Tristan Whitman plays with toys. A specialist in tabletop cinematography, the LA-based filmmaker/USC professor is often called upon by top toymakers to make their action cars and figures grab the attention of young viewers. Unlike setups that require big crews, tabletop shooting is a more solitary endeavor, requiring a focused skillset including concentration, patience and resourceful use of tools. With fewer people on set, following the new safety protocols amid the Covid-19 outbreak is just a minor inconvenience.

When Home Becomes Studio in the Days of COVID

It takes more than a pandemic to keep cinematographer Timur Civan down. When work started going sideways Civan (www.timurcivan.com) created a new niche that would help him use his best assets: his creativity, his family and next door neighbors (actors), his ranch style home, a full scale production equipment package, and a little help from his friends and pets. He put together a Home Studio Production Package with his pitch and impressive portfolio. His agent booked jobs.

Matthews Studio Equipment solves another real world issue with the new Gobo Plate™. The versatile mounting adapter offers a quick, practical and inexpensive solution that’s sure to save time and energy when attaching various grip equipment, on set and on location.

Brightline today announced it has upgraded its L1.2 and L1.4 LED SeriesONE studio light fixtures with variable color temperature and improved color rendering. Plus, the fixtures are now available with optional wireless DMX/RDM (remote device management) control that provides bidirectional RF signal distribution between the transmitter and lighting console, and eliminates the need for DMX cables.

In addition to remote control, an integrated control wheel and digital on-board readout enable users to select precise color temperatures from 3200-5600K (tungsten to daylight). SeriesONE fixtures already offer DMX control, and wireless DMX/RDM adds the ability to set color temperature through a lighting console, with one channel controlling color and a second channel controlling dimming.

The Future Group, creators of live photo-realistic virtual production system Pixotope®, today unveils its latest Version 1.3 software featuring a wide range of advances that significantly improve how virtual environments interact with real-world elements.

Pixotope enables the production of mixed-reality (MR) content by bringing together physical components such as presenters, actors, props and free-moving cameras, with virtually created assets such as scenes, graphics, animated characters, or any other computer-generated elements. Pixotope forms the central production hub when creating mixed-reality content for broadcast and live events, with Version 1.3 offering new object tracking, powerful lighting integration, enhanced colour management and more.

Matthews Studio Equipment offers a smart solution for some of today’s on-set and real world issues. The new Sheet Plate Adapter Kit makes it easy to quickly build custom dividers to protect against virus transmission, plus it offers a convenient holding method for standard grip equipment. 

MSE’s new Sheet Plate Adapter Kit is a versatile bracket mount that securely adds a welded 3/8” pin to any sheet material such as Plexiglas, plywood, lauan, Masonite or a variety of fabrics like vinyl to create safe on-set barriers that can be easily sanitized. 

Katana 3.6 released with new, artist-focused snapping functionality, Network Materials Edit and advancements to 3Delight NSI 2.0.

In March and April 2020, German TV network ProSieben broadcast the second season of the TV show "The Masked Singer" (TMS), in which celebrities compete against one another with vocal performances, clad in imaginative full-body costumes. Whoever receives the fewest votes per show must remove the mask and disclose their identity. In the meantime, the jurors, Ruth Moschner and Rea Garvey, along with a guest judge each week, speculate over the course of six live shows as to the identity of who might be hiding behind the masks.

Lighting designer Arkin Atacan from atacan design turned to various lighting solutions from GLP to ensure that the lovingly designed costumes, comprising dragons, sloths, robots etc,. appeared to optimal effect on the television screen. Arkin, who mainly specialises in the TV sector—including "Pussy Terror TV", "ProSieben Winter Games", “Alle Gegen Einen (“All Against One") and many more—has been in charge of the Endemol Shine production since the first season last year.

The stage concept by Florian Wieder was key to his lighting design. "The set includes many straight lines and polygons," explains Arkin. "Wherever possible, I try to continue these design lines so that both the set and lighting function as a coherent unit, which in turn makes the overall picture look much more homogeneous and larger."

Black News Channel, which launched on Feb. 10 and is the nation’s only African American news network, features a dynamic news set lit with Brightline L1.2 and L1.4 SeriesONE LED soft light fixtures. Designed by Devlin Design Group in Scottsdale, Ariz., the main set features a news desk, two large LED video wall areas, and a small interview set. RGB lighting elements – including hanging set pieces, walkways, and video wall backlights – created some talent lighting challenges. Lighting designer Bill Holshevnikoff said Brightline has “great control options on their fixtures, so you can make sure you’re not spilling light on the RGB elements and spoiling the color.”

Presteigne Broadcast Hire, a leading dry hire and total multi-location production equipment provider, today announced the appointment of Jane Skinner as Senior Hire Desk Co-ordinator.

Reporting to Presteigne North Hire Manager Roy Gaterell, Skinner is based at the company’s northern office in Warrington, equidistant between Manchester and Liverpool.

Skinner started her career at Granada (now ITV) in Manchester as a coordinator for Granada Reports and This Morning.

She then progressed to drama with Mersey TV/Lime Pictures, working as a technical coordinator on programmes such as Hollyoaks and Brookside. Due to her expertise, Skinner was soon seconded to the production department where she undertook resource and production coordination roles.

Skinner comes to Presteigne from a Liverpool-based dry hire office, where she had converted her experience as a dry hire customer to apply it as a supplier.

Skinner said, “I am delighted to join Presteigne, which has a well-established reputation for excellence. I am already enjoying using that reputation to establish relationships with new clients and reinforce those with existing ones, both of which include an extensive number of contacts from my previous roles in production.”

Presteigne CEO Adrian Young said, “Roy and I are very pleased that Jane has joined us. She understands and exemplifies the value we place on providing excellent service to our clients, and the commitment to our staff in providing an environment that enables them to perform at their best.”

