Read the full review here!

Santa Monica’s New Hat is a post-production/color correction facility comprised of post veterans—Darby Walker and Bob Festa—specializing in commercials and music videos. Recently, the 2-year-old company began branching out into feature film work, and they made the decision to enlarge one of five traditional color suites into a 5.1 surround DI theatre—which was not an easy feat as the room’s existing size and shape wasn’t conducive to its intended functionality. New Hat’s principals, including Chief Engineer Richard Alcala, did the initial room design and layout and enlisted studio designer Charles Pell, who brought along a team of specialists to make it a reality. That group included Aarmadillo’s Colin Ritchie, who handled the room’s final design and construction, Bruce Black of Media Rooms Technology, who made the acoustic analysis and recommendations, builders Joe Purcell and Tim Fejtek, and Danny Kaplan who installed all the wiring and electrical devices along with Alcala. The finished suite showcases a Barco DP-1200 projector, a 12.5′ Stewart Filmscreen screen, a FilmLight Baselight 4 color correction system, and a Blue Sky 5.1 audio system comprised of a SAT 8, a SUB 212, a BMC, and four Blue Sky I/ON in-wall speakers for surrounds.

“When New Hat was initially built,” explains Alcala, “the facility itself was intended to have five color correction suites, four of which were going to be traditional rooms for doing commercial and music videos. The fifth room was slated to be a small theatre, either to color-correct commercials using video projection, or to handle feature films. With the four already completed and at full capacity, we’ve been talking about the fifth room project for about a year—discussing how we were going to equip the room, the size it would be, and so forth. Once we made the decision to move forward, the construction began a week before Thanksgiving, and most of the major work was finished before Christmas. The audio system was installed and tested about 3 weeks ago, and we’re really happy with the room. The fact that it grew into the large size and shape that it is now was a good thing not only the actual imaging, but also for the audio quality.”

The recommendation for the Blue Sky system came from Aarmadillo, who have worked extensively with the systems in most of their contracted installations. “New Hat’s work has typically not focused on audio; when we’re coloring, we’re working with sophisticated images. The addition of the Blue Sky system in the room sounds spectacular, and it will be nice to be able to hear our finalized projects in full 5.1 surround sound. The Blue Sky is a very good system for the price, and wasn’t a huge investment. I previously worked at Technicolor in their DI facility in Burbank. Their theaters were twice as large as we have here, and they had some very elaborate 5.1 surround systems. I can honestly say that our room here probably sounds as good, if not better, than theirs.”

Alcala says they’re starting work on their second independent feature film project in the new room, and looking forward to other DI projects for the future.

“We’re just getting started,” he muses. “Everything’s looking positive and the clients are happy in the room. We had an auction here to benefit Haiti a few weeks ago and a lot of people came through the theatre who were very impressed by the room in general and the sound in specific.”

That belief has permeated everything the studio has lent their time and talents to, including the widely acclaimed 2007 title, “Heavenly Sword”. Published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3, Ninja Theory’s work scored them a 2008 Escape Award for “Best CG in Games”, and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards nominations the same year for Best New IP, Visual Arts, Audio Accomplishment, Technical Innovation, and Best Independent Developer.

Formed in Cambridge England, in November of 2004 by Nina Kristensen (Chief Development Ninja), Mike Ball (Chief Technology Ninja), Tameem Antoniades (Chief Design Ninja) and Non-Executive Ninja, Jez San OBE, the Ninja team also comprises Lead Audio Ninja Tom Colvin and Darren Lambourne.

Colvin, who joined Ninja Theory in 2005, had previously served as a freelance sound engineer and producer for game developer Climax, working on projects including the Xbox title, “Sudeki”. He and his team at Ninja worked closely with Nitin Sawhney and the Foley artists from Play It By Ear—who created the sounds for the breakthrough 2000 film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”—to produce a compelling sonic experience within “Heavenly Sword”.

Because of the collaborative nature of the creation process, it was key to have simpatico audio systems in each of the studios. Colvin and Lambourne both utilize Blue Sky systems in their daily workflow—Colvin on a Pro Desk 5.1 system and Lambourne using a Blue Sky BMC II in conjunction with Adam Audio monitors.

“It’s a very collaborative process,” Colvin elaborates, “and a large undertaking in terms of content, which often is 12-hours in terms of length. And we’re not editing to picture like we would in a film; it’s an interactive medium so there’s a lot more complexity in the way the sounds are played back. We have to create the sound effects, edit the music, and after that, we’re involved in the tech aspects of them, making sure they play at the right time, mixing those assets—the whole spectrum of audio development happens within each of our little studios. The Blue Sky surround controller and monitors are absolutely key components of that process.”

Colvin’s two main sources are a PC DAW, and the Xbox and PS3 devkits. The devkit audio is decoded by a Denon A7100, and he has a Coleman 5.1 switchbox to swap between the PC and devkits. The PC has a fireface 400, which also routes a ProTools LE rig via the ADAT input.

