel 9’s national breakfast programme, running from 5.30am till 9am each weekday and on weekends as well.

Ed: Which channel can we get this on in Auckland Chris?

Chris: Well you’ll have to move the satellite dish to the right angle and you might just be able to pick it up. Day to day, I’m the reporter in Sydney for the programmes, covering the breaking stories of the morning which is usually a crime story, though today

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Ed: Yes. But it’s good then having Martin and his link here so that you can do this, because otherwise you would just have to take the material back to the station?

Chris: Yes today is one of those scenarios that you really don’t want to happen.

I know that Martin, as a link tech, wouldn’t want it to happen, given the sheer number of people there at Martin Place – there’s tens of thousands of people down there, and to get his gear through those crowds from one point to another is no mean feat.

So the fact that we’re standing here at the Police Station with link equipment ready to go, is testament to him, but also to the flexibility of what the Cameraman Matt and reporter Chris doing their prep. modern technology can do now. I’m glad I’m a reporter, because if you let me was supposed to be down at the dawn service for the anywhere near that sort of stuff I wouldn’t have the Anzac commemoration. What’s changed is that a 16 foggiest idea what to do with it. So I’m glad that he’s year old’s been taken into custody in the last 24 hours here and going to keep us out of trouble today. and he’s been charged with a terrorism offence with regard to allegedly planning or preparing a terrorist act We get let into the building and are taken to the 14th which we’re told related to Anzac Day commemorations floor. I’m glad of the media accreditation someone in Sydney. Obviously a massive concern; fortunate gave me so I can glide past all security without uttering though the police have apprehended him before any give-away words to big men in uniforms. Martin anything happened. sets up his gear.

Ed: Well there were certainly plenty of police around Ed: Okay Martin, today you’re sending an SD signal – it seemed to be that every third person was a from here because …? policeman?

Martin: Just cabling, just to ensure the stability of Chris: There would have been anyway Grant. You the picture. The cable I’m using here is not 3G rated know as well as any of us the increased threat that and the length may cause issues, so not to risk issues we’ve had here of terrorism. We’ve had instances of with such a breaking News story, I’m playing it safe. the Martin Place Lindt Café siege which is really only Ed: Well yes, we know about SD and HD in News in 100 metres or so from where the Cenotaph is down New Zealand. Now audio, that’s quite a different story, there, so we know pretty well just how bad it can be. because you’re not only feeding 2 channels of audio to We’ve seen other people go through the court system the studio – one from the lectern of the commissioner on these sorts of charges. and one from the reporter, but you’re also getting audio So it’s early in the morning now and we’re waiting to coming back. How is all this happening? hear from the Commissioner of the New South Wales Martin: This is return audio coming from the studio, Police on exactly what they allege was going to occur from the desk. The cameraman and reporter are able and how they plan to deal with it, and I suppose, to hear the programme sound in their ears, so when reassure people about their safety today, because this questions are asked of them, when they’re being cued – is a huge day nationwide, as it is in New Zealand. you know “coming live to you in 10 seconds” etc, when Ed: As you say, you were supposed to be down at the they’re given instructions like “wrap it up”, that sort of dawn service, so is Channel 9 not going to have any of stuff, it’s coming down via that phone. the dawn service now?

This is called an IFB kit where IFB stands for Chris: We pool a lot of those arrangements in Interruptible Fold Back. So it’s truly a fold back like you network television here, so often one of the would at a desk or at a band, so you can hear what’s broadcasters agrees to provide pool cameras for it, so coming out. The “interruptible” part of the fold back is we don’t sort of miss out, we are still in there. Our role when the journalist or the reporter talks, he can’t hear was secondary to that – providing some reflection for his voice, so it interrupts when he talks. So it comes our programme which is on air once the dawn service is down a phone line, just a normal 4G or 3G mobile complete, so we’d be referring to what had happened phone … this morning, some of the speeches, those sorts of Ed: From a receiver – what brand’s your receiver? things.

Martin: This is just a little cheap $99 Nokia.

Ed: So you can still do that later?

Chris: We can, yes absolutely. Although this just shows you what breaking News does, because I think this will – for us at least this morning – be the story which is very sad really. A sign of the times.

Ed:

The phone, yes …

Martin: So we call the network’s Master Control, they send the audio down the phone line which comes out of the mobile through an earpiece connected to a

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Matt: That would be nice but not today. All Channel 9 News ENG, including me, are supplied with the Sony 700 XDCAM disc cameras. The preferred choice by the station as our ingest system is Harris which takes the files. Everything else, including XDCAM EX media has to be captured in real time. Most crews love the 700.

Ed: But you are not using the 700 today. You’re using a Sony EX3 as your News camera and Channel 9 has said this is the camera you should use because of the low weight?

