Adelaide Fringe records part of its programming with Blackmagic cameras

Hartstone-Kitney Productions broadcast more than 30% of the festival's digital programming Adelaide Fringe with the cameras Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Plus and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, and ATEM Mini Extreme ISO switchers.

HKP is an award-winning Adelaide production company specializing in stage productions, cabarets, immersive events and theatrical digitalisation. During the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the company took the opportunity to launch a hybrid transmission model. To this end, he created Black Box Live, a broadcast service that has given Australia's metropolitan and regional theater companies the opportunity to continue operating without relying on ticket sales. Today, its workflow has been used to transmit 52 shows during the Adelaide, Edinburgh and Hollywood Fringe festivals in 2021.

The products of Blackmagic Design, such as new models Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Plus, Pocket Cinema Camera 4K y Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro, plus mixers ATEM Mini Extreme ISO, constitute the axis of your proposal. On the other hand, the editing, grading, visual effects and audio post-production program DaVinci Resolve Studio was used to finish each of the pieces.

Blackmagic y Fringe

More than 7,000 artists took part in the recent edition of the Adelaide Fringe, the second largest annual arts festival in the world. To ensure that everyone has access to the shows, even those who could not attend due to travel or COVID-19 restrictions, HKP decided broadcast them live and offer them to everyone through its platform. Tom Kitney, co-founder of HKP, highlights that, thanks to the “portability, flexibility of use and excellent image sharpness” of the equipment Blackmagic, the production company was able to “train several technicians and create small production teams without sacrificing quality.”

For example, during the staging of dance shows Spaces Between Us y Epilogue by Lewis Major, broadcast live during the Adelaide Fringe festival and available through the HKP platform, the production company used two units Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Plus, a Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and three models Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, alternating between them with the help of a mixer ATEM Mini Extreme ISO. The transmission was stored on said device in order to process the images later. Later, a version was created UHD 4K of the shows from the material recorded in format Blackmagic RAW.

Both plays were broadcast from the theater Sir Robert Helpmann at Mount Gambier, a large auditorium with a traditional proscenium located in the South Australian outback. During the recording of the shows, a number of long shots and close-ups were included which required flexibility on HKP's part with regards to camera placement and operation. However, the solutions of Blackmagic were shown to be flexible and solvent tools for both Kitty how to Joanne Hartstone, artistic director, who also highlights “the freedom provided by the screen's brightness and contrast controls, which allow operators to film artists in complete darkness before the lights come on.”