Gearhouse Keeps Rebel Heart Pumping for Madonna
Manny Papas from Gearhouse Broadcast and Stuart Gosling from
York Studios explain how they teamed up to work on the recording of Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour show in Sydney earlier this year.
From gearhousebroadcast.com:
Following its success implementing facilities for a recent live Taylor Swift concert, Gearhouse Broadcast has been selected by York Studios in Melbourne to provide live music and OB production facilities for Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour concert at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena.
Gearhouse Broadcast’s sales director Manny Papas explained:
Stuart Gosling at York Studios in Melbourne contacted us after he saw what we’d produced for Taylor Swift and wanted the same high level of production.
With facilities similar to the Taylor Swift event, the Rebel Heart Tour production consisted of a mix of six Sony PMW-F55 large sensor cameras. Which were used for close up and stage shots while six broadcast cameras with box lenses were installed for longer coverage.
York Studios EP, Stuart Gosling explains:
The industry talked after the Taylor Swift gig and it was clear Gearhouse was the go-to company for live music concert OBs. These gigs are now a very big deal as the finished product is recorded, packaged and sold worldwide so the quality of the production has to be incredibly high. I’m very happy to say Gearhouse delivered on all fronts.
Gearhouse employed the same HD6 “Entertainment” supertruck that was previously implemented used on the Taylor Swift event as its production centrepiece. This time it housed Madonna’s creative team, the line cut, CCUs, three XT3 8-channel EVS live production servers and audio multi-track recording. This was alongside the six PMW-F55 cameras with Fujinon 19-90mm Cabrio zoom lenses, six broadcast cameras with box lenses, a SpiderCam installed with a Sony P1 and wide angle lens, two Libre Hot Heads also with F55s and a 32 foot techno crane.
Papas added:
The HD6 Entertainment supertruck is a vehicle specifically designed to handle large live concert gigs like this one. We also had to put film cameramen with focus pullers alongside broadcast guys which worked extremely well across both Saturday and Sunday shoots. The Rebel Hearts production was even more refined than previously as we were able to offer more options for how the SpiderCam and Libre Hot Heads were used.
Gearhouse recorded the gig in 1080i/PsF 29.97 and ISO recorded every camera to EVS servers and hard drives.
York Studios EP Stuart Gosling concluded:
We were delighted with the end result. Witnessing Gearhouse’s production experience and quality of output it was clear to see they knew exactly what they were doing and how everything worked. It really was an excellent job.
