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I was most fortunate to be invited to join a small groupof resellers and lighting specialists at PLS where we werevery honoured to have Dedo Weigert from Dedolight andhis wonderful assistant Elena, not only showing usthrough the range of Dedolight product that Chris at PLSis offering us, but also giving us a chance to learn how toset up lighting for an interview situation. I began withdue deference.

Dedo Shows us the Light

MARCH 2013 Vol 189

Ed: Master, we have covered the products fromDedolight from NABs and IBCs over the years and I knowwe’ve always been impressed by the products you createfor us. My overall impression, and I’m sure this isechoed by the people here today, is that Dedolight offersclever lighting solutions. Would that be true? I mean,there are lots of lighting providers out there who providelight, but I think Dedolight goes a big step further?

Dedo: It has two faces – one is that we cater to thehighest demands of precision lighting as it is used in the

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Hollywood blockbuster films, as we arewell established in difficult tasks oflighting special effects. Anywhere whereprecision lighting is needed, has a place,makes sense. At the same time, we alsocater ( often with the same equipment )to the smallest team – two peopleteams, the one person team, peoplehave to work under street fighterconditions, and we try and give themidentical potential – as we’re using it inthe big time feature films – in thesmallest, lightest, most versatilepackages that I don’t think have anyequal. At the same time, we can saythey’re the most economical lightingsystems, regarding our low voltageequipment, and it’s also an indestructiblesystem. So those are very seriousadvantages that I feel quite sure aboutsaying that, in this field, we don’t haveany equal.

Ed: I’ve certainly seen a gooddemonstration of the indestructibility of atravel pack ( Elena threw it from a greatheight at the floor in imitation of anairport baggage handler ) and obviouslythe quality of the engineering that’s gone into makingyour product is superb, but in terms of the lightprovided, I would say that there is an even spread oflight and there is predictable good colour, whatever themodel of light?

Dedo: One aspect is the highest degree of controlto build controlled devices, controlled accessories, aswell as highly controllable light fixtures that offer a byfar bigger focusing range over any other professionallighting equipment and within the beam, absolutelysmooth light distribution. We’ve got an interview withStuart Harris who is doing high class hair commercials.He uses our 650 Watt light without any diffusion on hiswomen, and that’s very courageous, but he believes inthe utmost quality of the light character. At the sametime, it’s the different concept that we have about softlights – trying to make them dedicated soft lights,meaning that they’re built to function only as soft lightsand to try to do that job in the best possible way byproviding a true wrap around character, rather than asoft box that you stick in the front of a studio light.That will give you more of a hot spot and not such aneven light distribution, or not the wrap around characterthat we try to excel in.

Ed: There certainly is a huge Dedolight product rangeand what impresses me is that it’s not all about LED.There are a number of manufacturers that have“embraced”, shall we say, LED and that’s all they nowproduce, but you’re not like that. You have LED but youhave other technologies as well – tried and true andproven ones?

Dedo on camera for PLS web presentation.

Dedo: Our priority from the beginning was

designing the best optical system where we deviated

from the known studio lights that have one spherical

front lens, to a two lens system, then expanding that

technology into a double aspherical, non-spherical

system and adding two extra motions to the focusing –

the zoom focus. Now we’re trying to transfer the

advantages of our unique optics on to the focusing LEDlights. But for each individual light source, we have to

design specific optical systems that match the light

source to get optimum performance and the best

possible character.

So that’s one approach to our LED lights. At the sametime, we also have the multi LED panel lights, where wefeel our points are that we have better colour and wehave higher light output, coupled with a powerconsumption that is less than half of what most of ourcompetitors have, so if you want to save the planet, usehalf the power, have more light. That’s a serious step,but in the professional world, it’s the colour renditionand that is a difficult field for LEDs because it doesn’tonly go by the spectrum analysis which we do everyday; it also goes by the response of particular sensorswhich may show differences between brands of camera,a different behaviour towards sunlight or halogen light( even pretty closely matching when you’re shootingwith HMI light or fluorescent ), but with LED lightsources, those cameras show results that differconsiderably. That’s why the camera tests are ofutmost importance, but they don’t lead to one resultbecause the cameras give different responses. So

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there’s this new colour evaluation system called TLCI( Television Lighting Consistency Index ) from theEuropean Broadcasters Union, which shows differentresults from the CRI values that we’ve always believedin. That is based on studio cameras and those studiocameras work with prisms and three sensors, all ofwhich are CCD sensors; but the vast majority of ourclients, the small producers, don’t work with CCDsensors, but with CMOS sensors, and even between thedifferent CMOS sensors from different origins, theresponse to colour varies considerably.

Ed: What you’ve just said, to me, illustrates the needto have a reputable supplier looking after your productin a place like New Zealand, because, as you say, thereis a wide variety of cameras out there; there are certainlighting setups that will suit one camera better thanothers.