“The Blue Sky’s are used for monitoring just about everything from music editing, to sound FX creation to VO edits,” says Colvin. “They are my workhorse monitors. When I originally bought them there wasn’t a lot that offered the same degree of quality and convenient control at that price point. I still think the Bass Management System is an incredible value and offers a simple level of control. There are all sorts of monitors competing at a similar price these days, but I think the SAT 5s still hold their own. The monitors have got a very good level of clarity that doesn’t color the sound in any way, which is great. There’s nothing equivalent on the market that offers this level of detailed control for the price—they’re either a lot less pro in terms of capabilities or three times the price.”

The level of detail present in the sound effects construction phase required a system that could provide precise clarity, and the Blue Sky systems fit the bill for Colvin. “It’s like they’re my second ears,” offers Colvin. “They give me a window into what I’m working on in the detailed areas of sound effects construction, making sure our levels of audio compression are correct, etcetera. One of my sound editors, Darren Lambourne, has a 5.1 setup using the Blue Sky Bass management controller, and his system is used for pretty much the same range of tasks as in my room. It’s important to have that detailed clarity in the monitoring, and the Blue Sky’s are the right system for the range of work that we do.”

Lambourne, who started with Ninja last summer, also came armed with a lengthy career in sound design, working previously for a host of companies including the acclaimed Rockstar in Austria. His 5.1 system comprises a Blue Sky BMC II in conjunction with Adam Audio A7 satellites and an Adam Audio Sub8. “Tom was pleased with the Blue Sky system in the main studio and wanted another reference system that behaved in a similar way. The Blue Sky BMC has solid, simple controls, the volume knob is front and center, and does what I need it to do without any fuss. The sound is incredibly transparent.”

The team is currently at work on “Enslaved”, in development for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and which will be published by Namco Bandai Games.

For more info on Ninja Theory, go to: www.ninjatheory.com

By Diane Gershuny

About the SAT 265

Blue Sky’s SAT 265 is a 2-way, tri-amplified, 300-Watt, High Output Near-Field Monitor which features two 6.5” high excursion hemispherical woofers and a 1” dual ring radiator tweeter with integral waveguide, for superior off-axis response. Powered by a dedicated low distortion 100-Watt amplifier for each of the 6.5” woofers, it also features a low distortion 100-Watt amplifier for the tweeter. The SAT 265 effortlessly delivers clean and accurate sound with a frequency response of 80Hz to 30kHz +/-3.0dB (200Hz to 15kHz +/-1.5dB) for full compatibility with Blue Sky’s SUB 15 Universal, SUB 212, SUB 12 and BMC (Bass Management Controller). The rear panel also has controls for “full space” (placement in a room) or “half space” (mounted in a baffle wall) operation, along with HF level trims, as well as controls for variable gain settings.

“The Sat 265 was the logical step in the development of the Blue Sky monitors,” said Blue Sky Vice President Chris Fichera. “The only thing we could do to make the Sat 6.5 (Sky System One) better was to make it play louder, so that’s what we did.”

Making the subwoofer an integral part of the monitoring system design enables the SAT 265 studio monitor to be positioned for the best imaging, and the SUB to be positioned for the best bass response. Relieving the SAT 265 studio monitor of the requirement to reproduce the low frequencies means that the uncompromising sealed-box design can combine with sophisticated bass management electronics, to provide a seamless transition between the SAT 265 and SUB. It all adds up to accurate, full range sound.

The SAT 265 has been designed to integrate perfectly with Blue Sky’s new SUB 212, a sealed box, push-pull, 400-Watt subwoofer. The push-pull configuration reduces distortion, provides increased output, and features an anechoic frequency response of 25Hz to 200Hz, +/-3dB. In addition, the SUB 212 also has built-in 2.1 bass management electronics with both a 4th order 80Hz Linkwitz-Riley low-pass filter and a 2nd order 80Hz high-pass filter that is perfectly matched to the response of the SAT 265 (the SUB 212 is also compatible with the SAT 265, SAT 6.5 and SAT 5). When combined, the SAT 265 and SUB 212 provide a stunningly accurate and engaging, full-range monitoring system.

About The SUB 212

Blue Sky’s SUB 212 is a sealed box, dual 12”, push-pull, 400-Watt subwoofer. It features an anechoic frequency response of 25Hz to 200Hz, +/-3dB. In addition, the SUB 212 also has built-in 2.1 bass management electronics with both a 4th order 80Hz Linkwitz-Riley low-pass filter and a 2nd order 80Hz high-pass filter that is perfectly matched to the response of the SAT 8 (the SUB 212 is also compatible with the SAT 12, SAT 6.5 and SAT 5).

The SUB 212’s unique “push-pull” configuration is designed not only to increase output, but also to reduce distortion. A push-pull subwoofer uses two drivers: one mounted facing forward, the second mounted backward with the magnet facing out. Utilizing two drivers doubles the maximum output, while the push pull configuration reduces even harmonic distortion. Typically, in a more conventional design, at high output levels, second harmonic distortion dominates the distortion spectrum of most subwoofer drivers and is caused by asymmetric operation of the suspension and magnetic structure. In simple terms; the output of the driver is slightly different when the cone is moving away from the magnet, as compared to when it is moving toward its magnet.

