TNDV Mobile Production Fleet Grows with Elevation

posted:

23/10/2014

TNDV’s sixth truck integrates the production capabilities of the industry’s largest trucks into a customer-friendly footprint

Mobile production specialist TNDV has added a sixth truck to its fleet, allowing the company and its growing staff to meet increasing demand for its live production services around the country. Dubbed Elevation, the 40-foot truck delivers all the power of the industry’s largest trucks in a more manageable, energy-efficient footprint.

Elevation offers a similar video and audio infrastructure to TNDV’s other medium-sized, multi-format mobile production trucks, flexibly integrated to accommodate live and recorded shoots of any size. The architecture adopts TNDV’s strategy of flexibly customizing the workflow to meet any client’s demands, rather than forcing broadcasters, venues and other customers to work within a strict, fixed system.

TNDV Elevation Intrior

Elevation also adds unique energy-efficient flourishes to differentiate it from other mobile production trucks, including an on-board 25kW generator to power air conditioners and the entire Elevation production infrastructure. This makes Elevation an ideal choice for isolated remote shoots—a common task for the TNDV team—by eliminating the costs and headaches of finding power in more secluded locations.

“Elevation becomes self-powered with the flip of an onboard switch, eliminating the costs of expensive generator rentals,” said Nic Dugger, TNDV Owner and President. “TNDV specializes in challenging shoots in unusual locations, from private outdoor concerts to high-intensity athletic events in temporary venues. This helps us reduce costs for our clients, and is especially helpful for tight production budgets.”

The medium-sized footprint also aligns with TNDV’s strategy of keeping trucks manageable for clients working within limited spaces, including arenas and temporary outdoor venues. This strategy accelerates load-in and load-out times while taking up less real estate on location. At 40 feet long, Elevation is the same size as TNDV’s flagship Aspiration truck, a vehicle that TNDV clients appreciate for its features-to-size ratio. Like Aspiration, Elevation includes a Ross Vision 3 switcher, an Imagine Communications Platinum integrated router, and Aja Ki-Pro recorders on the video side, along with multiple Hitachi SK-HD1000 cameras for multi-standard, multi-format field production at premium quality. The audio infrastructure is also similar, with a redundant ProTools system, JoeCo MADI recorders and an 80-port RTS ADAM intercom system—but adds a Soundcraft VI-3000 audio console for expanded functionality.

“The VI-3000 moves us into the 96-input world from the 64-input world of our other video-centric trucks, and adds an integrated I/O infrastructure located physically on the desk itself,” said Dugger. “This not only increases our channel count for larger audio productions, but simplifies our setup and configuration process for signal processing and source equipment across the audio infrastructure.”

Elevation has been used for several successful productions since taking to the highways in early September, including the 2014 Re/Max Long Drive Challenge golf tournament in Nevada; and the Celebrate Freedom Atlanta concert, hosted by local radio station 104.7 in Jim Miller Park. Elevation has also visited the Governor’s Mansion in Kentucky to produce a free private concert.

With TNDV’s fleet at six mobile production trucks, Elevation joins the previously mentioned Aspiration truck alongside Inspiration, another 40-foot truck for medium-sized productions; Vibration, a 53-foot specialized audio production truck with remote recording facilities; and two additional trucks, Origination and Blackjack, designed for smaller-sized productions.

ABOUT TNDV Television:
Formed in 2004, TNDV: Television represents the culmination of over 22 years of broadcast and live production for Nic Dugger, owner and president; and his staff of full time engineers. TNDV produces events from small single-camera productions all the way up to multi-million dollar international TV events, and takes pride in building custom solutions for challenging productions of any size, in any situation. Recent projects include the live concert productions at the NCAA Final Four, the Re/Max Long Drive Challenge on ESPN, and for the first time in broadcasting history TNDV produced the 2014 Hat Trick of Country Music Award show red carpet specials, including the CMA Awards, the CMT Awards, and the ACM Awards.