Refurbished with the Gearhouse colour palette, the interior and technologies now conform to the rest of Gearhouse’s extensive HD fleet.

HD3 now supports a fifth EVS operator, and the production monitor wall has been upgraded to Sony LMD series LCD monitors. The truck will be joined by a brand new tender vehicle, which will hit the road just before Christmas.

HD3: modernity and versatility for a wide range of broadcast projects.

Then came the Live At The Chapel shoot: two episodes featuring Australian favourites Pnau and Eskimo Joe. The venue was the historic St. Stephen’s Anglican Church in Newtown with the BCX truck deployed in the church’s ancient graveyard. The shoot featured handheld cameras and cameras on pneumatic pedestals, a dolly and a jib, for a dynamic shoot directed by Jakub Jacko.

Both concerts were filmed with Sony HDC-1500 cameras, each recorded in isolation along with the live cut using EVS’ XT2 and XFile systems. The output files were in Apple’s ProRes 422 codec, for integration into MCM Media’s Final Cut Pro edit facility.

Watch footage from Live At The Chapel: Pnau and Eskimo Joe.

The race that stops a nation was a thriller, living up to the hype with one of the closest finishes in the history of the event.

Seven’s Melbourne Cup coverage was watched by 2.67 million people, making it the most watched program on Australian television in 2011

The competition brought 1200 athletes from 80 countries to Western Australia, and determined 75% of the places in sailing events at the London 2012 Olympic Games.  

5 Oceans Media was responsible for the domestic broadcast in Australia and the facilities management for the international host broadcaster Sunset+Vine/APP. 

GHB was engaged to deliver the HD2 production vehicle for the world feed produced by Sunset+Vine/APP and HD4 for the domestic broadcast produced by 5 Oceans Media.    

The 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships production and daily news show were taken globally by broadcasters on every major continent and in Australia on Network 10 and ONE.

5 Oceans Media and Gearhouse Broadcast have previously worked together on 2010 UCI Road World Championships in Melbourne and Geelong and the 2011 City2Surf fun run in Sydney.

“Discreetly capturing Truman’s town of Seahaven from every angle is a challenge. Remotely controlled HD point-of-view cameras would be utilised extensively, like the Camera Corps Q-Ball, Sony BRC-700 and Toshiba IK-HD1H. For tiny hidden cameras like the one in Truman’s ring and tie-pin, we’d rely on specialty wireless pin hole and lipstick cameras.

Backhaul would be via a mixture of copper, optical fibre and radio frequency. Managing radio signals would be paramount- antennae placement and the use of repeaters and frequency filters would minimise signal interference.

With so many vision and audio sources, it would be necessary to use multiple Master Contol Rooms (MCR), representing the different areas of Seahaven. 

Setting up a communications system with the show’s thousands of actors would be a huge undertaking. They could all be fed audio via in-ear Interrupted Fold Back devices, with a talk-over ability for the director to the main actors.

The two companies worked together to seamlessly integrate their technologies, which was aided by their shared history and familiarity.  OSB NZ is the sister company of OSB Australia, which Gearhouse Broadcast acquired in 2010.

Gearhouse provided facilities and crewing for all matches broadcast from Wellington’s Westpac stadium, including 20 HD camera channels, four Super Slow Motion camera chains, several EVS systems and an XDCam ENG camera.

Obviously the on-field competition created some friendly rivalry between the two companies, and Gearhouse Broadcast Australia looks forward to the Wallabies reclaiming their rightful crown when they next meet the All Blacks.

The broadcast ran out of GHB’s SD1 vehicle, utilising 12 cameras. Four of these were wireless camera systems- one of them on the roof of AMP tower. Portable and hard camera setups were supplemented by steadicams and jib cameras, to capture the atmosphere with a diverse range of angles and shots.

You can watch some highlights of Seven’s Carols in the Domain, as featured on Sunrise.

Gearhouse Broadcast has been working on some interesting projects with the Broadcast Express vehicles. They’re perfect for smaller, quick-deploy, four-to-six camera productions in confined areas: minimum presence, maximum impact.

Watch Kelly belting it out.

Gearhouse’s HD1 super truck and its tender vehicle were loaded onto a barge for passage to the island. The picturesque location provided the perfect backdrop for the high-flying motorbike action. 14 cameras were used, including 4 wireless camera systems (one in a helicopter), a FlyCam and an Extreme Super Slow-Mo camera.

The Gearhouse Broadcast crew worked closely with Red Bull’s international production team, who flew in from Austria for the event. The program was beamed into over 100 countries.

HD1’s EVS workflow system connected with Red Bull’s Final Cut Pro edit facility for immediate post-production.

The X-Fighters project demonstrated the possibilities of using big trucks in unusual locations. With the Cockatoo Island mission successful, Gearhouse Broadcast’s logistics team is looking for its next challenge.

In the words of the Red Bull team, “Sydney will go down in the 11-year-history of the Red Bull X-Fighters as the most spectacular event ever.”

Check out some Red Bull X-Fighters coverage here.

Chief was keen to edit the piece immediately, so speed was of the essence. Gearhouse Broadcast integrated Chief’s MacBook Pro into the EVS system, delivering files straight into Final Cut Pro in real time.

Please check out the Telstra’s Wave of Colour here.