Matt: Yes, that’s the best solution they could put together at a budget price to get me on the road in a News sense. It’s a 10 year old camera, but for live crosses and stories, the pictures are great. The lens is always an issue with all the cameras; we all want the latest and greatest, and with the different types of camera we look at, the lens is the issue. The EX3 has got an adaptable lens, so I can put different adapters on it, a professional lens or the lighter plastic lenses. You can also put different types of batteries on it. You can put a V-mount battery or the smaller Sony BPs on it … if I’ve got a job where I’m climbing the Harbour Bridge for example, I can pack it all down to as small as possible, so it’s essentially a light plastic Handycam, or on a bigger News job, I can rig it up with one of the bigger longer lenses, the top lights, the V-lock with the D-Tap power out, so you can power your radio links and top lights, and the sound recordist links that they put on.

They can also click onto the V-mount, so it’s a pretty adaptable system.

Ed: It’s got everything there, it’s just not as big as the others. I guess you haven’t had any letters of complaint from viewers?

The “fold back” kit.

transmitter, and transmits to the beltpack receivers the journalist and the cameraman and the sound recordist have, with ear pieces so they can hear what’s going on from the studio.

Ed: But the audio out, going from the lectern and from the reporter is going combined with the video signal?

Martin: Yes, it uses an SDI signal and embedded audio so the audio’s embedded in the video signal and goes back via the link and then the returned audio comes down via a mobile phone.

In between the live links, I get a chance to talk with the cameraman of the day, Matt Coble.

Ed: Now Matt, one of the perils of being a cameraman is sometimes your body doesn’t hold up, and you’ve got a bit of a problem at the moment?

Matt: Yes, I’ve got a bad back from a pretty bad fall. Over the years, you hurt yourself and you recover really well, but in this case, I actually fell with all my equipment on me, cracked my neck and hit my head and sprained things. It’s been a pretty long recovery, it’s a year and a half and it’s not getting any better – and if I don’t lay off it, I will never get better. So I’m still wanting to do my job and run around, but I’m trying to do everything I can with a smaller camera, smaller gear, and lightweight stuff to get by, because it’s still expected that you run around by yourself and occasionally have a sound recordist or a camera assistant, but it rarely happens.

Ed: They haven’t got an apprentice to give you to carry the gear?

Matt: Not from viewers. You know, you Skype to air, your Dejero box is to air, there’s so much content generated off the internet that it’s mixing in, in a News sense, so that they really don’t know what’s going on – whether you shot it on 4K or dragged it off YouTube.

Ed:

Content is probably more important?

Matt: Exactly and we’re a News entertainment show, a variety show, breakfast television, so it’s going to take a range of great styles. I actually don’t use this for when I’m shooting good interviews for celebrities.

Ed: But then probably you’ve got somebody with you to help carry it?

Matt: A lot of the time. If it’s just a “walk into a room”, I might use the big one. For my own interests, I went and bought myself a Sony FS5. I was really excited when that came out. I’ve previously owned a Canon C300 which is a beautiful camera, but for “run and gun”, it’s very awkward, the lenses are stiff, traditional DSLR lenses. When the Sony FS5 came out, there were so many more options – Sony lenses or Canon lenses – there’s also the electronic zoom lenses which are not anything like the broadcast two thirds lens, they’re prosumer, but I’m getting some amazing pictures out of them. A lot of my interest is in stories with kids, the elderly, animals – it’s not like you’re standing up with a tripod, talking to people who have been on camera before.

Ed: You’re talking to people who, if you pointed a big camera at them, are more nervous than if you’ve got a little one?

Matt: Yes, you can get away with a lot and the pictures are amazing. But then it doesn’t really matter what the recorder is these days, the picture quality’s so good out of all the cameras, it’s your lenses and what you can do with them. But running and gunning around

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But my favourite light is the Lupolux.

It’s the equivalent of an HMI, but it’s an LED spot Fresnel, V-lock mount, lightweight plastic, very robust. It’s definitely the light of choice at the moment.

There’s lots of smaller lights coming out like that, but they’re not as punchy, they’re not as robust, or they’re heavier.

Ed: Do you find having the bicolour on your light most important?

Matt: In my job I do, because I do breakfast television, so as you’ve seen today, we start in the dark, pitch black and then now we’ve got full sun. But half an hour ago we had an orange sunrise coming up, so we’ve got all the conditions and you can’t move, so you’ve got to deal with what’s going on. We’re standing inside a building now, with sunrise punching through, so there’s so many different colours – we’ve got LED lights inside here in the roof – you’ve got to be adaptable.

Matt with his kitted out EX3.

with News … half an hour later I’ll be doing News so you’ve got to have an adaptable camera. There are little lens adapters coming out and they’re very expensive, but you can also put the big B4 lenses on these little cameras, if you’re ergonomically able to do that. It’s got the beautiful EF lenses, or your Sony stills lenses, so you can get that short depth of field and it’s a lightweight camera that’s so adaptable to the situation, even with a Sony microphone hot shoe adapter for a small microphone on it. It’s not seen as a professional camera, but the quality coming out of it is just incredible. It’s how you use it; it’s how you’re going to get the pictures. It’s definitely not a News camera, but it’s the ultimate small doco camera. Let’s not talk about 4K in the high end, this is the solo cameraman, perfect corporate documentary style of camera.

