> BROADCAST LETTER FROM THE FRONT
Royally positioned B
“ Ceremonial
coverage demands peak
concentration. Bill Morris
y the time this column goes to print, the Royal couple will be well and truly wed and the UK OB industry will be removing the confetti from its cable drums, brushing itself down and girding its loins ready to devote its attention to more regular seasonal offerings. As the Olympics will clearly be the summer story of 2012, so equally the Wedding of Catherine and William has clearly been the event of 2011. The OB industry loves a good State occasion and not only for the obvious asset sweating reason. State ceremonials give broadcasters and facility companies alike a rare opportunity, to set aside for a day or so ratings wars and truck envy and to pull together for the greater good. We all have our allotted locations, often carefully planed quite literally years in advance and plotted in very great detail. Nothing happens by chance when putting together a State Ceremonial. We at CTV covered the Mall and Horseguards Parade for the
Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in April 2002, providing Host Broadcast facilities. On that occasion, as with the recent Royal nuptials, we were located in the north east corner of the Parade, our distinctive units adding a splash of muted green to the sandstone and red brick of the Old Admiralty Buildings. By the time we arrived on site to commence the rig for the funeral, every tiny detail had been locked into place. I had over the years walked the course at least half a dozen times with the broadcaster as part of the
Bill Morris writes from an OB set constructed to broadcast The Royal Wedding
rolling planning that continues, year in and year out for these occasions of national importance. Every location is surveyed, every change in street furniture, road layout or new build is logged and the master files amended and updated accordingly. I often wonder whether The Queen knows what we are up to when we gather outside the Palace or Windsor Castle, tape measures and paper work in hand.
Despite the diverse cohort of OB units spread liberally along the capital’s ceremonial route, there is one item of sound equipment, deployed in vast numbers that is common to every OB operation regardless of size. A family produced British product and rarer still, an English manufacturing success story on a truly global scale. The Rycote windshield was first developed in the late sixties to solve a perennial problem, wind noise. With its distinctive ‘Windjammer’ cover; this mic suspension system has become the weapon of choice for virtually every television operation throughout the world. Most commonly used with the Sennheiser MKH 416 gun mic, there will have been in excess of 250 deployed on the wedding route alone. A large pack of shaggy dogs attached to cameras, trees, lampposts and poles. One feature of most State Ceremonials is the marching band. Seldom alone and static and always loud, these processional ensembles provide a Machiavellian element that keeps every live sound supervisor on their toes. There is a very real acoustic difference between pipes and drums and brass bands, let alone the distinctions within each genre. As the live coverage cuts between not only different route sections but between wide and tight shots of the same section, the management of ever changing audio source delay is elevated to an art form. Ceremonial coverage demands peak concentration. A common factor shared by major State ceremonial and international sporting events is that there is always a great deal of interest and participation from overseas broadcasters. The recent wedding was no exception and many thousands of international production staff and technicians descended upon the capital, to supervise their unilateral operations. Canada Gate in particular witnessed the construction of a vast multi- tiered studio complex opposite Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria Monument. Green Park became a sprawling production and Outside Broadcast village, larger and more heavily populated than any previous event at this location. A seemingly endless expanse of cabins and Outside Broadcast trucks stretching up the incline of the park towards Piccadilly. There was, as expected a very large USA, Canadian and Japanese presence at both Canada Gate and opposite the Abbey in yet another vast media construction. The CTV sound crew were as ever in the thick of it, split between several locations providing studio and announce facilities for CTV Canada and NHK Japan and route coverage for ITN and their overseas partners. For once our spring schedules were working with us, allowing the deployment of a large resource of crew and equipment for the duration of the operation. We were fortunate, as there was not one item of surplus kit available to hire in the UK. Not even a shaggy dog.
Bill Morris is the business director of one of Europe’s largest independent outside broadcasting firms, CTVOB 42 audioPRO May 2011
www.audioprointernational.com
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