Tiffen will be at the BSC show on their stand #307, where you can see and try the latest

and best Steadicam products, the Steadicam M-2 with revolutionary Volt

integration, the Steadicam M-1 and the Steadimate-S for handheld gimbals like

the DJI Ronin-S. It’s also a chance to find out about the ever popular

Steadicam Workshops coming up in 2020.

The latest Tiffen Filters will be available to see and try including NATural ND and NATural

ND Graduated filters, Diffusions and Diopters. Also featured will be the latest

range of Lowel’s lighting products, the Lowel Tota LED, the Tota LED Production

Kit, the Blender XL, the Pro Power LED Bi-Color and the Ego LED.

Come and talk to the experts on the stand, including Robin Thwaites, Danny Hallett, and Eren

Ibrahim

www.tiffen.com

Matthews Studio Equipment, offers yet another smart solution that makes life on set a bit more convenient. New Panel Stand https://vimeo.com/348274238 answers the need for a quick set-up stand that aptly supports today’s panel and balloon-style lighting fixtures, LED monitors, screens, overhead frames and backdrops. What’s more, convenient wheels add on-set mobility especially combined with the low profile legs to maximize leeway and maneuverability, even with low hanging equipment.

This heavy-duty wheeled crank support offers a maximum height of 11’ and a minimum of just 55”. With a load capacity of 70/80 pounds, it is an ideal mate for popular panel lights as well as 45” to 85” monitors that it supports either horizontally or vertically, so it is handy when creating content for mobile mediums and vertical advertisement aspect ratios. Built for low clearance, Panel Stand’s main column can be adjusted and lowered at the leg base while its shallow wheelbase facilitates rolling underneath furniture, vehicles, or other obstacles.

Rugged yet compact, this versatile wheeled carrier also comes equipped with premium Tente® caster wheels, pins to hang a door rack for truck storage, a 1-1/8" Junior receiver, a 5/8" Baby pin, and a built-in ergonomically balanced carrying handle for transport. The tough black powder coat finish provides a professional look that blends in well on set. The Panel Stand is ready for action in a moment, then quickly folds up tight, ready for its next use.

Like their full complement of industry leading stands and other equipment, Panel Stand is available through Matthews Studio Equipment dealers. For more information visit www.msegrip.com

Brightline, a leading manufacturer of energy efficient lighting systems, now offers technical support through Zoom for its resellers, integrators, and clients. The cloud-based videoconferencing system allows Brightline to program light fixtures remotely, re-focus, visually diagnose potential issues, and perform other troubleshooting. 

“Zoom service is ideal for time-critical issues,” explained Kathy Katz, Brightline managing partner. “You don’t have to struggle through a phone call without visuals or schedule onsite service. Zoom gives us ‘eyes’ in the room.”

To request a free Zoom technical call, contact technical support at techservice@brightlines.com.

MIRRAD supplies two Avolites consoles for Ben Everett’s design for producer, songwriter and performer’s headlining tour

A lot has happened in Maggie Rogers’ world since 2016, when a video of her demoing a then-newly-recorded song, “Alaska,” for Pharrell Williams at NYU went viral. Following opening slots on major tours with both HAIM and Mumford & Sons last year, Rogers dropped her own major label debut, Heard It in a Past Life, this past January, which charted in the second highest slot of the Billboard 200. Consequently, the artist has spent much of 2019 on the road in support of the album, performing a sold-out fall headline tour in such iconic venues as Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Berkley’s Greek Theatre, and New York City’s Radio City Music Hall.

The “look and feel” of Rogers’ tour this year has been a collaborative effort between the artist and Lighting Designer Ben Everett, who first started working with her when he lit Rogers’ first-ever show in London two years ago. Having toured with an impressive roster of bands over the past five years—including Bear's Den, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and The Dandy Warhols—Everett is now part of the UK-based MIRRAD team, which has been supplying a pair of Avolites Sapphire Touch lighting control consoles for Rogers’ 2019 worldwide trek.

Everett notes that he’s been using Avolites lighting consoles “pretty much since I started in the live music industry,” he shares. “I was lucky enough to learn on all of the early Titan software, and mainly used the Tiger Touch II and Quartz consoles to begin with. The features that kept me attracted to the desks at first were the ability to quickly create really impressive and intricate effects, and the user-friendly and multi-functional layout of the touchscreens. And while growing with the consoles over the years, the ease of being able to create cue stacks, key frame shapes, and pixel mapping really helps me in my day-to-day programming now.”

Brightline, a leading manufacturer of energy efficient lighting systems, today announced Open Signal: Portland Community Media Center, a nonprofit media arts and broadcast center in Portland, Ore., has upgraded the lighting grid in its 2,000-square-foot main studio with 30 Brightline L1.2 SeriesONE LED fixtures. The new lighting was installed in July.

Noah Dorsey, media services manager, said the upgrade in Studio A was prompted by the fan noise of previous lighting fixtures in the studio. “We want the studio environment to be as silent as possible,” he explained. “That was something that had been requested by a lot of producers.”

The new 5600K L1.2 lights are controlled through a DMX console. Open Signal contracted Brightline’s premier Pacific Northwest systems integrator, Advanced Broadcast Solutions (ABS), a division of Key Code Media, to supply the new lighting. Dorsey said the lighting “looks dynamic but not so stylized that it can’t be applied to multiple shows.”

Bruce Aleksander, a lighting director hired by ABS for the Open Signal project, said the decision to use soft lights throughout Studio A was based on the need for versatility and accessibility for the wide variety of producers who use the space. Though some productions use an ellipsoidal light for show-specific gobo projection accents, the main lighting is generally not altered.