Dedo: The traditional light sources – halogen,metal halide, HMI and even fluorescent, seem to workfor the vast majority of cameras in an identical way.With LEDs, it’s more necessary to bear in mind theresponse of a particular type of camera, because herewe do find more variations than we’re accustomed to.In the end, the client has to try and evaluate the colourwith his own camera, but he needs a little bit ofeducation as to how to do that, based on theunderstanding that it’s his camera that may see thecolour of LED light differently than the camera of hisneighbour. He has to test it himself and see whether itsuits his needs. Fortunately, with the vast majority ofour LED lights, we seem to satisfy the overwhelming

percentage of users, but we have to point out that thereare differences and people should know about them andthis is where we may be the ones who take more carein trying to educate our users. Whether it’s a goodbusiness attitude I don’t know, because the more youinform users about potential difficulties, peculiarities oreven hazards, the more the user will tend to say “let mego to my previous supplier because he didn’t have thoseproblems!” Now that’s not quite true, because he justdidn’t know about the problems, or he knew about itand didn’t want to say.

Ed: What is it … sometimes a little knowledge is a

dangerous thing?

Dedo: Yes.

Ed: In part of your presentation, you talked about the

dangers of HMI light, that the amount of UV coming

from it is actually three times greater than the sun and

if you have a studio setup with lots of HMI light, you’ve

got no ozone layer to protect you. If you’re in there all

day, day after day, what are the results?

Dedo: In my case, I was very careless and Iruined the lenses in my eyes, but those are repairable.Other skin reactions, like skin cancer, are not that easilyrepairable or could be permanent. Ultraviolet is apotential hazard and we are very proud that in UVprotection, we have gone much further and haveseriously better results than everybody else in theprofessional lighting world. We learned that from ourwork in museums where we had to develop special filtertechnologies that worked extremely effectively, and so

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far it looks like we’re the only ones who have perfectedthis technology.

Ed: Have you put in glass filters that remove the UV?

Dedo: No, it is that, on our front lens, we depositthe filter in a vacuum coating that doesn’t eliminate theultraviolet, but it brings it down to a level that isincredibly low. Like for example you could say halogenlight that is usually considered to be harmless, has 135microWatt per lumen of your ultraviolet content and wehave two microWatt per lumen.

Ed: That sounds pretty safe to me?

Dedo: Drastically lower and to human skin, that isa very, very safe level.

Ed: On the subject of studios, to have an LED studio,one would think that, because they’re providing coollight, you’re not going to need air conditioning, but infact, if you have too many LED lights in a small studio,you’re still going to get a lot of heat?

Dedo: There’s a myth that LED lights produce noheat. The truth is – like in every fairy tale there is atruth somewhere – the forward heat of the LED lightsource is low, but the heat on the LED itself is very highand 80% of the energy supplied to an LED light sourceturns into heat, and in traditional studio halogen, thatcould be considered to be 90%. So the difference is notthat vast in the heat saving and in the saving insecondary cost from air conditioning.

Ed: So in the old days, you needed the airconditioning to keep your talent cool, but these days,you need your air conditioning to keep your LEDs cool?

Dedo: Yes. But at the same time the trend is thatLEDs, as they develop ( and we still have to regardthem as part of an emerging technology ), they willprovide noticeably higher useful light output incomparison to the studio halogen system. You mustalso differentiate between the multi panel LED lights,with many LEDs in one panel, where a lot of the light isturned into useful light; whilst in a focusing light, youhave the traditional handicap like you have in a studiohalogen Fresnel when the spot position that’s only 6%efficiency of the 10% visible light over the … so from100% energy you have 0.6% use in visible light in thespot position of a studio halogen Fresnel. In thatrespect, also the future will be that LEDs can offer somehigher efficiency; it’s not true that they don’t create anyheat, but the relationship is going to get better in thefuture.

Ed: This leads me on to one of the other things youtalked about – the relationship between the CRI valueand the lumen per Watt. This is something that is amajor discussion point and one should look into thiswhen deciding on the sort of light you need for a studio,an outdoor “run and gun” situation or a lighting truck orwhatever. It’s a very good way of determining the bestsort of light for the job that you want to put it to?

Dedo: Ideally in the professional world, we wantto be at a CRI level above 90. At the moment, mostwhite phosphor LEDs are under 80 and the better LEDlight sources dwell in the mid-80s. The target is wherewe’re getting now, to get into the mid-90s. But thespectral response of the white phosphor LED will still be

Page

characterised by the blue peak. On the righthand sideof the blue peak there is a noticeable valley, and thatwill remain this way and will still show noticeabledifferences over full spectrum light sources, like the sunor halogen. We always want to be in the region of CRIabove 90, but at the moment the higher the CRI goes,the lower lumen per Watt, the lower is the energyefficiency in relationship to the light output.

Ed: There’s no such thing as a free lunch?

Dedo: Eventually there may be! This is atechnology that is very important and many, many workon this with incredible intensity.

Ed: And Dedolight’s doing it too?

Dedo: We’ve been working with four differentmanufacturers of LED light sources for five years nowand even to create a common language regardingcolour evaluation was very difficult, because they test

their LED lightsources in anUlbricht spherewhere you stick alight source into awhite ball thatreflects the lightin every directionand mixes it up.But when we usethat in a focusinglight, with ourdouble asphericoptics, it’s acompletely differ-ent game. So,special LED light

sources have to be developed to co-operate best withour highly developed optics.

Ed: And something that has impressed people I’vetalked to is that you do your own testing; you don’t relyon the manufacturer of the LED or the bulb that you useto give you the specifications that you then pass on toyour customers. You actually do the testing yourself tomake sure it works in a real world situation?

