KitPlus | Articles

Loudness: What happens now if my work is not compliant?

Now that loudness is a mandatory requirement in the United States, Europe, and much of the rest of the world, it’s not so much a question of when organizations will begin to comply, but how?1. Now the standards are in place, what happens now if my work is not compliant?There are varying repercussions for noncompliance, depending where you work and...

Submitted by Jon Schorah

Published 01 June 2013

Will Strauss captures some decent sound gear

Capturing decent location sound requires skill, experience and, as Will Strauss discovered when compiling a list of recent audio acquisition innovations, piles of expensive kit. Although some cameramen might disagree, audio is still the most important thing to get right when on location. The odd dodgy shot can, generally speaking, be sorted in post...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 June 2013

Getting to grip with it with Mark Scotton

By Mark Scotton, sales manager for Cameragrip. Getting the right equipment to ensure you add value to your production can be difficult, especially when there are so many products available that all seem to be offering different solutions. Creating moving shots can be done in a variety of ways by using products such as jibs, cranes, tracking dollies...

Submitted by Mark Scotton

Published 01 March 2013

Will Strauss gets a grip!

By Will StraussOf all the many areas of television technology that tv-bay Magazine covers, you might think that camera support is the one that appears, on the surface at least, to move the slowest. Take the tripod for example. Fundamentally, the design hasn’t changed for a hundred years. Or how about the dolly? The wheels and track device that Alfr...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 March 2013

Loudness measurement: One year on

By Jon Schorah, creative director, NUGEN Audio. With, much of Europe and the U.S. now producing broadcast audio to meet loudness standards, Jon Schorah, creative director of NUGEN Audio, reflects upon the current state of play, the lessons learned along the way, and what’s to come. Playout or Production Normalisation?Commonly there are two ways to...

Submitted by Jonathan Schorah

Published 01 February 2013

Why does my project look different on every screen I watc...

By Thomas UrbyeThe age old question, asked by so many people who’ve come through my suite: “I’ve downloaded it to my laptop and it looks different?”Then there is the inevitable panic:“Thomas, how can we make sure that everyone who watches it, watches it ‘properly’?”This issue recently came to light with a campaign backed by moviemakers launched to...

Submitted by Thomas Urbye

Published 01 February 2013

Mastering a tough business

I recently had a great day out, visiting a company which is enjoying a massive boom in business, has customers prepared to wait as much as a year for its products, and is trying to recruit dedicated staff to increase output. Yet its chairman says “manufacturing is a tough business to be in”. In 1892 a remarkable picture was taken, on a 5” x 7” plat...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

A credit to whom?

Just over 40 years ago I was involved in the formation of the Guild of Television Cameramen as an independent non-profit-making international organisation that cares about television camerawork and the people who make it their craft. The GTC today has over 1,000 members, in the UK, Europe, Australia, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and the USA. The...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

Beaten by branding

Beaten by brandingI should say right at the start that I very much like Pixel Power’s James Gilbert. He is charming company, an excellent engineer and a good judge of wine. Yet, for all these admirable qualities, I hold him personally responsible for one of the greatest evils of modern society. I refer, of course, to the squeezeback. This is the ho...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2012

A live video streaming advocate

As you may or may not know, I’m a bit of a live video streaming advocate. I love the idea of being able to distribute high quality content via the internet, without the need for huge budgets, licensing, and all the hassle involved more conventional means. I do a lot of live streaming from small venues, and by their very nature is difficult to fit m...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2012

Big Fish, Little Fish, Camera-Top-Box

Big Fish, Little Fish, Camera-Top-BoxFor whole swathes of people within the television industry the concept of digital production - and what we generally refer to as ‘going tapeless’ – is probably now considered slightly old hat. Broadcasters, engineers, camera people and other early adopters of technology are so au fait with digital production the...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 July 2012

The evolving art of sports television

Given the choice of watching a major live event on site or via television, most people would opt for the real thing. Sure, you have to get to the venue, perhaps queue to buy a ticket, find your seat or maybe stand for hours. If it is a football match, the audience in front will probably stand up for a better view of each goal, completely blocking y...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2012

BVE in the video on-demand era

Within the last ten years, on-demand culture has changed the way that the world accesses media. From Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday afternoons to Champions League highlights on a Tuesday evening, there is no longer any excuse to miss anything that we would otherwise tune into live. The same now goes for exhibitions, as not only is it hard e...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

LED - A clean light at the end of the tunnel

We asked DoP & Lighting Specialist Jonathan Harrison to evaluate the current state of the industry. Jonathan has long been critical of LED products and the claims made by manufacturers in regards to their performance for high quality professional image capture, he has also been intimately involved in the development of some of the leading industry...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

Eye to Eye: Whats new in lighting

The majority of modern digital video cameras and D-SLRs are capable of delivering high-quality images provided the lighting conditions are good. Attempting to shoot in low light introduces the risk of noise and limited depth of field. Whatever the claimed camera sensitivity, good lighting is as essential today as ever. The following is a short over...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012