Ed: Would you say it requires a bit more time to set up, because that short depth of field does have its downside – you can make a beautiful picture but you’ve got to keep watching that focus all the time. Whereas with your EX3, you can keep things in focus and move around?

Matt: EX3.

Yes that’s right, everything’s in focus in an

Ed:

So how did you adapt to it this morning?

Matt: This morning was a quick change of the colour temperature balance, also using the reflector inside to try and cut it down …

Ed: So you had Martin with your reflector and sent him to block the sun?

Matt: Yes, so I’m lucky to have a link tech here to help. You would otherwise have stands and throw them up, and if it’s windy they’re going over …

Ed:

You could have asked a policeman surely?

Matt: I’m not sure they’d help if the boss is around … they’d try and do their best, but when you’re out and about, they’re not going to look twice at you.

Ed: Because you don’t want to have your reporter Chris looking a bit green on one side and colourful on the other do you?

Matt: No and I mean early morning, you want them to look their best, they might have had a big night the night before and you’ve still got to make them look like they’re beautiful when standing in a hurricane.

Ed: So where you’re doing a live cross every half hour, and then you’ve got a bit of a pause to shift your position and rethink some plans, but all the time you’re

Ed: Some people say “oh no, you’ve got to have the short depth of field, you’ve got to have the background out of focus, it adds something special to the picture”?

Matt: Well in most cases, you want that to make it really punchy, but at the same time you’ve really got to set that up to make that happen on one of these cameras – on the long end, light it properly, have time for all that sort of stuff. So you’ve still got to have the same sort of time, but you don’t want to go to a location that you spent thousands of dollars to get to, and have it out of whack. There are people who are shooting and not thinking about the area they’re in. So choice of lenses and how you’re going to shoot it is vital.

Ed: Now your accessories – you’ve got a panel light.

What’s the panel light you’re using?

Matt: The one I’m using today is just a cheap Chinese light pro. I’ve had it for about 4 years, it’s dual colour, it’s been in the rain, and it’s a workhorse. It’s been in every situation and you just dry it out and it works again. I’ve tried lots and this one’s still going.

“Reflector holder” is just one of Martin’s many talents. more on page 13

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Ed. getting messages from the studio saying “we want you there, we want you to do this and that” … you’ve really got to think on your feet?

Matt: Yes, because it’s all about being on the spot for the breaking News in the morning. At the end of the day, for the 6.30 News, most of it’s happened for the day. You’re locked into your spot and maybe the event has even gone 10 hours ago, 5 hours ago. But here, it’s all breaking. Today we’ve moved position 3 times and we’re going to move for a 4th. We were set up with accreditation to go into a major ceremonial event this morning – we were going to be just sitting there all morning, doing some vox pops talking to people, sending them back … but where we’re on the move, in between crosses there’s rarely time to sit down and do anything.

You’re at a crime scene and you’re interviewing people, you are sending footage back, you’re updating as the day goes on from the night vision which they use overnight to the day vision, so it’s constantly being able to record and feed, record and feed. If you don’t have a deck, you can feed out with the trucks or Dejeros, your camera’s locked off to feed out for that whole amount of time, so you can’t shoot too long …

standing by the fountain there and taking feeds from ABC as well, turned into something a bit more exciting.

Chris and Matt are on their way to Hyde Park to get the parade that’s going to head up Elizabeth Street, while Martin the link man is heading off to the court where the 16 year old who has been charged under the Terrorism Act is going to appear. He’s meeting up with a different cameraperson and a reporter and they’re going to do a live cross from there back to Channel 9.

So a very interesting combination, seeing other News crews in there – there was a Sky crew, I think there was a Seven crew and one other in there, using various means of live linking. The Sky crew had a JVC camera and a ULIVE backpack and that seemed to be working for them, whereas the others didn’t seem to have any transmitting function at all and were probably doing it and taking it back to the studio for inclusion in their later News bulletins. So that was Sydney’s Channel 9 News workflow in the morning.

Hope you learnt something.

NZVN

A voice calls “Matt” and he has to go to another location outside with Chris. We have other plans so I help Martin get his gear back to his wagon.

Martin: I’m actually heading out to Paramatta Bail Court now for the bail hearing for the young terrorist the Police arrested this morning.

Ed: You don’t get to go into the court with a camera though do you?

Martin: No. I’m just providing the link for another News crew.

Well that was a busy News morning for Channel 9 in Sydney. What was supposed to be a series of rather mundane live crosses from the Anzac service,

A good example of a “media scrum”.