Dedo: In the descriptions of LED qualities, there

are noticeable lies being told, more so than we’re

accustomed to in politics and religion. Many of the

lighting professionals might agree that there are no

valid rules for every lighting situation. Rule #1 in

lighting is that there is no rule. But one thing that will

apply to many lighting tasks is that we may not want to

show that a great lighting master was at work. It’s

more subtle if you can concentrate on conveying the

message and transporting moods, rather than showing

excellence in handling your lighting instruments. A

comparison would be that a painter should not be

advertising the brand name of his brush … you should

look at the painting and that should convey mood,

message. We’re the servants of the image, the image

is the servant of the director, and the director is the

servant of the story. We have a distinct place in the

hierarchy and the big god is the screen – the ultimate

that we live for. There are other aspects, like in

business there are people who think the essence of

business is found on the golf course or at the dinner

table, but I’m a very naïve purist and I don’t live on golf

courses or at dinner tables. I like to live watching the

screen.

Ed: And the best lighting is one that you don’t see?

Dedo: Often good lighting is the one that’s notnoticeable, but there are other situations … look at aRembrandt or a Caravaggio or an El Greco, where thelighting becomes very much noticeable. There is norule and breaking the rule can be fun, but it’s alwaysthe motive behind it. Does breaking the rule enhancethe message, or is it supposed to enhance the glory ofthe maker?

Ed: Now you’re getting into religion. We’d betterstop.

Time to talk with Chris McKenzie who’s lookingremarkably well after having half his brain removed.

Ed: Which side of your brain was it Chris?

Chris: It was the dead centre one, straight up themiddle.

Ed: No, in fact it was his heart he had a few littleproblems with, but he’s looking good now and so readyfor more stress, for people to call him with theirproblems?

Chris: Yes absolutely and starting off with Grantand working up from there. It’s always the way.

Ed: Now one of the key points I learnt today is thatDedolight means great optics. It’s all about the optics.There are lots of people who can make light bulbs, andput them in boxes ( and they do ) but Dedolight goesthat extra distance by selecting the right sort ofilluminating device, putting it in the right shaped androbust box, and then top it off with the clever bit – theoptics?

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Chris: Yes that’s very true. A well reputed NewZealand manufacturer said to me years ago that there’snothing different in Fresnels, they’re a lens, a reflectorand a lamp and there are 50 companies in the worldthat make those and a proportion of them make themvery well. But what Dedo did was go back to squareone and relook at the optical system. It’s probably hadthree iterations in the time we’ve been dealing withthem since the early 90s and yes, the aspheric anddouble aspheric optic that he uses is how they achievethe collection of light and distribution of light. I’ve notseen anything that comes close to a Dedolight in termsof the flatness of the beam and in a cinematic sense,that’s what we want. We want a consistent exposureacross the beam, because there’s nothing worse thanhaving someone with half their face a third of a stopdown, because the audience don’t know why you’vedone it, but unless you’ve done it deliberately, it makesthem uneasy if you’re not presenting them with auniformly lit face. That’s where we start from. We startfrom the face and in most situations ( particularly ifyou’re doing corporate video ) you’ve got to make theCEO look a million bucks when he might have had ahard night before. So as lighting people andcinematographers, we have to help him to make himlook that million bucks that he’s getting as a salary.

Ed: One of the points I liked that Dedo made wasthat, with a Dedolight, you can cheat the inverse squarelaw by two methods. One – the simple method – wasto use a graded filter?

Chris: That’s true and it’s a technique that’s beenused in the film and TV industry by using wires withvariable amounts of transmission … it looks like a fly-screen mesh. If you’ve got 30% wire and 70% openspaces, you lose 30% of your light. It’s very crude andto do a transition from half to a third to a quarter,there’s always a hard line.

Ed: This is in a situation where you’re putting a lighton an angle on a subject so you want the light to be

evenly spread across that flatsurface, even though it’s notcoming in at right angles?

Chris: A typical applica-

tion in the film or tele sense

is where you’ve got a key

light hanging over the head

and you want to have

someone walk 10, 20 metre

towards camera. They needto be uniformly lit during that

walk, unless you’re going to

do an iris pull, and if you’re

in a black studio, you can do

an iris pull. But if you’ve got

a lit background you can’t, so

you’ve got to attenuate the

light if you’re using one

source.

Ed: So you can either do itby a subtractive means,taking out some of the light,but Dedo’s done something abit cleverer?

Chris: Well he’s donewhat every good cameramanknows … he’s actually put agraduated ND filter and you

know anyone who has put a graduated ND in front of acamera to hold back clouds or sky or to do effectsknows how that works, but he’s the first person to do iton a light.

Ed: But that’s still subtractive?

Chris: Absolutely and that subtractive principle is

the primary way of doing it. But the second principle is

using his asymmetric lens which is a change in the

shape of a lens that puts more light through the top

part of the lens and less light through the bottom. Bythe same means, you get that attenuation in light over

a linear plane.

Ed: Or if you rotate that lens you can have more light

at the bottom than you can at the top?

Chris: That’s right, yes, top to bottom, side to

side, front to back. So yes, in effect, you’re not

cheating the inverse square law, you’re actually making

the inverse square law work for you. But you are

cheating what people expect out of a fitting.

Ed: Now the big question I have for you is this.

Here’s Dedo presenting all of the lights in his range and,

in quite a few situations, making comparisons with ARRI

and showing that, certainly with the ones he chose

( apart from one ), the Dedolight model beat the ARRI

hands down. How does this fit with PLS now being an

ARRI light supplier?

