Gravity Media, the leading global provider of complex live broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors, has promoted Ed Tischler to the position of Acting Managing Director. In this new role, Ed will be responsible for the strategic direction and commercial performance of all Gravity Media’s UK-based operations, which include Media Services & Facilities, Production & Content and Equipment Rental & Sales. This appointment follows the recent move to the single brand of Gravity Media late last year and Ed will take the lead in integrating the former Gearhouse Broadcast, HyperActive Broadcast and Input Media businesses in the UK. In addition, Layla Cook has also been promoted, becoming Gravity Media’s new UK Broadcast Equipment Rental Manager. 

Ed will report directly into John Newton, Gravity Media’s CEO. In the UK he will work closely with James Gander who continues to oversee Gravity House, the Soho post-production facility, as well as the integrated workflows service for live broadcast and feature film post-production and Steve Norris, the new Director, Production and Content. 

Layla will now oversee Gravity Media’s extensive inventory of the latest professional equipment which includes 4K-ready lenses, cameras and live production tools.

Having opened an office in Basingstoke, Hampshire, in 2019, Broadcast Solutions are pleased to announce a new member of the UK team. As of January 2020, JP Delport will join the company and take on the role of Sales Director (Broadcast Solutions UK). With this addition, Broadcast Solutions has now underpinned its commitment to the UK market and is able to facilitate an increasing demand for their products and services with a dedicated team of six experts based in the UK full time. 

Camera Hire, a well-established Australian rental company and a leader in industry camera support solutions, recently purchased 10 CiNX 3 Fluid Heads and 10 Sprinter II 2 Stage Carbon Fibre Tripods from Miller Tripods. For over a decade, Camera Hire has provided professional cameras and supporting equipment for a large range of productions including commercials, documentaries and feature films.

As a long-time customer of Miller Tripods, Bevan Dally, managing director of Camera Hire, knows he can always turn to Miller to provide top-of-the-line solutions for his customer base. “We’ve been using Miller’s ArrowX series for some time now and the fluid heads are excellent,” he says. “The payload range and versatility are very beneficial considering the various types of jobs we support. With the CiNX line, our customers are able to mount a variety of cameras, including Sony’s FS7, Canon’s C300’s, and ARRI’S Alexa Mini and Amira, with ease.”

Thanks to Miller’s CiNX 3 Fluid Heads, Camera Hire can provide its customers with a solution that significantly improves cinematographer’s workflows. “Upgrading to the brand new CiNX series was a no brainer for us, especially because of its ability to mount ARRI dovetail plates directly on the head,” Dally says. “We can now easily provide our clients with a Sony VCT or ARRI dovetail system using the same fluid head, without the need to swap back and forth between multiple plates. With CiNX fluid heads, cinematographer’s can easily and quickly change from one camera to another with a seamless transition.”

Gravity Media, a leading provider of outside broadcast trucks and flyaway production kits, is building further systems in preparation for premier sporting events in 2020, including a major football competition in Europe. Central to the new flyaway kits is the Platinum™ IP3 router from Imagine Communications.

The key to success in building flyaways is to create a system which provides all the resilience and reliability needed for live broadcasting, but in a compact footprint. As the name suggests, these often have to travel by air freight to meet deadlines, where additional space and weight can be prohibitively expensive.

“We picked the Platinum IP3 because we know it is reliable — we know what it does,” said Peter Newton, technical and operations director at Gravity Media. “Because of the established partnership with Imagine, we knew that we would get good support if we need it, and we will get ample utilization of the equipment. It is a good solid product that does what it says it will.”

Gravity Media has used equipment from Imagine Communications for over 15 years, which has established Imagine as a trusted partner. When it came to choosing routers for the new flyaways, Gravity Media compared all the popular models on the market, but was confident in selecting the field-proven Platinum IP3. The new flyaways will use both the 15RU and 28RU routers.

The key project for which these flyaways are designed requires support in 12 locations over a four-week period in June 2020. The kits will provide live production functionality. The Platinum IP3 routers incorporate integral multiviewer technology, reducing space in the racks and simplifying setup. The order also includes a number of modules from Imagine’s Selenio 6800+™ processing range, along with Magellan™ router control panels.