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For registration and full conference schedule, visit www.abeshow.tv

Documenting Christchurch We are in Christchurch on a very picturesque location overlooking the Avon River at the home and office of Gerard Smyth ( no relation to Gerard Smith from Face TV ) who has been making documentaries in Christchurch for many years.

Ed: Now Gerard, at the moment you’re painting window frames as we talk, but in your normal activity, you are a cameraman / producer / filmmaker?

Gerard: Yes I am. I guess any of those words could get morphed into the one word. I started in television when I was 18 as a cameraman.

Ed: That must have been film?

Gerard: No, I was a studio cameraman. No one knew the word “video” until the VHS format came along. So people would say “you’re a what cameraman?” and I’d go “video”.

Ed: Was this in the Marconi days?

Gerard: Yes it was – in fact it was before the zooms, it was fixed lens. That was in the 60’s, so I’m an old bugger.

Ed: So you’d know Garry French then?

Gerard: No. Was he in Auckland?

Ed: Yes, Garry was in Auckland.

Gerard: Perhaps in the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch – we all met each other and everyone in New Zealand was working there. That was in 1974 I think. I used to get flown to Auckland to make Happen Inn because, for some reason, they seemed to like me, so I met a lot of the Auckland guys in the early 70’s working on Happen Inn and that was great fun.

Ed: At some stage, you obviously separated yourself from the NZBC? Gerard: Yes. I ended up as a producer, making a lot of kids’ programmes, and when I was about 26, I resigned and I went market gardening.

Ed: As you do.

Gerard: As you do … and because I’d gone straight from school to television, that was a great thing to do.

I stayed there for a while and then I made a film on my own. I did go to Wellington for a little while, rejoining TV One ( as it was then ) to learn to be a film cameraman, and did the Springbok Tour and those sorts of things. I was a News cameraman. I think it was meant to be 2 years before you shot anything, but because I’d been a video cameraman, I think they cut that down to about 3 weeks!

It was Springbok Tour time and I was 30 then.

They thought that the trainees were too young really to be put on to the tour and the older guys didn’t want to do it – they were doing Country Calendar – so, because I was 30, I was considered appropriate to be beaten up by the police in the different cities around New Zealand. That was quite memorable and I did a lot of that armed only with a CP16. There was the ARRI BL and the ARRI ST and the CP-16 and the Bolex, but if you wanted sound on film, the CP-16 was the News camera of the day – that

Gerard with his F3 rig.

wonderful camera that was developed in Vietnam so they could get to the front. It was handheld you know.

Ed: So you were right in the thick of it?

Gerard: Yes I was – there were some memorable times there. I think I was first on the News one night when a policeman punched me because I’d got there before he had, and you saw the Wratten filter break as the picture went blue. I think the newsroom had had a phone call that protesters were locking themselves inside a building in Wellington, and we got down there before the police, and the police were very pissed off.

But the police were so stressed – that’s what people don’t remember. They were being leapfrogged round the country and on the frontline every 3 days – it was a horrible thing for them, and they were pawns in a political game anyway.

Ed: So how did you come out of that in the end … what were your feelings at the end of that tour?

Gerard: I came out of it and resigned a few months later. I found it stressful and I was quite disillusioned, probably for the same reasons that people get disillusioned with the media these days. I think my wife was having our first child at that time, so we came back down to Christchurch, to Lyttelton, and a couple of

Gerard had quite a following in Africa.

Page 16

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years later I went to Ethiopia as a freelance filmmaker, and made a feature documentary there on the famine.

I then got the bug for being an interviewer / cameraman / director, which is what I’ve continued to do for the last 30 years.

Ed: So your work has really been still for television, not motion pictures?

Gerard: Some of the time, and some of the time it’s been a bit of both. Just to come back a wee bit first, I made a lot of documentaries for Disability Television, Sunday mornings TVNZ, which were very low budget, but I made 60 half hour documentaries – make what you like.

I learned in those times to become an interviewer / cameraman, and often the sound recordist as well, because I couldn’t afford to employ many. So I sort of developed skills – I think the Americans call them “videographers” don’t they … so I developed skills as someone who could listen and shoot. Naturally, your shooting suffers a lot, because you’ve only got one brain and you’re really thinking about the person and asking questions. But I developed a way of doing it; it’s a style I really like, because it’s quite direct, it’s got a credibility about it. The interviewee is looking pretty much straight at me – and if she says “look over there”, the camera pans to it, so it’s a kind of very organic or sort of homemade look.

Ed: But also I’m sure you’ve found that, because you have to listen to what they’re saying, you get a better understanding of the story and you know the cut-aways to get to really tell that story?

Gerard: Yes I guess you do Grant. I got quite efficient at doing it.

Ed: I think “efficient” is a very good word.