Chris: It fits well because a lot of the Dedolight kitat the moment is still in the small end. It is expandinginto the larger fixtures … it’s horses for courses. Thereare still ARRI lights that you would want to use over aDedolight for larger applications and I’m not saying thatDedolight won’t pick up to that level eventually. ARRIhave a broader range of fixtures while most of theDedolight product is fairly designed for purpose, so it’smore portable. One of the things that Dedo has talkedto you about is the portable studio concept and the factthat, when you’ve got the single man run and gunshooters, they don’t have to think about “oh I can only

How to light an interview.

Page

shoot this with a single light on top of my camera” –they can still take something that gives them a five lightkit. They can do some nice portraiture, they can dosome two header interviews, they can light backgroundsand everything else. That’s where I see it, that “yes”,they are trumping ARRI on some of the optics andthey’re trumping every other conventional fixturemanufacturer as well.

Ed: So it might incentivise the others to up theirgame?

Chris: Absolutely, yes, and the thing that wealways push is that we supply what people need, notjust what we happen to have in our line of kit. We’vejust done a couple of studios where we’ve supplied amixture of manufacturers’ equipment because one itemwas better than the other and vice versa. So mixturesof ARRI, local Selecon LED kit, Strand dimming andDedolight. You could go to one manufacturer and buyall that stuff, but you’re not necessarily going to get thebest for the purpose in that situation. Each situation isunique – there are people I wouldn’t sell Dedolights tobecause they’re not suitable for what they’re trying todo, or I wouldn’t trust them!

Ed: But you are trusting us to play with your gearbecause, this afternoon, we get a tutorial from Dedoand then we get to set up lighting situations and seehow these work with different cameras?

Chris: Abso-lutely, and at theend of the day,everybody hereknows what theyare doing theo-retically so it’s amatter of gettingyour hands onthe stuff anddoing it. I thinkI’ve heard bits ofthis presentationprobably 4 or 5times now butevery time I hearit, I learn some-thing more thatDedo’s come upwith. He’s anincredibly collab-orative person

and, as he said earlier on I think, he’s a big kid in asandbox, but he doesn’t like to play on his own. Hevalues people’s opinions and people’s ideas and whenyou look at some of the kit, it’s come out of a lot ofother people’s ideas. He’s surrounded himself with abunch of very clever people, in terms of his electronicdesign, his optical design and mechanical design, buthe’s the visionary, he’s the driver and he’s the man whohas the passion. I just feel very humble … to have himhere in New Zealand is pretty special, and hopefullyeverybody gets something out of today and if theydon’t, well …

Ed: Sod them.

Chris: It’s their loss.

Ed: Hey, let’s go and play.

Chris: Absolutely.

Post-Play

It was hugely informative, educational and I found outwhat I’d been doing wrong for 30 years. Now I knowbetter and I’m sure the others do too. Keep a watch onthe PLS website because there should be some greattutorials available. Go to www.kelpls.co.nz

FYI Footnote

When Chris McKenzie picked up Dedo and Elena fromthe airport on Tuesday night, on the way back intotown, he wasgoing to drive upto the top of MtEden to showthem the sightsat about 5.30pm,but he decided“oh no, I’ll go toOne Tree Hill.”So they had anice view overAuckland city andit was onlyafterwards theyheard about themadman with thegun who wasrobbing touristsand shooting onMt Eden at5.30pm! Youshould buy aLotto ticket Chris. Life on the road for Elena.

NZVN

The new improved Chris.

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Page

that hasn’t been confirmed yet, but obviously you get a

lot more by purchasing an Autodesk licence through

DVT with support and services that far outweigh what

you do getting something online.

Ed: Well there are other editing and graphics productsavailable online already so does that mean that the

Autodesk product is so complicated it needs a reseller

to support it?

Con: It’s a relatively problem-free product; there’s a

rather large amount of training material available online

as well. But what resellers bring to the party is an

enormous amount of expertise, industry knowledge and

understanding around workflows, and hardwaresolutions that go around Smoke and they have an

enormous amount to offer. You’re paying the same

price whether you buy it through one of our resellers or

whether you buy it online, so we strongly recommend

that customers purchase it through a reseller to get that

extra support.

Most of our customers using our products are deriving

their income out of using the products, and they really

need a reseller standing behind them to support them

through that process, so that when they come up to

software issues, or need some extra support, they’re

offering a layer beyond which Autodesk are able to offer

direct. When they need help with hardware, they’re

offering a layer beyond … well Autodesk doesn’t even

offer hardware, so they need a little bit more than just

Apple support which can take, you know, two weeks to

get your machine fixed, whereas if you buy your

hardware from a reseller you can work out support

contracts or other levels of service and support to wrap

around your business to make sure that you’re always

being productive.

Ed: Is there a difference between Smoke and “Smokeon the Mac”?

Con: There’s really just one product – it’s Smoke onthe Mac.

Ed: Well Stuart, that sounds like a big vote ofconfidence in DVT’s ability to support such a highlytechnical product. With your experience at selling arange of editing products, is Smoke on the Mac anymore difficult for somebody coming in cold to, say,Adobe CS6?

Stuart: Well the wonderful thing about the 2013version of Smoke on the Mac is that it now has thesame user interface as Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Proand Media Composer. So anyone used to one of thosethree products can now step into Smoke on the Mac andalmost without any training whatsoever, move clipsaround on the timeline, trim the in and out points, docross-dissolves, fades, wipes, picture in picture effectsall work intuitively the same way as those other threeapplications.

