London Fashion Week with Blackmagic Design

Production house Brightonart built an AV control solution around Blackmagic Design’s ATEM 1 M/E Production Switcher to capture runway looks from Vauxhall Fashion Scout, the largest independent showcase of the Fall 2012 London Fashion Week. Brightonart used Blackmagic Design’s ATEM 1 M/E Production Switcher to cut live footage from HD-SDI video feeds shot by two Sony EX-1 cameras. Programme output was then captured on two SSD recorders; a Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio recording uncompressed 10-bit as a rolling backup and the other using DNxHD or ProRes as the master working file. Signal distribution was handled by Blackmagic’s Multibridge Pro, which took care of the audio embed. The ATEM 1 M/E was also used for static or animated graphic loops that the designers wanted projected on the back wall of the runway, which were run out of an auxiliary port on the switcher and managed on a PC using Resolume Avenue VJ Software. “Because we did the live cut out of the ATEM 1 M/E down to our SSD recorders, those files went straight into Sony Vegas in ProRes,” said Mark Scarratt of Brightonart. “We then performed an audio check, and mixed if necessary, before finally adding in the applause from the ambient microphone. Next, we inserted title and end graphics before crunching the footage down to H.264 to be uploaded to the web.” For remote work away from the main catwalk within Freemasons‘ Hall, Brightonart used Blackmagic Design’s ATEM Television Studio, which filled the need for a compact and portable AV solution in the secondary control room. Scarratt explained, “We didn’t have the space to mirror our main set up in the second smaller hall, but the flexibility of this compact solution enabled us to provide high quality HD-SDI video at very short notice to the streaming partners brought in for additional shows, greatly surpassing their expectations.” “Over the six days of Fashion Week, we’ve shot and cut more than 30 catwalk shows. Thanks to the Blackmagic 1080/50i workflow, only minimal post production of the footage was required, ensuring that every show was online in HD within two hours of its completion.” www.blackmagic-design.com