International. The production company Atomic Imaging provided various audiovisual services during the live broadcast of former President Obama's farewell speech, for which it used several products manufactured by the company. These include the ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K mixer and its corresponding control panel.
The farewell speech took place at Chicago's McCormick Place, the largest convention center in the country. Atomic Imaging was responsible for disseminating images and content for social media through a large audiovisual surface and three giant screens located in the main room, as well as by several monitors located in that space and in an attached ballroom. Likewise, the company was in charge of transmitting dozens of signals to the technicians involved in the project and to the media present.
Atomic Imaging is a television and film production company that was specially contracted for this event by the company C3. Its founder, Ari Golan, previously worked for the administrations of several presidents, as well as in various films, television shows and other outstanding live shows.
"This was a very important event that was attended not only by media from all over the world, but also by a large security contingent and a huge number of people who came to listen to Obama's speech. Space was very limited, both inside and outside the enclosure, so the use of an outdoor mobile was not an option in this case. What we needed was an audiovisual system that did not take up much space and that would allow us to cover our needs. Blackmagic's products were ideal for this project," said Ari.
The work dynamics were based on an ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K and an ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K that allowed to alternate the different images captured by the cameras in the main room. On the other hand, it included a Smart Videohub array, a HyperDeck Studio Pro recorder, a Teranex 3D processor, Teranex Mini converters, SmartView Duo and SmartView HD monitors, a SmartScope Duo 4K device to control the quality of transmission, and ATEM Camera Converter units and Mini Converters HDMI to SDI 4K to send signals to the media and to the screen of former President Obama, located behind the scenes. Likewise, a Mini Converter Optical Fiber 4K was used to transmit the images in high definition by optical fiber to the projectors, which were located more than 200 meters away.
In terms of image enlargement, one of the objectives of Atomic Imaging was to transmit content intended for social media through a large audiovisual surface, which required using the second M/E bank of the mixer exclusively for this purpose.
On the other hand, Twitter comments from different parts of the world were added to the images. In addition to the mixer, Ari turned to Tweet-Mag©, an exclusive Atomic Imaging system that includes physical and computer support and allows event attendees to send real-time text messages to monitors, giant screens and other audiovisual projection platforms. In order to add inputs and outputs to this system, the company used an Ultrastudio 4K capture and playback device.
Given the number of different signals, it was essential to prepare in advance, in order to establish and automate switching between them. In this sense, Atomic Imaging had the opportunity to predefine the complex configuration of the different settings by creating macros in the ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K model, which made it possible to carry out various tasks with the press of a button.