So Autodesk has done an enormous amount of work on

that front end interface to make it comfortable and very

familiar to anyone that’s come from an editorial

background. But where Smoke on the Mac differs from

those other products is you’re just one mouse click

away from moving into the high end 3D compositing

Page

environment they call Action, or one mouse click away

from the high end node based compositing environment

of Connect FX which has such enormous power under

the hood.

So if you just need to edit, Smoke is now as good an

editor as Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer or any

other editing application. But it also brings an

enormous amount of graphics capabilities, it’s got

graphics capabilities built in, it brings an enormous

amount of compositing capabilities built in, it’s got

grading built in … it’s got all of these things in one

product. And you know the biggest problems that

people have with complex workflows that they’ve

developed with things like After Effects and Final Cut

Pro and DaVinci Resolve and CINEMA 4D is that when

they get down to the wire and their clients come in and

want to make last minute changes, the amount of round

tripping that they have to go through, particularly if you

add some plug-ins into the mix, gets extremely

complicated. And your ability to be able to unravel your

project to make some of those small changes, whether

they want to swap one shot out for another or do a

slightly different grade on one part of it that you’ve

already composited somewhere else, it can all come

unravelled quite quickly. With Smoke on the Mac

having a completely integrated environment to do the

whole thing, it means you can make any of those

changes at any time without any compromise.

Ed: It brings to mind the expression “one throat to

choke?”

Stuart: It’s one system to rule them all, that’s for

sure.

Ed: Oh, bold, bold comments. But you mentioned in

there that this contains graphics, this contains effects,

but what about the files … we’re so used to exporting a

file from our editing programme, such as a still picture;

with Adobe it’s easy because you make it a Photoshop

file. Are the file types compatible with other products?

Stuart: First of all, looking at video files and the

different camera formats that we’re shooting on today,

editing applications have traditionally had better

support for Sony and Panasonic and RED and all the

different versions of file formats that are out there, but

now Smoke with the 2013 release supports all of those

file formats as well. So it doesn’t matter which camera

you’re shooting on, that media is now compatible with

Smoke. Also, in addition to that, you can bring in

Photoshop files, either as a single graphic or in its

individual layers for animation. So it has an enormous

amount of compatibility with all of the existing media,

graphics and sound files that we’re already using, so

there’s no problem with any of that.

Ed: Even my high-band?

Stuart: Even your high-band, absolutely – if you

want to capture tape you can do that too.

Ed: What more do you need?

Stuart: Just get your Smoke for Mac and the new

hardware. One of the other really cool things about this

product is that Apple have got their latest version of the

iMac, which now has a proper NVIDIA graphics card in it

with 1500 CUDA cores of processing power …

Ed: How big is a CUDA core?

Stuart: A CUDA core is about this big!

Ed: Wow, I’ve never seen one that big.

Stuart: It’s great, and you’ve got 1500 of them, 32

gig of RAM, 3.4GHz of processing power is an enormous

amount of power in a $4,000 machine that can now

drive Autodesk, Smoke, extremely well. And add to

that a little bit of Thunderbolt storage, AJA I/O XT and a

Sony OLED display, and you’ve got an absolutely

awesome editing, grading, visual effects, finishing,

conforming system that is second to none.

Ed: So it’s all come together as a perfect storm at

DVT. You’ve got the software and you’ve got the

hardware, you’re ready to go?

Stuart: Absolutely and it’s been great fun now that

the 2013 version is finally released, we’ve got these

new iMacs here, it’s been enormous fun shipping them

out to a range of different customers. Seeing what

they’re doing with these products now is absolutely

exciting and invigorating. We really enjoy it.

Ed: I mean they must be pleased, because we

actually announced this after NAB last year that it was

coming, but it took a long time. Was that a good thing?

Stuart: Well you know a lot of companies announce

at NAB and ship at IBC. This was a little bit later, but it

was a wonderful Christmas present to have it all, yes.

Ed: So we can expect something even bigger at NAB

2013?

Stuart: Well we’ll have to wait and see, but it’s

hard to imagine that they could top what they’vedelivered in the 2013 version for Smoke for Mac.

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Page

Microphone “How to”With the help of Shure microphones, Daniel Larsen fromShure and our model today, Stephen Buckland fromSound Techniques, we are looking at how you correctlyattach a radio microphone and transmitter – but first,how you choose a shotgun.

Ed: Daniel, I understand that in shotgunmicrophones, “size does matter”?

Daniel: Yes it does. The operating principle isfrequency cancellation by difference in timing. Whenyou take the same audio signal, delay and recombine it,there is a cancellation. The greater the timing delay,the lower the frequency that is cancelled. The longerthe microphone the more off-axis frequencies you cancancel, the more directional the system.

Ed: So a short one is more for trying to record acrowd?

Daniel: Yes, perhaps used for something that youneed a broader coverage of.

Ed: And the good thing about the Shure microphonesystem is that it’s modular. Can you explain that?

Daniel: Well the modular system has themicrophone that connects onto the preamp and sowe’ve got the option to be able to change from ashorter to a longer capsule onto the same preamp.

Ed: So there’s one preamp and then you just screw inwhichever, whether you want a long, a medium or ashort microphone onto that. Obviously it saves priceand it saves weight in your kit?