Gerard: Yes, I guess that’s what we did get. That was the aim because we were on such a small budget to shoot. When that series finished, and in those days TV New Zealand was making quite a lot of documentaries, I used those skills in contributing to the Artsville series … they were Arts documentaries.

Ed: These were commissioned programmes?

Gerard: Yes, commissioned by Television New Zealand, often funded by New Zealand On Air. Ed: Was it easier to get funding then than it would be today?

Gerard: Well probably because I’ve done a bit, I do seem to be able to get funding, but it’s still a trouble; so few documentaries are being made now. I’ve been able to get some funding – the earthquake in Christchurch has given me a helluva lot of work, so I made a documentary called When a City Falls which I understand is the second most sold television documentary on DVD in the history of the land. I think The Topp Twins might hold the first but, When a City Falls is still selling and it has done for a long time, for 5 years now. Then I’ve done 2 television series about the earthquakes with the result that I’ve now got a 600 hour archive, so I carry on telling television and non-broadcast stories.

The latest thing I’m doing is a New Zealand On Air funded non-broadcast interactive documentary which will be published largely on social media, so you’ll look at it on Facebook.

The interactive word is where the person watching has a physical attachment – not just a mental one, so they click into a tab to choose different parts of the story to look at.

It’s not a linear “beginning to end” programme; they can

choose their view. We might offer a whole lot of solutions to a problem and they can look at those different solutions and it’s about different options in Christchurch which are affected by the quake. This is a storyteller’s dream down here now – there are so many dramas going on.

Ed: Yes, and continuing. It sounds to me that you are a storyteller and that the tools you use are really secondary. There’s an example of that on the table in front of us here, a rather venerable Sony F3, but it’s still working?

Gerard: Well it gives the most stunning pictures; it shoots well in the dark and my pictures are great. So yes, you’ve hit it on the head, I’m a technical idiot. I’ve reluctantly had to learn those things and I like talking to people, so that’s my work. I go out on my own often, I carry a radio mic or use the camera mic. Sometimes I shoot holding the mic in the other hand, but that’s a bit too much if you’re interviewing. I sit the camera on my shoulder and I’ve got a rig made by Shape which sits there – one day soon I’ll buy one of those “fancy pants” Sony F7s.

Ed: How did you get onto the F3 in the first place – you must have had something before that, surely you didn’t go straight from film to the F3?

Gerard: No, I’ve got many old cameras. I’ve had VHS’s , I’ve had a lot of Panasonic cameras, but then I had the wonderful, wonderful EX3. I’ve shot a helluva lot of documentaries on the EX3, which is my all-time favourite camera, the Volkswagen of cameras. They’re indestructible, you can almost put them in your pocket, you can hold them up here as you’re talking to someone. They’re just fantastic cameras and it’s never broken down … except after the earthquakes. It was on a shelf in the camera store and everything caved in and in the camera store in the next room there was a metre of gear on the floor. Every cupboard had just emptied itself, and in there somewhere was the camera that I needed to immediately use. Well I looked through, found it and pulled it out and the bloody lens had snapped off. Remember those beaut little zoom lenses they had … so I found the lens and jammed it onto the camera and ran into the city. If you look in the film which has being shown in cinemas and on TV, you can see a thumb in shot … no one ever notices it, but there’s my bloody great thumb in shot, because I was holding the lens on! And that was in the minutes after the quake.

Ed: You didn’t have any gaffer tape?

Page 18

more on page 20

Another use for 1000 mile tape.

EDIUS makes the Big Time We don’t normally print press releases but, as this is a boost of confidence for Mike Symes from AVA that he has chosen the EDIUS editing product as the one to promote, and that this is very close to home, we made an exception.

“Australian Broadcasting Corporation Selects Grass Valley for Nationwide Multi-Year News Equipment Upgrade MONTREAL, June 15, 2016 — Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, has entered into a contract with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to provide one of the largest single system technology upgrades ever undertaken in Australia.

The long-term project represents a major technology refresh and replacement in its studios across all Australian states.

The cornerstone of the system will be Grass Valley's GV STRATUS Video Production and Content Management System solutions that include EDIUS Nonlinear Editing Software, K2 Summit 3G Media Servers and other Grass Valley core technologies. NETIA will provide NETIA Radio-Assist 8, while the Associated Press will provide its ENPS multi-platform news production system. Both will be deeply integrated into the GV STRATUS system.

The process involved a multi-year tender process and negotiation covering nine separate aspects based on a detailed and exhaustive evaluation of available technology and vendors. After careful consideration as well as both a testing phase and a proof of concept phase, Grass Valley was selected as the exclusive solution provider.

The installation will be implemented over two and a half years in each of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's major news and current affairs facilities throughout the country.

Grass Valley will be responsible for all facets of the design, planning, implementation, commissioning, training and ongoing support of all systems.

