Nic Dugger and his mobile production company TNDV recently produced the second season of the PBS series "Bluegrass Underground," bringing the luminaries of bluegrass music heard on the live radio program to televisions around the country.
Bluegrass Underground's concerts are held in the Cumberland Caverns, a series of underground caves more than 300ft below the earth's surface in Tennessee. After a successful first season, TNDV and the "Bluegrass Underground" have again joined forces to bring production and acoustical excellence to the show's live performances from the Volcano Room.
The Volcano Room is a natural amphitheater, carved from the flow of two underground rivers to create one of the most acoustically pure and breathtaking natural spaces in the world. To get to the concerts, tour guides lead patrons through the cave and down 333ft. The subterranean descent includes underground waterfalls, water pools, stalagmites and stalactites along the way to the amphitheater, where fans enjoy bluegrass music in a unique and beautiful venue.
Nashville-based TNDV provided the HD mobile production systems and technical crew needed to produce the events. TNDV's Aspiration, the company's 40ft expanding-side mobile production truck, provided support for the remote video and sound production services for broadcast radio and TV.
Aspiration parked near the cave and deployed an advanced SD/HD/3-D production workflow featuring seven cameras, a full audio suite and extreme cable runs. Every camera used 1000ft of fiber-optic cable to record and broadcast each concert. Aspiration's use of fiber-optic cables from camera to truck ensured no loss of signal, color or sound to maintain quality throughout the process. Amplifiers located near the stage fed directly to the truck over a digital audio line to generate a mixable, superior audio signal for the TV program.
PBS will broadcast the second season of "Bluegrass Underground" featuring live performances from bluegrass music stars later in 2012.
