KitPlus | Articles

What do Location Managers do all day?

It’s a question that is often asked by my family who fondly believe I spend my time in idle chit-chat and gossip with high-powered film and media executives sipping skinny-latte Mocachinos (whatever they are!) and eating sushi. But consider the following exciting ‘James Bond’ style scenario. “Our hero and heroine are on the run, driving fast throug...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

How The SADiE LRX2 Is Making Location Multitrack Recordin...

Nearly twenty years ago I saw one of the first SADiE Digital Audio Workstations, which were just starting to make their mark as the first cost effective computer sound editor. I was so impressed with the concept that I immediately wanted one, even though I had no professional use for it whatsoever. Most of my work (particularly then) was in TV docu...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

RF Condenser Microphones why they are so good in the wet

A question I am often asked when people discover who I work for is “Why are ‘RF condenser’ microphones so good in the wet, being so much less susceptible to humidity problems than the more common ‘AF condenser’ microphones?”Basically, AF capacitor microphones use the capsule as a capacitor to store charge. With one fixed plate and the other free to...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

Audio acquisition and production

Remembering the days when the average 'portable' sound recorder was heavy enough to induce a hernia, I have high respect for the capabilities of modern digital audio devices. Not least the solid-state recorders that have emerged as successors to the Sony-originated DAT and MiniDisk formats. But avoid anything that lacks XLR connectors unless you ar...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

The Fairlight Time Machine

Just over fifty years ago, the then Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit around our planet. At that time the USA and USSR were in the depths of the cold war and the launch of Sputnik 1 on the 4th October 1957 was the starting gun for the space race. The winner would be the country to successfully land the first human being on the Mo...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

Good cop, bad cop

Peter Savage looks at the tricky subject of asking customers to honour their commitments and, possibly, debts – without ruining your customer-supplier relationship or losing what you are owed. How do you keep your customer sweet whilst making sure they pay?This is a question that I have been asked numerous times over the last few months, as draggin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

Choosing the right tripod

Camera support equipment is constantly changing as technological advances influence what can be created in the viewfinder. New generations of ultra compact cameras are enabling the camera operator to explore and get into the action as never before and longer lenses allow close-up views previously unobtainable. But with so much choice, how do you se...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

How we lit Mick

Shine a lightLets start at the beginning with the most fundamental, basic of questions – what’s the point of lighting anything, let alone a living legend like Sir Mick Jagger? The answer is simple – because lighting is the most important part of the whole process. Not the filming. Not the fiddly edit. Not the chin-scratching pre-production. The lig...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Behind the scenes at Big Brother 9

Working 94 days with no day off is a hard task. It’s even harder for the TV equipment that has to keep going round the clock, every day, to keep all the viewing ‘addicts’ supplied with live footage and highlight editions. This is the situation that the Big Brother 9 team finds itself in. For those inside the house, there is actually a means of esca...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

London to Capetown, by bike Part 3

Brazzaville was still five hundred kilometers away and the road was still a little on the rough side but not as sandy. What it lacked in sand however, it made up for in water. The road had developed the particularly unattractive habit of having huge water-filled mud-holes at any place where it was impossible to pass on either side. So there was no...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

The largest fibre and Ethernet video SAN network in the w...

Out of the Ashes of the old Anglian TV studios EPIC has risen like a phoenix to become not only a major broadcasting hub in Norfolk but to rival traditional studios throughout Europe. With the financial backing of Norfolk County Council and the East of England development agency, EPIC has converted the old TV studios and installed a state of the ar...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Virtual Sets

When I first started approaching people in the UK with Brainstorms Virtual Studio software I was surprised to have them shake their heads vigorously and explain that virtual studio systems were “far too expensive and too difficult to set up and run” Coupled with that was the lack of realism and who’s using them?In Spain where Brainstorm are based t...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Monitor Colour Calibration

With the growing acceptance of LCD displays for high end picture monitoring it has become increasingly important that users can be assured that they are working to a known standard. The Xrite Eye-one is typical of the more simple probes available, and is similar to the probes used to calibrate computer monitors for reliable photographic processing....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

When trouble looms phoenix your company

So, the US Federal Reserve (broadly equivalent to the Bank of England – it influences the availability and cost of money and credit in the US economy) is about to bail out Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest US mortgage providers. This comes on the back of the Bank of England helping, in no small way, Northern Rock. One rule for them, anothe...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Virtual sets come of age

Virtual studios (VS) have experienced a roller coaster ride of popularity through their short life. Initially they were hailed as the future for live broadcasting, seamlessly combining people and computer-generated environments without the need for post-production. But the racks of SGI computers, complex studio set-ups, complex camera tracking syst...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008