With a number of critical aspects to the implementation, the project is a partnership between Grass Valley as the systems integrator, NETIA and the Associated Press. This is the first time these two technology providers have been involved in such a major partnership with Grass Valley, which will include a total refresh/replacement of systems for TV news, radio news and scripting creation. Grass Valley, along with its two partners, will be rolling out the new technology across Australia beginning in August of this year after a detailed design phase has been completed.”

I followed this up with a few questions for Peter Adams, Grass Valley Australia.

Where has something similar been done?

This is a world first as a large scale collaborative process involving TV and Radio News development.

Does EDIUS have full collaborative workflow capabilities in itself or does it require other GV software to allow this?

Yes EDIUS hi-res via K2-Summit SAN connected clients, EDIUS XS (desk-top) via GV STRATUS clients.

Will GV cameras be supplied as part of the deal?

No Will this allow a 4K workflow?

This is a news system and so 4K is not a requirement.

However the system is 4K capable and can be upgraded to 4K when and if needed.

Any legacy GV product in ABC that will be retained?

No, it's pretty much a total replacement of what is there now.

So, if you would like to experience EDIUS for yourself, download a Free 30 day trial here http://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_pro_8 or contact Mike at AVA.

Page 19

Ed: But then, having had that experience with film, you obviously know how to shoot short depth of field?

Gerard: Yes absolutely and I’ve modified it to be mostly handheld. It is quite heavy, but it sits on the shoulder well. I’ve got a clever eyepiece because focus is quite a dodgy thing, I never use the eyepiece at the back – I use the viewfinder all the time. I think this is the forerunner to the FS7. It’s a similar beast, but made for a run and gun application which is what mine always is.

I seldom seem to use a tripod; I do when I have to, if nothing’s moving in the wide shot, of course you do. But I don’t really do interviews on tripods or anything.

On location post earthquake.

Gerard: Mate, you don’t think about gaffer tape when the building’s falling down around you!

Ed: So you held a loose lens onto the body of the camera?

Gerard: Held a completely snapped in half, broken off lens against the body of the camera – and the pictures were fine. In fact I carried on like that ( with gaffer tape – I just learnt how to take my thumb out of the shot ) for the next month.

Ed: I hope you’ve still got the camera or have had it bronzed or something?

Gerard: I’ve got the snapped lens here still. We taped it up and things, but after a while, for some reason it started going soft when you zoomed!

Ed: So what made you choose the F3?

Gerard: Jake had one and I’d used it a bit. I think I’m a bit of a … can I talk about brands?

Ed: Yeah, go for it.

Gerard: I give cameras a hard time. Because I’m on my own and I’m talking to people, the camera suffers a lot and with the earthquake, with dust and being in rubble, I need to have a really strong and robust camera, and I’ve always found the Sony indestructible. They just don’t fall apart do they … they’re so well engineered. So the next one up after the EX3 to consider, was this.

Ed: But this is more a cine camera. This is your large sensor and short depth of field, etc?

Gerard: Yes that’s right. The F3’s designed really to be on a tripod isn’t it … it’s a cine camera really and a drama camera.

Ed: What sort of research are you going to do before trading this in for an FS7?

Gerard: If I do get another camera, it would be something lighter, because I’m a really old man now and I would like to have something that doesn’t dislocate my shoulder. So, something a bit lighter; I love the low light stuff now, I love shooting in the evenings – it’s a whole other feeling.

Ed: Okay, that’s the camera – now editing, you don’t actually do any editing yourself?

Gerard: I do no editing at all. I can put things onto a timeline but I don’t edit. I’ve never edited anything in my life. I’ve always come from the philosophy that the editor is the viewers’ advocate and so I come from the point of view of the shooter and someone else comes from the point of view of the viewer, and that’s where something is cooked up.

But I don’t think it’s appropriate that I do that myself, plus I’m too stupid to really.

Ed: So what you’re missing at the moment is a more lightweight camera and I understand you’re particularly interested in a little Osmo?

Gerard: Well I’ve seen these little handheld cameras on a gimbal and I did work with the legendary Jake Bryant recently, an Auckland shooter who had an A7S is it?

Ed:

A Sony Alpha 7S, yes …

Gerard: I’m not sure about that, I think it was … on a gimbal, on a Ronin, so he was going from side to side as we were walking up a hill through bush, and the picture’s just stunning. He just walked around, so you know it’s a Glidecam or a Steadicam for a couple of grand. That seems to be the new tricky thing doesn’t it – a smooth mobile shot, and if you can do that whilst talking to someone, that’s me sorted.

Page 20

Ed: But, for example, there’s a big difference between a Sony Alpha 7S and a Go Pro? Gerard: Yes, there would be. So if it’s small and light, the best quality possible would be the one to go for wouldn’t it.

So hopefully there’s something there.

Actually, thinking about it, he might have been using one of those pocket Blackmagics.

Ed: So where do you see your interest in technology going – what are you looking for that would make your storytelling better?