Daniel: That’s right. This model, the A89U, has avery small footprint. The preamp runs parallel to thecapsule, and so you’re basically able to take up less

Daniel shows two Shure shotguns.

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physical room with the same sized microphone capsuleand preamp.

Ed: So this is specifically designed for a camera – toclamp onto the top of a camera?

Daniel: Yes, it would be ideal for that.

Ed: Stephen, this would also have applications for thesoundie?

Stephen: Yes, because of its low profile, it meansthat you can fit it into tight corners like, say, you’re inan office with a low ceiling, you could have themicrophone up right against the ceiling and not have toaccommodate the extra length of the power andpreamp. A very novel system.

Ed: Now Daniel, radio mics. You’ve placed one onStephen so tell me about your placement?

Daniel: I’ve put the transmitter on the talent’s hip,somewhere that’s easy for me to reach. We could haveput it anywhere on Stephen, but that’s a nice place toput it if he’s walking around – ideally it’s not going tofall off him or be sat on.

Ed: I can see there’s a clip on there to attach it to abelt – how about the microphone and lead?

Stephen: Ideally the microphone should sit roughly inthe solar plexus, that’s the best point in the chest.

Ed: That’s the bony bit at the middle-bottom of yourrib cage. Why is that the ideal place?

Stephen: It’s about the correct distance from themouth where the noise is coming from when people arespeaking.

Ed: Aren’t you also getting vibrations from the chest?I’ve heard that it’s getting vibrations from the chestcavity rather than the mouth?

Stephen: No, it’s more getting the signal from themouth. If you hold it right up close to the mouth, thenyou would get what’s called the proximity effect, whichis a sort of a “boomy” sound as if someone’s talkingdirectly into your ear. A bit further away it’s more opensound. You also get problems if you clip it onto theneck of a T-shirt – it starts to sound really guttural.

Ed: So that distance is pretty critical?

Stephen: Yes, if you can get it in the solar plexusthat’s the best place. It depends on the situation – itdepends what the person’s wearing. There areconstraints obviously if they’re wearing a tight knitgarment or satin shirt or something like that and youmight have to be a bit more inventive …

Ed: Like a body stocking?

Stephen: Like a body stocking, yes.

Ed: Have you worn one recently?

Stephen: Only when I played a spider in the primaryschool end of year show.

Ed: Any photos?

Stephen: No chance.

Ed: Damn! Alright,so as you say, the idealplace is the solarplexus, but yousometimes have to putit places to suit thegarments that theperson is wearing?

Stephen: Yes. If youthink about stage use inparticular, often themicrophone is put upinto the edge of thehairline or the wig –that’s not much use onpeople like me or youwho haven’t got muchhair to hide it. You caneven sometimes trybehind an ear, but youhave to bear in mindthat if you put it on oneside of the face and theperson directs all theirconversation to theother side of the face,you won’t get muchuseable sound.

Ed: But that’s forthose specialty stage microphones. What we’re talkingabout here is something that’s probably about 10mm indiameter? It’s not easy to hide.

Stephen: Yes true.

Ed: If you move it closer to the mouth, what happensto the frequency?

Stephen: The sound starts to get a bit nasally and it’snot as crisp or as clear as it would be if it was furtheraway.

Ed: And if you go further away from the solar plexus?

Stephen: Well you start to lose level, so as youamplify the microphone sound, you start to pick upmore and more of the background sound as well.

Ed: And then if you put it underneath the clothing?

Stephen: It will sound muffled unless it’s a mic that’sspecially tailored. Some microphones are tailored witha little high frequency boost to compensate for that, butgenerally if it’s under clothing it will sound muffled, just

Stephen wired on the outsidefor picture clarity.

Page

like it would if you pull your beanie down over yourears.

Ed: And for popping and windy conditions Daniel?

Daniel: You have a windsock or pop filter and thatbasically reduces really high frequency and the low tomid-range frequency that some people have in theirvoice. These lower frequencies are known as“plosives”. Plosives have a distinct popping sound. Thewindsock also helps with low frequency boom that somepeople have in their voice or reducing wind noise whenrecording in outdoor locations. It’s good to have thatoption of being able to use a windsock if needed.

Ed: What about turning the microphone round theother way, so it’s pointing down – what effect does thathave?

Daniel: That would work. Being “off axis” to themicrophone will work, however you’re not going to getas much direct sound coming from the person speaking,and also if it is windy, that’s not really going to helpthat cause.

Stephen: Turning it upside down can help though ifyou’ve got a person with a very sibilant voice, you knowwith lots of “s’s” – it can just take a bit of the edge offthe “s” so that it doesn’t sound so sibilant.

Ed: Okay, so this is for a fairly standard microphone,the large condenser type one. Now there are specialtymicrophones that you can attach to these packs and Iguess, the good thing about most of these packs,especially the Shure, is that you can plug a variety ofmicrophones into the same pack. What you get in thebasic package is a basic microphone that works well,but what other options do you have Stephen?

Stephen: Well often you’ll find that, with a higherquality microphone, you’ll get a better quality result.Shure make a range of lavalier mics which all shouldwork with this particular pack and I would imagineother manufacturers’ mics can be wired up accordinglyas well.

Ed: So if you already have a mic you can plug it intothis pack very likely?

Stephen: Yes, once you’ve changed the connector.

