Live Concerts: The Challenge of High Definition

TV y Video spoke in Miami with engineer Pedro Villabona, an expert in the production and transmission of massive events such as the Super Bowl and the Billboard Awards.

- How is the work between the director of the live event and the director of the television production?

"Within the mobile unit there are hierarchies. The producer of the show, the director and the technical director are aware of everything and in contact with the whole team. While in Latin America it is very common to use the same audio channel for everything, in the United States between 15 and 20 channels are used for internal communications with lights, audio, the stage director, talent; the communication system is a very large infrastructure where exclusive communication channels are designated for the different departments of production, including the mobile unit.

Additionally, the images that are sent to the press rooms, the signal that is sent to the dressing rooms, and the one that goes to the VIP rooms have to be planned."

"In the planning and assembly of a concert like the Billboard awards, around 300 people participate in the technical department, practically more than those who participate in the show itself," says engineer Villabona, who still declares himself surprised with the realization of the concert for peace, on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, "which in three or four days managed not only to mount but also to broadcast live to the whole world."

- Publicidad -

- And in the case of international concert tours of great artists there is a difference?

Artists who go around the world on a specific tour have their own TV department that has planned everything.

- How do you manage all that technical and physical infrastructure in the middle of the crowd that gathers a concert?

"In the United States, the fire inspector is the one who has to approve everything, from where the cables are passed, to the location of the video equipment, cameras, cranes, sound columns, Jimmy jibs, etc. He goes with the production team, he sees the wiring plan thinking about the safety of the assistants. Everything must be planned according to the conditions of the site and the attending public so that neither the production nor the people are at risk."

- What is the difference between the production of a live stream and another that will be recorded for DVD or BluRay?

"It doesn't matter to record than to broadcast, it's like a live on tape. The DVD is already a rather homemade format, while the BluRay does guarantee a good product. Inside the mobile unit is destined one of the machines to burn to BluRay specifically and simultaneously.

And when it is recorded to broadcast an edited version, the recordings of the cameras that have been arranged to record the entire show are used. That is, a main mix is recorded while recording in independent cameras, and the unit of the show is edited in post-production so that what has gone wrong in the main mix can be corrected, with protective shots."

- Publicidad -

- Finally, what are the challenges presented by the high-definition production of an event of such magnitude as a live concert?

"Today most of these productions are made in HD, and by the details and proportions, the handling of audio, lights and video is radically different, there is much more to control in the technical part. And if we talk about 3D productions, we would be talking about two cameras for each one, because one camera generates an image and another the other image. For now the only thing I've seen in live 3D was this year's Super Bowl .

Technically, to transmit in HD the ideal is to use the 1080i format, 54.94 fps, which gives higher definition, gives much more information and more content than 720p.

The transmission of a live concert involves a mix of audio independent of the mix of the show itself on location, and in some events, such as the Grammys, the MTV or the Billboard themselves, there is an independent mobile unit dedicated to audio, with a large console, who handles all the microphones of the concert. For this reason, it is not uncommon for these shows to involve entire months, some up to a year, of planning. In the concert of the Billboard Awards, for example, four transmission back ups are mounted simultaneously, two via satellite and two by fiber optics. If one fails, the other enters, because the risk of interrupting a transmission can never be run."

The Oscars on the Move


Ted Ashton, cameraman at the ceremony delivery of awards Oscar, at the helm of the telescopic arm Techno-Jib T24, of Telescopic LLC.

For the third year in a row, Telescopic's Techno-Jib arm captured all the glamour at the Academy Awards. "We started using this unique tool three years ago," explains Ted Ashton, a renowned cameraman at the Oscar ceremony. "Theatre is a congested place, and working with a common arm is very difficult. With the Techno-Jib I can move well and create exceptional images."

- Publicidad -

This year, directors Roger Goodman and P. Allen Haines chose to use two Techno-Jib pens to capture as many reactions from the award winners as possible. "Mark Hunter crewed the camera that was located in the center of the stalls," explains Ashton. "I was on stage, following the winners to the podium," he adds. "The Techno-Jib is perfect for this type of action because of its additional telescopic capability. I could jump quickly and capture the moment intuitively, not just scrolling up and down, or left and right, but in and out, then pulling my arm back and taking the shot open."

Tecno-Jib is an ideal choice for telescopic arm-mounted cameras: The T24 extends from a minimum of 2.7 meters to a maximum of 7.3 meters. The arm moves at a speed of up to 1.5 meters per second and the "Soft Stop" feature ensures smooth, highly desirable braking.

Ultra-realistic sound, like having been there


Glen Hansard, vocalist of The Swell Season, during the recording of his concert for "Austin City Limits"

During the recent recording of the group The Swell Season for the series "Austin City Limits", of the public television system PBS in the United States, the veteran production team in charge faced a challenge that could have ended the traditional feeling of closeness of the public with their artists, that has characterized this program for 33 years. A technical resource made it possible to maintain the effect of realism that has made them famous.

Broadcast in 5.1 using a Dolby-E stream , the production team typically has less than a day to assemble and test the sound of their concerts. The purpose of each production of "Austin City Limits" is to preserve the authenticity of the live concert. In the recording there was an event that could hardly be reproduced authentically in the television broadcast. At the end of the soundcheck, singer Glen Hansard headed to the edge of the stage, out of reach of the local microphone, and claimed to have a song he would perform without a microphone, with a live voice directly towards the crowd. David Hough, the program's audio director, then managed to quickly install a Holophone H2-PRO surround microphone, perfect for the situation.

The H2-PRO hung from the light grid and positioned itself in the appropriate way to receive exactly what the audience was hearing. The eight elements of this particular microphone are arranged to capture audio the way the human ear receives it. "The interesting thing about the recordings with the Holophone is that they were perceived as if you were sitting in the middle of the room," Hough said.

Canadian firm Holophone is dedicated to developing products that use proprietary 3-D audio technology to take the physical experience of "having been there" to a new level. Its surround microphones are specifically designed to overcome the barrier of capturing and transmitting professional ultra-realistic multi-channel sound. Numerous category events such as the Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl have been produced using these devices.