Summer 2001 - The Association of Motion Picture Sound

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DE\rELOPMENTS IN INTERNET TECHNOLOGY This was one of the best attcnded talks orgarrised by AMPS. given hy Sarah l"larries (at l"hat tirne representing Framfab UK) on 22nd Novemher in De [.ane Lea's Dean Street preview theatre. We are grateful to them and engineer Gerry Teague for their support. It is impossible to give an adequate report here because it was a PowerPoint presentation, liberally illustrated with'slides' and websites, though the latter were slow because a high-speed line was unavailable. However, a few printed handouts are still available to Members who wish to order a taped copy of the 2-hour evening from Bob Allen. Sarah said that CoNVERGENCE was driven by the theories that: l/ everything that can be connected will be; 2l anythingthat can be digitised will be; 3/ everything that can be mobile-enabled will be. Two important factors were deregulation and fierce competition. One of her associate companies provides broadband internet access to homes, using Ethernet cabling, allowing TV, stereo, security system and computer all to share the same network and have connectivity to the outside world, without bandwidth restrictions. An example gf a subject vital to the film andTV industries was RIGHTS MANAGEMENT: who owns a film, where has it been shown, to how many, who shares the revenues? This is currently discouraging owners of film rights from releasing their valuable assets onto the net, but systems are in development to address this issue. In the coming year, new alliances would be formed in the various areas of IT and telecoms services (e.g. CL, IBM, BT, Orange, AOL), media owners (e.g. Vivendi, Warners, EMAP ), broadcasters (BBC, ITV, NTL, BSkyB) and emerging players (Gameplay, Two-Way TV, AOL). Many countries, including the US look on the UK as a test-bed for the launching of new technologies. For instance, many are interested to see what the uptake will be by the public for ADSL, the technology that converts phone lines to allow faster 512k connection to the Internet. 512k is not the maximum achievable in fact, but to keep infrastructure and the cost per subscriber down BT are intending to share this bandwidth between households at times, so achievable speeds will still vary according to how many neighbours are online simultaneouslv. With digital TV,ihe Government's stated intention to switch off analogue TV transmission in 2006(?) should drive consumers to upgrade their TV sets and hence increase the number of households capablc of rcceiving interactive TV serviccs. The poterrtial of interactive TV for comrnercial exploitation lry retailerc and advertisers has already attracted huge investment hut as yct vcry few succcss stories exist as thc arxlicnc:ers arc still so small. Sonre think thal" TV vicwing will renrain passivc and relaxing anrl that viewcrs will never tnrly 'irrteract'. Mobilc phones ancl mohile inl.ernet dcvices are dcvcloping f ast. WAP phorrcs (which can display basic: versions of internet sites) are alrcady here but slow and crude. GPRS is the next step which will allow faster connections and hence better quality displays. After this will come '3G', the slang term for3rd-generation mobile networks using the UMTS spectrum). This will offer mobile phone subscribers the potential of 2MBls connection speeds to webbased services allowing the to-ing and fro-ing of 'rich media' such as video and music files. The Virage-Ingest system, now being used by the British Pathd newsreel library, logs a freeze-frame each time there's a scene-change in a reel: these form the backbone of a database that can be published, searched and previewed on the Net. Clips can be displayed in'streamed video' format. Bluetooth is a short-distance radio connection that doesn't depend on line-of-sight; for example it will 'connect' your mobile phone to your laptop so you can check your e-mail on the train (while the phone is in your pocket!). It could evenzap a pre-bought film being received by your mobile onto a special screen; the Japanese are already testing these in bars. Streaming is a method of compressing and encoding video and audio data so it can be chopped into small packets and sent over the internet at variable rates, but played out at constant speed. Each frame is discarded once viewed, meaning no full download is necessary prior to viewing. There are several makes of such devices, e.g. Real Player, MS Media Player and Apple Quicktime; none are very good because insufficient bandwidth is available, and the level of compression necessary omits a lot of picture detail. If you intend to put video on your own site, encode it for the player your audience is most likely to have; a lot of costly storage space and software licences would be needed if you were to offer video streams suitable for all types of player at all modem speeds. (The cheapest option is Windows Media player, as there is no licence fee for the website owner and no charge for the player for viewers/users.) Many other subjects were fluently touched on by Sarah, and the evening ended with a Q & A session. We all left rather awed by the huge horizons opening ahead of us. 6 I'}iI'ER N{T]S(iRAVIl NB: Sarah now works at ICL, where she consults on emerging technologies. Her email atldr e s s is : sarah.harries @ ic l.c om