Ed: Okay, so when you do hide the mic undersomeone’s clothing, what are the worst fabrics to put itunder?

Stephen: Among the worst would probably be silk ornylon polyester type material, because they easily slideacross the face of the microphone. Bear in mind thatthe microphone is at the end of the capsule andanything that touches that is going to be amplified andpicked up. Also, we talked before about body stockings… tight clothing, where there isn’t any gap to put themicrophone, is going to cause grief and cause clothingrustle. If you put it under, say, a T-shirt on someonewith a hairy chest, the poor sound mixer will be wavingtheir head from side to side in great agony andeveryone will be wondering why. Of course it’s thesound of the hair bristling against the microphone.

Ed: So what do you do in that case?

Stephen: You get out your razor! When you’reputting on a lapel mic, it‘s quite useful to secure the miccable in a couple of places. One is relatively close tothe microphone to stop the cable moving there –because the cable goes into the back of themicrophone, if there’s any noise on the cable, it will be

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Page

amplified by the microphone; and then secure the cablein a loop near the transmitter end, so when at the endof the day the person who has got the microphone ondecides it’s time for them to go home and yanks themicrophone off, they’ve got a loop of cable that will stopthem pulling the whole thing and dropping it on thefloor.

Ed: You’ve got to keep an eye on that talent don’tyou Stephen?

Stephen: Oh yes, talent will be off home as soon asthey can.

Ed: Okay, now adjustments. In the transmitter pack,what can you do?

Daniel: In the transmitter you’ve got gainattenuation … say your talent that you’re using is verydynamic, you can attenuate the level so that the talentcan be transmitted to the receiver without peaking theoutput.

Ed: Now I think I’m right in saying this works likeadding neutral density filters in a camera? An ND filtergives you more dynamic range in high light conditions.With a radio mic transmitter, the normal position is thequiet position and you attenuate the gain ( in otherwords lower the gain ) when you’ve got someonespeaking very loudly?

Daniel: That’s correct. Basically we can lower thegain so that the small operational amplifiers that are inthe unit can amplify the signal without clipping causingdistortion. This makes things nice and easy to workwith in post.

Ed: It gives you some dynamic range which youwouldn’t have if you just left it on the normal setting –all of your audio would be clipped?

Daniel: That’s right, correct.

I noticed this when I recorded an auction competition

and I didn’t know about attenuation adjustment. When

I put the audio onto the timeline, it was basically a

block of sound and I really didn’t know quite what to do

until I read the manual and discovered attenuation.

Hmmmm, problem solved.

Ed: Now I guess the other thing one needs to set

these days, because of the spectrum changes, is the

frequency. How’s that done on this Shure pack?

Daniel: This is done quite easily. We open up the

base of the pack like so, it’s hidden – which is quite

good because talent can’t touch it and accidentally

change the frequency that they’re on. We open the

bottom of both packs, we point them at each other,

there’s an infrared syncing device in there, and we hit

the clearly labelled “sync” button on the receiver pack

and that will send the frequency from it to the

transmitter pack and they will be frequency locked

together.

Ed: So you choose your frequency on the receiver

pack?

Daniel: There is a function on the pack that will do

an automatic scan to a frequency that’s available for

those packs to use.

And the great thing to look for in any radio pack I’ve

found, is ones with AA batteries, because sometimes it

happens that the batteries that you thought you had

fully charged or that you had spare, in fact are flat and

that’s very embarrassing. NZVN

Page

As Certain as TaxesWe are at Editworks in Christchurch with Grant and LisaMitchell who have made a name for themselves in thelocal funeral market.

Ed: I guess that’s a fairly niche market – is it onlyfunerals that you do?

Grant: We do weddings on request but, yes,funerals are mainstream.

Ed: And this is something that you always wanted todo, or …?

Grant: We just stumbled across it really. My sister-in-law had the business before we took over. Mylovely wife, Lisa, helped her out a few times; thatinvolvement grew and here we are four years later.

Ed: Do you still find it’s challenging?

Grant: Every funeral is different … people havedifferent requests, people have different photos, soeverything is different about every case really.

Ed: So you have a pattern … you say photos, so justtalk us through your process – if it’s not a trade secret?

Grant: Oh no, it’s not really. We pretty muchfreelance through the main funeral homes inChristchurch and, when we get a call from the funeraldirector from whichever company, they give us thedetails of the family, we ring the family and go out andmeet them. They give us photos they’ve already pre-sorted and we just add some of their favourite music tothe slideshow and put it together.

Ed: You’re putting those together as a slideshow toshow at the funeral?

Grant: Yes. We turn up about an hour before theservice starts to set up either our own gear or somecompanies have already got a projector and screen andstuff installed in the chapel.

Ed: Is that as far as it goes, or do you actually recordthe funeral service as well?

Grant: If the family request that the service berecorded, we do record that. Most of the reasonspeople get a service recorded is if it’s a young personwho has passed away and they have a young family,then they’ll get it recorded for the children for later onin life; or if there’s somebody overseas who can’t makeit for whatever reason.

Ed: And what equipment do you use for that, if youhave to do the recording?

Grant: We’ve got Sony V1’s that we’re using at themoment, and also a Sony NX70. That’s pretty much it.

Ed: And you do the editing as well?

Grant: We’ve got a local guy who does editing forus, but we’ve also got a good guy in Auckland.