Gerard: Well that’s the sort of camera isn’t it; it’s a camera which has beautiful pictures, which is light and mobile, and that’s the way things are going with these different mini cameras, ergonomically made for shooters and not designed by technicians.

Ed: But does it have to be shoulder mounted?

Gerard: Yes I think so, because I’m reasonably tall and if I shoot from chest level, I’m looking up at people and I quite like the camera to be at eye level. So I think on the shoulder is pretty good. I do like that arm on the FS7 where you zoom on the end of an arm; that’s a wee bit like the old studio cameras I worked with all those years ago. I’m still a Sky cameraman on

Hard hat just part of the kit.

the rugby, so I still do use those big cameras and I’m used to using a zoom on the end of a lever. That works well for me, because it does free up one arm to, you know, talk to someone. Technologically, that would be wonderful. I think archiving footage … I’ve now got 600 hours of archive and I’m still to understand the best way to simply archive stuff. I don’t know whether you’ve got any advice, but what do I need – a Sony 1.2 terabyte drive or something?

Ed:

Page 21

We’ll leave that question for another day.

NZVN

360 degree Television A new show section this year was devoted to virtual reality. One of these was 360Heroes, a company based in New York and to tell us what they have to offer, we have Aissa Widle.

Aissa: We make the hardware and the software that allows you to capture 360 video content. We make the rigs that allow you to house cameras inside.

Prior to NAB, we were 3D printing our rigs, but now for full production, we use an injection mould process. Instead of it being one solid unit, we are moving to having these anodised aluminium centrepieces.

These centrepieces are essential because they keep the GoPros cool. Also, with these centrepieces, you can change your setup from housing 6 cameras to other arrangements.

For example, if you’re working on a project and you need to be 6 feet away, you use our 6 rig. But if you need to be closer to your subject, then you move towards using our 10 rig. So you wouldn’t need to buy a 6, a 7 and a 10 individually – now you could just buy the centrepiece and add modules which is more cost effective.

Ed:

So it’s like Lego?

Aissa: Yes, they look like little Legos, exactly. You can take them off and pop them back onto another little centrepiece. In addition to these simple rigs, we do have the rigs that have the boards inside of them. We call one the Bullet 360. Motherboards inside of the rig allow you to connect all the GoPro cameras in order for you to start them and stop them remotely from a far distance, rather than having to do them manually. It also automatically syncs the audio, where before you had to do like a clap in order to sync the audio. But you no longer have to do that, with the rigs that look like this. You see how they’re sort of all interconnected and they have a computer chip right inside.

Aissa: Yes correct.

There are 2 options viewing in the postproduction process. Firstly, you take out the SD cards from the cameras, then you our software, called 360CamMan, and you ingest media.

for can use the

It organises all the data for you frame by frame, then from there you would use a third party stitching software to stitch either colour or video stitch. Then you go into a movie editor to get the finished product in an MP form – in a document so to speak. Or you can hook up the rig to livestream or live stitch using another software. That booth over there is Argos 360 and they do live stitching. Our rigs are compatible with live stitching, you just have to sort of rig it that way. It

Ed: Does it actually put timecode onto the signal, or is it just start-stop at the same time?

Aissa: No, it’s just pretty much for the start and stop function of it and for automatically syncing the audio.

Ed: Going to injection moulding is obviously a major progression, but having the ability to 3D print your prototypes must have been of huge benefit?

Aissa: Correct.

Our company was founded 3 years ago. The CEO is an engineer and he wanted to come up with a solution to capture 360 content using a drone. So he, in his garage, 3D printed the rig, and that’s how the product was born. Now we’re here and we’ve moved on from only using rigs that are compatible with GoPro cameras, to developing a rig that’s compatible with the Blackmagic camera that you see right over there. It’s called our Helios 360, so that’s also another debut here at NAB. It’s a rig that offers a higher resolution and more depth from entirely different cameras. The camera arrangement is in a horizontal plane but, because they have 185 degree fisheye lenses, it gives you that spherical 360 video image.

Ed: Now you say also you have the software. So once you’ve recorded everything onto your GoPros or Blackmagics, then you can process the images?

Page 22

doesn’t have the technology inside to do it for you, so you have to use another software to do that. And then you can view it.

Ed: But the easiest way to look at it is with a VR headset?

Aissa: Yes, that seems to be the most popular theme right now; to feel like you’re fully immersed in the virtual reality experience, it’s going to be with the Gear VR or any other sort of headset. But you can view the content on a desktop or laptop, on the dome as well. You can experience virtual reality in different platforms, not only in the Gear VR. Ed: Of course the other option for the viewer who doesn’t want to put on a headset, is that you can have a circular screen and you pop your head up inside it and there it is?

Aissa: You can do that, and on your cellphone if you don’t have the goggles, you can actually view 360 on your cellphone … you grab your phone and you just sort of tilt it right to left and then you’re seeing a different image. There are many ways that you can experience virtual reality.