THE BEACONSFIELD TROLLEYRALLY On Sunday May 13, a fine sunny morning,30 AMPS mcmbers and guests assembled in the National Film & Televisit'rn School'sTV $fage at Beaconsfield Studios.'l'liey had given trp their Surrday morning'tie-in' and urgent springtinte gorden work to gather and hear production mixers Sandy MacRae,-sirron Bishop, Strrart Wilson and Patriik Heigham, expound on the whys ancl where{ores o1'the type of rccorcling work they undertook, and the reasons for the various pieces of equipment displayed on their trolleys. Council member, Peter Musgrave, a sound editor by craft, organised the meeting on behalf of the AMPS Council and acted as chairman. After welcoming all to the meeting, he introduced the four speakers. It was pleasing to note that six Institute of Rroadcast Sound (IBS) had accepted AMPS' rvitation to attend. However although the same rnvitation was extended to the British Kinematograph Sound & Television Society (BKSTS) and the Association of Post Production Studios (APPS), none of their members attended. An added special facility for the meeting was the loan of the Film School's video projector, set up to enable the speakers to show clips from productions they had worked on. Sandy, who opened the proceedings described the equipment he used. He said that he'd been apprehensive about DAT but was now an enthusiastic convert. He showed a clip of well recorded dialogue from one of the many episodes of Poirot that he had been production mixer on. Stuart and Sandy's rigs had been set up on their trolleys before the meeting started and over-theshoulder expert Patrick's cases were on display on adjacent table but there was no sign of Simon's _an ;ear - it was still loaded in the truck that he had backed onto the soundstage. Simon opened his talk with confessing that he was always late so had designed his rig for rapidity, claimingthat it took him only 75 seconds to be ready to shoot. To prove the point he flung back the doors of the truck, pulled forward two runners a la wheelchair access, wheeled out his trolley with gear assembled, pulled it over to the front of the meeting, operated a few flaps and sliding shelves, clicked on some switches and called "Sound Running!". His timing was spot on 75 seconds! Stuart showed unedited eKcerpts from his present assignment using an &track recorder. The director on this job will not allow booms to be used so the exercise is almost lOUVo personal mics on radios. Further more, the director is anti rehearsals and a sreat deal ofthe dialogue and action is'off-the-cuff' iraking 8-track essential. I must say it's not the sort ofjob I'd like to handle but Stuart seems to thrive on the challense. 7 Patrick whose type of work normally precludes the use of a trolley carries all his equipment neatly and economically packed in three medium-sized cases and an over-the-shoulder bag. One rigidised flight case contains microphones and suspensions, while a smaller rigidiscd case houses an immaculatc kit of tools and tes[ gear. The third case contirins tris rnixer in a shoulder harness with radio mic receivers attached. He has to be ready to go as soon as the cameraman lifts the cirillera to his shoulder. The Carry-Alt he calls his "run bag" and crontains spare battcrios, ttre rattio tttics, spare tapes and a picce of white card for camera balance. It seems that the cameramen have come to rely on Sound to provide this white card service and Patrick told the meeting of one occasion, working for an American client when, in a dash up a hill on foot to grab a shot before light faded, the white card got left behind. Disaster was averted however by the lady PA saying "My panties are white", and obligingty slipping down her trousers, bending over and presenting her backside to the camera! Patrick showed excerpts from a documentary following various stars of the Grand Prix circuits, around the world. For me, another challenge I'd rather do without. At the conclusion of the talks, Peter opened the meeting for questions. Unfortunately I didn't think of my question until I was driving the 101 miles home. When I was a production mixer,l liked to be as close to the set as possible. I wanted to be able to see all that was going on. Being on the set gave me clues to actors movements and when they spoke. I could see if there were noises made by the crew that could be elirninated; and keep close contact with the director and boom op. Also I felt that being involved on the set kept the director and crew aware that sound was being recorded. So my question to mixers with large rigs on trolleys is, how close to the set can you get? It was an excellent meeting and I'm sure all who attended derived great benefit, especially from the open discussion with the speakers when they descended from the platform to sland by their tieffgs. The National Film & Television School is a gfeet venue, so special thanks to Andrew Boulton and the School management for allowing our use of it. We hope that we will be welcomed back for future meetings. At the close of the meeting, Andrew said to all assembled that they and otherAMPS members were always welcome to visit the school and he would be extremely pleased if any would volunteer to come and talk to the students. He very much wanted the students to have plenty of contact with people working in the industry. A turnout of 30 peopls on a sunny Sunday morning is not bad but the Council would like to see much more support of organised events. Those who didn't attend missed another really good meeting. BOB ALLLN (For pltotos autl more commeilt on the rneeting) +
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Summer 2001 - The Association of Motion Picture Sound

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