Rock Legends Brought to the Big Screen with Blackmagic Design

posted:

05/07/2019

This year’s Sweden Rock festival in Sölvesborg saw crowds of 35,000 rocking out to huge names including KISS, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and Def Leppard. An end to end solution for live production comprising Ursa cameras, Atem Television Studio Pro 4K and Smart Videohub 40x40 handled video requirements including IMAG production on the festival’s two main stages.

Soundforce Scandinavia worked with live specialist Cloud Production to design two identical PPU systems, with Digital Video Tools in Sweden suppling the hardware.

“We had discussed a central production hub, however the scale and distances between stages, combined with the packed lineups meant that two independent systems provided a more practical solution,” explains Ulric Flood, Cloud Production.

Soundforce Scandinavia worked with live specialist Cloud Production to design two identical PPU systems, with Digital Video Tools in Sweden suppling the hardware.

“An effective festival IMAG needs a good quality 1080p25 program feed that incorporates lots of shots of the crowd enjoying the performances, as well as the bands’ sets, so we knew we’d need a plenty of angles and shots to work with,” continues Ulric.

Cloud Production developed the video workflow around fibre, as it was more reliable over longer distances. In doing so, they could use the return feeds from the FoH (front of house) camera positions as a program feed for delay screens. A Green-Go intercom system was deployed on the Festival stage, and comms on the Rock stage was handled through the intercom on the Atem Television Studio Pro 4K, paired with Peltor headsets for the crew.

Ulric explains that the ability to build in presets via the Atem and switch between set ups for the different artists is very useful in a festival environment, where turnaround is tight. “To ensure the guest directors had instant access to the inputs and naming protocols they wanted on the multiviewer, we preloaded specific set ups for each act that we’d built,” he explains.

“We could then switch back ready for the next band. The system is so flexible, so it’s simple to incorporate additional cameras or aux feeds out for monitoring on request. Being able to cater for these requirements without any disruption to the day’s schedule is really vital.”