COVID-19 Bloomsbury Studio Extra Equipment Guide
To aid with safe filming, the Bloomsbury Film Studio now provides the following additional equipment, installed and ready to use free of charge. This enables a director/producer to sit outside the studio area, monitor filming and talkback over a speaker to the studio contributor and camera operator.
Also to aid in eyelines, a camera is set up over the monitor and fed back to a monitor in the studio which can be used as a looking point for interviews.
Finally, an additional monitor is set up in the hallway for an additional person to monitor while observing social distancing.
On request and for an additional charge, a Blackmagic web-presenter, a way of turning the video feed into a webcam that can plug into the director’s laptop and feed via Zoom or Skype to remote viewers, can be installed.
While this equipment is already installed, and setup as far as possible, it does require some knowledge to operate, so should be set up by the camera operator before the director arrives. Please supply them with a copy of this document to make their life easier.
YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY:
- THE DIRECTOR SHOULD BRING THEIR OWN HEADPHONES OR EARPHONES FOR HYGIENE PURPOSES. These should terminate in a 1/8th inch minijack (ie standard earphone jack)
- Your camera must have an SDI or HD-SDI output with embedded audio (this is standard for professional cameras). If you only have HDMI output you should obtain an HDMI to HD-SDI convertor.
- Any required PPE, gloves and hand sanitiser for staff and contributors, as required by the relevant regulations and your Health and Safety shooting requirements.
The additional equipment provided, which must be left in place:
Eyeline monitor in studio
TV-Logic 17” HD-SDI monitor with case and LowBoy stand
Mackie Powered speaker for talkback
Director’s station at makeup bench
Sony OLED 17” HD-SDI monitor
Presonus Talkback station
Blackmagic Micro 4K Studio camera with 14-40 lens.
Wall mounted hallway bench area
Panasonic 17” HD-SDI (720p) monitor
There are TWO SDI video cables, GREEN and RED, running into the studio. These are hanging down from the grid around the camera area. If you do not need to make use of the system please just tuck these above you, do not de-rig.
DIRECTOR’S MONITORING
The GREEN HD-SDI is for feeding from your camera to the director’s monitoring.
They will only be able to monitor sound if the audio is embedded in the camera’s output feed. This feed must be HD, not 4K.
THE DIRECTOR’S STATION (MAKEUP BENCH)
You need to turn on the power at the edge of the makeup mirror. Please make sure this is turned off before leaving. This will power up the talkback station and camera automatically.
The monitor needs to be turned on at the power button. The volume is controlled by pressing the F7 button and turning the knob. This should be turned right down if not using headphones.
The headphone jack is at the far left of the front panel of the monitor. The audio level monitor should be on screen for trouble-shooting purposes.
THE DIRECTOR SHOULD BRING THEIR OWN HEADPHONES OR EARPHONES FOR HYGIENE PURPOSES. These should terminate in a standard mini earphone jack.
The talkback unit is under the monitor stand. There is a TALK button on the bottom right of the unit and a volume adjust button. The TALK button is “latching” NOT push-to-talk. So the director pushes on to talk, then pushes again to turn off. The button lights up to show it is active. The mike is built-in. The level can be adjusted via the level knob.
This talkback feeds the Mackie Powered Speaker in the studio on the front left side, near the Kino-Flo via an XLR cable.
If you turn on the white power extensions, this speaker should come on automatically (you will hear a thump).
There is a blue power light on the rear to check, plus a level trim pot. You should not need to adjust this, the level change at the talkback button is better to use.
LOOP THROUGH TO HALLWAY MONITOR
The HD-SDI feed to the Director’s monitor additionally loops through to the 17” Panasonic monitor in the hallway bench area. So the Sony Director’s monitor needs to be on for this to work. This is a rather old monitor and 720p so should be used for editorial purposes, not sharpness, brightness, colour balance etc. There is a headphone jack on the back panel but is a little hard to access. It is in the middle, underneath the DVI connector. Again, the volume should be turned down if headphones are not used.
DIRECTOR’S CAMERA AND EYE-LINE MONITOR
The RED HD-SDI cable in the studio is the feed from the director’s face camera. It should already be plugged into the TV-Logic 17” monitor on a Low-boy stand to allow setting at seating height or higher for eye-lines.
If you do not use this, or use it for your own monitoring, please return the red HD-SDI input to SDI-A input when finished.
The monitor can be placed where necessary for interview eyelines.
The Micro camera over the director’s monitor should come on automatically when the power switch at the makeup mirror is turned on.
There is a knob on the Manfrotto mount that can be loosened to adjust the positioning of the camera.
By default the camera focusses slightly behind the director when powered on. Press down briefly on the focus button on the right of the lens as you face it to adjust.