BBC Outside Broadcasts use Light Viper for Innovative Coverage
of Falklands Memorial
BBC Outside Broadcasts built a fly-away production gallery in a
tractor shed at San Carlos on the Falkland Islands last month,
to capture and link live pictures and sound for a Remembrance
Service to mark the 25th anniversary of the conflict.
Live coverage from the San Carlos service, attended by veterans
and currently-serving soldiers, was sent via satellite and fed
into live coverage of the service taking place at the Horse
Guards in London’s Whitehall.
For senior sound supervisor Tim Davies, there were a number of
important considerations, since the crew would be working in
arduous conditions, with limited electricity supply. High on the
list were reduced freight costs and equipment reliability.
As the hub of his signal chain he chose a Light Viper,
lightweight fibre optic digital audio snake from Fuzion plc. This was configured as a 32 x 8 system, enabling it
to handle all the live and FX mic feeds, sends and returns.
Said Tim Davies, “We needed an easy system to operate and wanted
to save on rigging and man-power, not to mention truck space and
reduce the amount of multicores we used.”
However, BBC Outside Broadcasts did take multicores for signal
distribution from the Light Viper. Anchored in the farm’s
tractor shed at the top of the hill they set up a communications
system with San Carlos Military Cemetery 200m away at the bottom
(which they covered with a 300-metre Lite Viper drum). From
there they ran the multis to the various points where the FX
mics were situated.
To put the weight comparisons into perspective, the crew brought
two 300m drums of fibre (weighting around 50lb) on the flight
from Brize Norton against a quarter of a ton of multicore.
“There were enormous advantages in using a fibre system — with
the mic amps being close to the mics there was no danger of
capacitance or loss of phantom power,” he observed. The tiny
Light Viper stage box, which was easily concealed, provided a
split output, with the four-core cable carrying the sends and
returns.
The audio feeds included speeches, a military band and a choir.
Tim Davies explained, “We had 16 mics coming up from the
cemetery and we returned an IEM feed to the MD of the Royal
Marine Band, with a click track, so he could play in time.”
Davies’s crew were also taking a feed from London to the PA, as
the production team cut between pictures of San Carlos to
footage from the Horse Guards, mixing in stereo as the main
memorial went out live on BBC Two.
As for power provision, the MOD were able to provide the
five-camera crew and audio technicians with a 50-amp Rapier
missile generator. “The 4-metre satellite uplink dish drew 40
amps of that while the scanner truck, including two Yamaha O1V’s
and the vision mixer, pulled just 8!” Tim observed.
Summarising, he said, “We were 75 miles from the nearest
habitation and had travelled to the Falklands with just two and
a half tons of equipment — minimalist to say the least. But
everything worked beautifully, despite operating in the midst of
a snow blizzard, with an incredible wind chill factor.”
For Further Information
call:
Tony Torlini: Fuzion plc
Tel: +44 (0) 1932 882222
Email:
tonyt@fuzion.co.uk
Press call:
Jerry Gilbert, JGP Public Relations
Tel: +44 (0)1707 25 85 25
Email: jerry.gilbert@ntlworld.com
