NASHVILLE — In April, TNDV sent its two largest trucks and a flypack to Las Vegas for three shoots, each with diverse production requirements across live TV, post and professional AV environments.
The shoots were all tied to the Academy of Country Music, which held its annual ACM Awards and second-ever ACM Party for a Cause Festival in two separate city locations. TNDV was tapped for the live ACM Red Carpet show at the MGM Grand in advance of the ACM Awards. The all-HD, multi-camera production aired live on the Great American Country Network, with TNDV handling live acquisition, graphics, switching and instant replay.
Six blocks away at open-air outdoor entertainment venue The LINQ, the Party for a Cause kicked off its concert with headliners Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban. TNDV handled image magnification for the weekend long festival using one of their 2ME, 36-input a mobile production flypacks, producing HD projections of the live performances across several video boards at stage left and stage right.
On day two, TNDV relocated its Aspiration expanding side truck—which handled the ACM Red Carpet production—to The LINQ for a 10-camera shoot under the direction of Nashville-based production company Taillight TV. That shoot turned into the “Outnumber Hunger Concert,” a one-hour event that aired April 18 on more than 30 Gannett Co. TV stations and select Web portals.
TNDV’s audio truck Vibration joined Aspiration for this special shoot, creating a mobile production infrastructure to accommodate all professional video and audio production requirements for the HD broadcast special. TNDV configured a central routing infrastructure to connect the two trucks, sharing video, audio and intercom feeds across front of house, camera operators and other production personnel.
For TNDV owner and president Nic Dugger, the “triple threat” scenario was a master class on how flexible broadcast equipment has become across multiple live production needs. For example, Dugger used Chroma de Monde chip charts to balance his cameras for each event, noting the requirement for consistent lighting across the varying daytime and nighttime shoots.
For in-house image magnification, Dugger and his team switched between, and simultaneously projected, up to five live angles to entertain concert attendees.
On the audio side, bringing Vibration to Party for a Cause meant that TNDV could produce a broadcast-quality audio mix for the TV special, encompassing more than 100 inputs via the truck’s Studer Vista 9 console and ProTools rig. TNDV also added more than 20 audience microphones to ensure viewers at home would experience the feeling of being in the crowd.
“Video without audio is just surveillance, so we needed to make sure that every one of the 100-plus inputs were recorded cleanly and with the correct gain structure,” said Dugger. “That way, upon returning to the studio for audio post our client could achieve the sound levels and quality they desired for the broadcast. For the ACM Red Carpet Show, a multichannel intercom and IFB infrastructure audio ensured that everyone involved could clearly communicate as live interviews happened. The audio requirements were more diverse than video across the three events, though the common theme of flexibility and attention to detail for the client remained.”