“While the headlines are about the transition to IP, it is important to remember that a lot of broadcasters and production companies need to extend and enhance existing, SDI-based systems,” said Mathias Eckert, SVP & GM EMEA/APAC, Playout & Networking, at Imagine Communications. “Because of our close partnerships with major operators like Gravity Media, we clearly understand the need for high-functionality, high-reliability SDI solutions, as well as IP technology, and we are committed to supporting our customers for as long as they need SDI, as part of our ‘your path, your pace’ approach to the IP transition.”

For more information about Imagine Communications’ products and solutions, please visit https://www.imaginecommunications.com.

Sony has announced that the Sony BRC Series PTZ remote cameras have been chosen to capture unique close-up footage of the heart-warming story of beautiful lynx cats in the high-end TV wildlife series, Snow Cats & Me.

Produced by Oak Island Films and Hello Halo TV, the two-part series pushes creative and technical boundaries to present an intimate portrait of animals in the wild. With the producer Ted Oakes, Managing Director of Oak Island Films commenting: “This was a tricky challenge: the Sony BRC cameras helped us capture amazing footage that expresses the unique character of these beautiful animals in their natural environment.”

Blackmagic Design today announced that live production workflows, featuring its products for acquisition, control and delivery, have been used on some of this year's biggest music festivals and concert tours.

Artists and events included Little Mix, Billie Eilish, Elton John, Fall Out Boy and Andrea Bocelli, as well as Festival Beauregard, Rocking the Daisies, Aftershock Festival and Sweden Rock.

As broadcast and AV workflows continue to converge, more and more rental and staging companies are now standardizing their video offerings to festivals and touring artists based on hardware solutions from Blackmagic Design. Not only has the amount of video demanded by the entertainment market increased in 2019, so too has the amount of 4K production for IMAG.

Maxon, the developers of professional 3D software solutions and Red Giant creators of unique tools for editors, VFX artists, and motion designers, today cooperatively announced that the two companies have reached a definitive agreement to merge under the media and entertainment division of Nemetschek Group to better serve the post production and content creation industries. The transaction is expected to close in January 2020, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.

ITV News invested in 180 Sony PXW-Z280 4K professional handheld camcorders and 180 URX-P03D UWP-D wireless audio kits and Sony is pleased to announce that it has completed its full product roll out across UK regional news teams.

The new product line-up provides news gathering teams with greater operational flexibility and 4K production capability. The products were integrated into the ITV News production workflow and the TV broadcaster is now seeing the benefits.

Red Giant has released another Cheap Tricks episode: Frozen II VFX, in which Daniel “Hashi” Hashimoto of Action Movie Kid demonstrates how to recreate the magical visual effects from the newest Frozen film. Now available on YouTube for unlimited viewing pleasure, Hashi explains how to use the full arsenal of tools from Red Giant Complete, including Particular, Starglow, Colorista IV, Supercomp and Reflection, to create smokey portals, ice diamonds that float through the sky, and, of course, the enchanting sparkle magic Elsa creates when using her powers.

WATCH NOW: Cheap Tricks Episode 12 - Frozen II VFX

Red Giant Complete is the subscription service that gives editors, motion designers and VFX artists all Red Giant tools at one low price - Trapcode Suite, Magic Bullet Suite, Universe, VFX Suite and Shooter Suite. With Red Giant Complete, annual subscribers will have the most up-to-date versions of all tools, saving thousands of dollars over traditional perpetual licenses.

Masstech is pleased to announce that Srinivas Gankidi has joined the company as Sales Manager for India.

Srinivas has over 20 years’ experience in the media and entertainment industry, delivering file-based technology solutions to major broadcasters in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, including Zee TV, Sony TV, SRM Channels, Jain HITS, TV9, RIL (Reliance Infocom), NTV, Star Maa, Somoy TV, and Ghazi TV.

Prior to joining Masstech, Srinivas was Sales Manager for Media & Entertainment at Quantum Storage India Pvt Ltd., and previously held sales engineering positions with Evertz Microsystems and Harmonic Inc.

Srinivas will form part of Masstech’s Asia Pacific team, designing and deploying Masstech’s Kumulate intelligent storage and asset lifecycle management solutions for clients throughout the region.