Ed: Now for the really serious punter, you’ve got a very fancy looking device?

Aissa: Yes, it’s called our 360Abyss. That was actually developed for the navy. They tasked us with a mission to capture 360 content 1000 metres underwater. Discovery Channel has used it to film some content for sharks. It houses 6 GoPro cameras to capture content.

Ed:

Wow.

NZVN

Sony Disc Archive System A little something for myself, but we’re looking at the Sony Disc Archive system with Jim McKain, President of NL Technology. We’ve been looking at the Sony Optical Disc Archive system for a couple of years now and it’s getting bigger, better and starting to integrate with some potentially major users, and one of those is Avid of course and Jim’s the man who talks about the integration with Avid.

Ed: Now Jim, is there something special that has to be done to the system to allow Avid to talk to it?

storage in the Avid system and writes that to the ODA cartridges. So to retrieve content, you don’t have to know what cartridge it’s on, you simply go to the Avid interface, select the media that you want to restore, right click and say “please restore this” and the whole automation system goes out through the ODA library, selects the proper assets and reloads that back into the Avid storage framework.

Ed: So what do you see as the real benefit of an Optical Disc Archive?

Jim: The major benefit of this archive is the longevity.

In Generation 2 they’re supporting 100 years of shelf

Jim: NL Technology makes software that integrates third party Archive Systems into the Avid Interplay environment. Avid has a product called MediaCentral and we’re now a certified partner with Avid building what they call connector modules.

The connector module allows their user interface to control devices such as Sony’s ODA for an archive solution.

We can control other vendors’ library modules, but the Sony ODA is one that we concentrate on and have spent a good deal of time on.

So the Generation 2 is a media that they now support up to 3.3 terabytes per cartridge.

Sony has doubled the IT performance, so we’re getting 1 gigabit write speeds and 2 gigabit read speeds.

The integration is now at the asset level, so if you go into Avid where they have sequences and master clips, simply right click on those assets that you want to store and our software extracts the metadata and media files from the Avid Page 23

life, and a tape based system is very sensitive to temperature and humidity, so the shelf life they can advertise is 25-30 years. If you don’t really take care of them well, you could be looking at a shelf life of between 1 and 3 years. With the ODA it’s pretty much impervious to temperature and humidity, which are 2 things that kill linear tape.

Ed: And high level nuclear explosions?

Jim: Well I wouldn’t go that far, but …

Ed: And of course the other problem with the tape is that you’ve got to continually migrate it to the next level?

Jim: That’s true. The architecture that Sony’s put in place with the Generation 2 and future readers will actually read the first generation and all previous generations of cartridges. So once you’ve written your assets to a cartridge, whatever generation it is, future generations of readers can read the old content. It’s like your CD ROMS – you can still read 30 year old CD ROMS, it’s all optical based.

Ed: And I understand if the case ever gets damaged, you can actually just take those discs out, give them a wipe and put them back into a new cartridge and away you go. Very, very robust.

Jim: I haven’t heard that one before, but I suppose in theory you could do that if you had the case.

Ed: But having said that, still at the moment it is a more expensive option, it is a slightly slower option than you can get with a RAID array of hard drives, but we can see that this is going to develop?

Jim: Right. A hard drive is certainly much faster, but they’re not geared at long-term storage. When you look at being able to protect your investment for decades, there’s no comparison with hard drive. ODA is much more robust.

Ed: So in terms of, well not really scalability, but in terms of size, you can cater for a whole range of facility sizes?

Jim: Yes. You could start with a desktop USB 3 type device which is no robotics, you simply manually insert one cartridge at a time and you can scale up to a library so the ODS-L30M is your entry level library, it contains the robot and 30 slots and a place to have a couple of drives. And they have expansion modules, the ODS-60 is a 60 slot chassis that bolts to this and the robot can traverse between the chassis.

Ed: Aaah that’s why it’s got a glass top?

Jim: Well the glass top is more for demo, but when you stack these together this open area in the top is where the robot would traverse between to select cartridges. So you can put 6 of these in a rack with the one robot unit.

Ed: That’s scalable.

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The hole in the middle is for the robot to move between boxes when they are stacked.

Jim: Yes. You get up to 535 slots in one standing rack, with 6 of these modules.

Ed: Have any faculties put these in already?

Jim: Oh definitely – the Golf Channel I think has 6 racks of these. They have over 12 petabytes of storage ODA … and there are many others as well. A couple of my customers are the Panthers, the Edmonton Oilers; there’s several in Europe.

Ed: It’s got to be the way to go?

Jim: Yes it’s definitely catching on, especially because the media is so robust and can last a long time, and also it has random access.

So actually when you say it’s not as fast as a hard drive, comparing it to a tape it is a lot faster than a tape because you can immediately go to the proper disc, NZVN extract it and randomly position.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

The Bridge Networks are combining with Gencom Technology

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