Ed: Now tell me, you’re also interested in not onlyproviding a DVD to your clients of the recorded funeralbut you’ve got some other ideas as to how you mightwant to deliver this to people who couldn’t be there?

Grant: Possibly. Obviously, technology isavailable, but there has to be a connection from thechurch, to allow web streaming of the service to anaudience of however many want to view it. I guess theworld’s your oyster once you have connections. Yes,that’s definitely an avenue we’ve been looking at for alittle bit, but the whole connection problem is what

Grant and Lisa - yes, it was Christmas at the time.

Page

we’re finding at the moment. Some churches have Wi-Fi or modem routers; some churches are not wanting usto connect into their network for whatever reason, andit just becomes a little difficult. We’ve hit a bit of abrick wall in some respects, but without spending toomuch money, not doing it on the cheap, but to try andget a cost-effective product that will not escalate theprice for the family, because it’s not about that. It’sabout providing the service, all the while making somemoney for yourself, but also keeping the costs realisticfor the family.

Ed: You don’t want to take an OB truck for example?

Grant: Not at this stage, but we could be lookingat it.

To help us through what the possibilities are, we havethe local man in the know, Mike Symes from AVA.

Ed: Mike, there are a number of options that Grantand Lisa could engage in. What sort of things shouldthey be looking at?

Mike: We’ve already looked at a few options forGrant, but the most solid way of doing stuff like this isto go “hard wired” – as long as people have an internetconnection which is good and solid. If you’re looking ata wireless situation, you need something that’s going tobe strong enough or have an application that you canbroadcast, because it’s not practical to do it over ashort distance, but over a long distance you do requirequite a bit of infrastructure.

Ed: Okay, so for that simple solution, the connection

to the church’s modem, what are the options there …

obviously AVerCaster is one?

Mike: Yes, AVerCaster is in the “low budget / no

fuss” area and then there are products like VBrick,

ViewCast – it depends again on the quality of

conversion you want to get and also what you’ve got

going into your system. If you’re going straight from a

camera where you’ve got HDMI, you’ve got SDI, you’ve

got composite and so on, so standard definition, high

definition, it’s really up to the individual. These days, I

would be looking at an HD solution, but obviously it’s a

lot lower cost to do something on standard definition.

Ed: So what are the options when you don’t have a

cable solution and you’re in a church somewhere? Is

there any option other than record it and then transmit

it with a delay?

Mike: Basically that is it, but you can record and

it’s just a delay to transmit when you can get to a link.

As I say, if you have a wireless solution, short distance

it’s not too much of an issue, but long distance it is.

Ed: So there are solutions there, it’s just a case oftalking them through and finding out what’s the bestone that’s going to fit your budget and the end result?

Mike: It would be nice to say that there is asolution to use anytime, but I don’t think that’s going tohappen in the near future. We’ve also got the newwireless frequencies to be allocated and what’s going tohappen with that, and that’s a whole new area.

Ed: We won’t go there. And now the brains of theoutfit – Lisa – tell me when the two of you are out on ajob, who actually is the director?

Lisa: Me.

Ed: Ooooh … well, I guess you were the one whostarted this … so where were the skills that you had thatlet you get into this?

Lisa: It was “on the job” training, so I’ve learnt frommy sister and just improved from there. We came froma totally different background – we had a courier run for15 years; we’ve had a milk run; I’ve worked in an office– so this is totally different for us and, yes, it was “onthe job” training.

Ed: I would assume that the actual use of the cameraand the recording and all that sort of thing – that’sreally secondary to the main value in that you’re apeople person and you can relate to your clients whoare obviously in some sort of a stressful state at thetime?

Lisa: Yes, you understand that they’re grieving and youknow that they don’t want people in their face and youjust get a feel on the day for what they want. I find it’simportant to capture who’s there, because the familyare going through a stressful time and they just want tobe able to go off and grieve and they don’t really realisehow many people were there, who’s there … so it’simportant to capture all that sort of thing at the start.You just put yourself in the family’s situation and youback off not to be in their face. They don’t wantcameras near them, they just want to grieve in theirown way, but it’s still important to capture all those bitsfor them for later.

Ed: So there’s more to the business than knowing thelatest technology?

Lisa: Most definitely. It’s knowing the people, yes.

Ed: Future developments – is there anything you’vegot in mind apart from the streaming?

Lisa: We’re too busy at the moment and we’ll just keepworking as we are. Once it dies down that’s when we’llstart looking further into avenues.

Ed: “Dies down” – that’s appropriate for a funeralteam!

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* Trial products are subject to the terms and conditions of the license and services agreement that accompanies the software. Autodesk and Smoke are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or a liates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services o erings, and specifications and pricing at anytime without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2012 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.



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Autodesk Smoke 2013 is now available from DVT. Visit www.dvt.co.nz to download our free product guide.

Join Autodesk and DVT for a close look at the all new and exciting Autodesk Smoke 2013 professional video editing software. SHIPPING NOW. If you’re a producer, director, editor, grader or visual effects artist don’t miss this opportunity to see Smoke 2013 in action first hand.

Rob O’Neill, Autodesk’s Senior Application Specialist for Creative Finishing, will take you through the powerful feature set. Smoke is now easier to use, more flexible with hardware requirements and more cost effective than ever before.

Smoke demonstration eventtuesday 19th March 2013 | 7pm startDVT – 45 Fairfax Ave, Penrose, AucklandRefreshments will be provided.

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