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November saw Gearhouse Broadcast team up with MCM Media to cover some intimate performances from several international music superstars.   First came an exclusive concert from esoteric indie pop group Florence + The Machine, at Sydney’s Seymour Centre, for the Debit Mastercard Priceless Music series. Mastercard brought in Florence and her band from their native England for this one show, with tickets available to 300 lucky Mastercard holders. Gearhouse Broadcast utilised one of the compact Broadcast Express (BCX) vehicles to capture the show in HD, using five cameras. Watch a clip of Florence performing Shake It Out.

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.

Gearhouse Broadcast and the Seven Network came together to once again cover the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival, including all the Melbourne Cup Day festivities. The broadcast used GHB’s Melbourne-based HD2 super truck, and incorporated a BCX vehicle to cover the race starts. The BCX had its own production switcher and director, producing its own cut of the starts until the director in HD2 switched to the main cut as each race progressed.

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

GHB’s long standing relationship with 5 Oceans Media continued this month at the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championship in Perth.

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.

Remember Jim Carrey’s 1998 film The Truman Show? We asked our young OB Supervisor/tech guru Ben Blasina what he would do if a client commissioned Gearhouse Broadcast to provide facilities for The Truman Show:

“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.

Gearhouse Broadcast Australia and UK were involved in the recent Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, collaborating with OB facilitator On Site Broadcast (OSB).

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.

Gearhouse Broadcast and the Seven Network joined forces for the annual Carols in the Domain event in Sydney. Hosted by Grant Denyer and Natalie Barr, the event featured the who’s who of musical talent, including Georgie Parker, Shannon Noll and Damien Leith, backed by the Sydney Youth Orchestra.

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.

Another Rugby World Cup has come to an end, and what a tournament it has been.  We have seen upsets, controversy, heartbreak and success. Yes, the tournament had it all and once again Gearhouse Broadcast was at the heart of everything.

As the equipment gets ready to arrive back from New Zealand, Gearhouse Broadcast in-house engineers will be on hand to check and re-condition the equipment before being made available for sale at competitive prices

Some of the equipment that will be available for sale includes Sony Camera Channels including HDC-1500’s and BVP-E30’s, Canon Box Lenses of XJ86 Mark I and Mark II and XJ75, Sony DVW-M2000P VTR’s, Grass Valley LDK-23 Camera Channels and HJ14 Lenses to name a few.

To ensure you don’t miss out and you kept up to date with our latest list, sign up to our mailing list http://www.gearhousebroadcast.com/uk/equipment-sales/#!prettyPhoto[iframes]/0/ or call +44 (0) 845 820 0000 to discuss your requirements.

On Labor Day, Gearhouse facilitated an early-morning performance from inaugural American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson for Seven’s Sunrise.  The Sunrisemini-concert at Martin Place is a classic OB for Gearhouse Broadcast. In the past we have helped cover concerts from artists like the BlackEyed Peas, Pink and Evermore. Sunrise crosses to the performance site regularly during the show, with the hosts often stepping outside the studio to introduce the performers in person.

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 Broadcast has spent an action-packed week on Cockatoo Island working on the finale of the Red Bull X-Fighters world tour. Red Bull takes the X-Fighters around the world, staging bouts in such scenic locations as Madrid, Rome and Brasilia. The Sydney event was the first down under.

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.

Sony’s latest TRIMASTER EL OLED Monitors have taken post production houses to another level.  Where visual performance and accuracy is critical, the Trimaster EL OLED monitors allows you to achieve the highest levels of accuracy and picture quality. 

Sony’s BVM series monitor optimises the latest Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology and is available in various screen sizes.   The combined key technologies of Sony’s ‘Super Top Emission’ has revolutionised the BVM series with it’s: -

1) Enhanced light efficiency by top emission structure
2) Advanced colour purity by colour filter and micro-cavity
3) Improved the contrast by colour filter and micro-cavity
4) Improved a higher reliability by complete solid structure

The OLED is the new way for colourists to put the final touches on productions.  It’s the new ‘must have’ tool for creating the desired effects that has never been achievable by post production houses. Sony’s OLED Technology Monitor