Producer and engineer Stuart Bruce was kind enough to send us these words about “Fuelling The Future”, a 360 degree film presented by BP at the London Olympics;
With 2 months to go before the start of the London Olympics I was asked to do the Sound Mix for a 360 degree film presentation that BP are putting on at their Pavilion in the Olympic Park. “Fuelling The Future” presents BP’s global operations with particular emphasis on Countries such as Angola, Azerbaijan, Turkey and of course the UK.
The 12 minute presentation directed by South African director Graham English is an exciting trip around various BP operations in as diverse locations as Alaska and Azerbaijan. With its mix of real life footage and CGI it gives a spectacular view of BP’ s operations worldwide.
When first asked to provide the final mix of music, FX and dialogue the brief was to supply just a stereo version, with any surround processing being handled by the DSP on site. I always knew it would be necessary to go up to Stratford to do the final mix so having received all the relevant music, dialogue and foley tracks in advance I prepared everything in a stereo pro tools system and got ready to go. At the last minute a chance conversation with one of the audio system designers made me realise that a bespoke 6 channel surround mix was a far better option to achieve what the director wanted but with the incredibly tight on site security it was nigh on impossible to replace the small system we were taking with something much larger.
Fortunately Synthax Audio managed to send me an RME Fireface UCX for the morning I left. Having spent hours going through security (after several hours of driving around the site trying to get the right gate!!!!) we needed a quick setup and to get mixing. The RME Fireface UCX was perfect – true plug and play, and we had the system up and running as quickly as you can boot the computer, plug up the outputs and launch the pro tools session.
The 360 degree theatre is a circular room with projection onto the outer walls and also onto a central “dome”. The audio system has 2 distinct elements. A mono central speaker cluster and an 8 speaker surround system in the outer walls. We had separate feeds to the mono centre and some subs and then matrixed a quad feed into the surrounds. The whole room rotates during the show so we set up remote desktop between a laptop in the room and the audio computer in the machine room and spent a very fun 3 days getting the mix just right. For once going round in circles meant just that…
The RME Fireface UCX worked perfectly from the moment it was plugged in (more than can be said for some of the other technical items at our disposal) and if you happen to be up at the Stratford site do pay the show a visit. It will be there right to the end of the Paralympics and without giving too much away it may be the most comfortable way to dive underwater next to an oil rig or experience what it’s like to sit on the end of a drill bit 5km below the sea bed!
By Stuart Bruce
Find out more about the RME Fireface UCX
Stuart Bruce is a respected writer, producer, engineer and pro audio reviewer. Over the years Stuart has worked in sound design, music and TV production, and continues to work from his studio in the south west of England and on various productions throughout the world.
You can find out more about Stuart at www.stuartbruce.net