Push-pull operation reduces this even harmonic distortion in a clever application of physics. As mentioned before, push-pull uses two drivers, one reversed from the other. The bottom driver has its magnet facing out of the box and is driven electrically out–of–phase from the front driver, which keeps both drivers acoustically in phase. However, when the front driver’s cone is moving away from its magnet, the bottom driver’s (reversed) cone is moving towards its magnet. This puts the even harmonic distortion components of the bottom driver out-of-phase with the front driver. When you combined the outputs of both drivers, the even harmonic distortion of both drivers cancels, reducing the overall distortion of the subwoofer.

By Diane Gershuny

“If you look at the history of mainstream Hindi filmmaking in the last, say, 10 years, it was in the mid-90s was when Hindi films were being compared with Hollywood and European cinema. We had to change how the films have been portrayed (it’s not all about song and dancing) and how the production planning has been done, and the process has benefited. We as new production technicians get to put our stamp on our work, and to also say that this is how it has been traditionally done, but it is not how it should be done. Especially with the Oscar that I received with my work in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, there is a new energy, a new enthusiasm, and a new awareness about sound. So with that, I’d say we are going through a golden period of the changing face of Indian cinema.”

With the launch of Canaries Sound Post, Pookutty is determined to change the way production sound is traditionally handled in India. With the spotlight on Indian cinema globally, thanks in large part to ‘Slumdog’, the timing couldn’t be better.

“To understand how sound functions in Indian cinema, you must understand that production sound recording was virtually non-existent until 13 years ago. In India, in its true essence of how sound has been handled, there are no sound editors or no supervising dialog editors like we have in Los Angeles or any other part of moviemaking industry. Here, we end up doing everything as one person in postproduction—so I myself handle everything from recording production sound, dialog editing, sound design, supervising of the mixing procedures, and most of the time I do the Foley recording, sound music mixes and extras. Also, there are no specialized film post-production facilities specializing in India where can handle the sound and production process. What usually happens is that I work on my production recordings here and then fly off to London, Australia, or LA for executing better mixes. That’s been my modus operandi up until now. Early in my career, I realized that good soundtrack of a movie was the result of how you handle the raw material that was recorded. That’s why we thought about having specialized post studios where we can handle the sound and production process. That’s how Canaries has come into existence.”

Seeing, and hearing, a Blue Sky ‘Sky System’ in action at Skywalker Sound, he was convinced to install a Blue Sky 5.1 Sky System One into the main sound design room at Canaries, with an Audient ASP 510 surround encoder in conjunction with a Digidesign HD Pro Tools system. Two smaller 2-track cutting rooms are outfit with Blue Sky ProDesk systems.

“A close associate in Italy talked to me about Blue Sky,” Resul recalled, “and that’s how the name came to me. I was working at Skywalker on a sound effects session and was immediately impressed with its response and power and the way sound is being reproduced. I have used Dynaudio, Genelec, and HHB monitors, and no one is good over the other; certain qualities that one has, the other doesn’t. In a film and sound design environment, working with all the music, sound effects, dialog, and background ambiences needed a certain quality in a reproduction system. The Blue Sky systems gave me a very wholesome listening environment and are very spot-on. The fact that it gives me true monitoring in a small room impresses me a lot. I’m hearing everything that I’d be hearing in big room; I’m listening to all streams of sound, which are going to be mixed to the film format in its true sense. And I really love the bass management system. It’s a very cool concept and absolutely essential in a small room. I can hear the true color of my sound, which was misguided and misleading in other monitor systems. In other words, Blue Sky made something that was very intangible, tangible.”

Moving forward, Pookutty is putting finishing touches on 3 major Indian movies including ‘Pazhassi Raja’, a biopic historical film and one of the most expensive Hindi movies ever produced, and ‘Blue’, an underwater treasure hunt movie which re-teams Pookutty with his ‘Slumdog’ composer, AR Rahman. Pookutty went on location to the Bahamas to gather underwater sounds (the first time in Hindi cinema) and is gearing up its major launch this fall.

All of this momentum is not lost on Pookutty. Not only did the success of ‘Slumdog’ open new production opportunities for him and other like-minded production folk, but also shed new spotlight on sound in film.

“In the 80 years of Oscar history, no one from India has won a technical award in the film industry,” he states. “And apart from that, the Oscar has created a lot more awareness about sound. One thing that touched me very deeply was at the Motion Picture Sound Editor Awards this February. Ben Bertt was receiving the Career Achievement Award and both George Lucas and Spielberg were there. I realized that this is something we are lacking in India: mentorship. There was nobody to guide me when I was starting out. I don’t want my own generation or the one after me to go directionless, so I am building myself up to cater to a new breed of enthusiastic film technicians and film people. I’m hoping that the Canaries Post of tomorrow will be the Skywalker of India.”

For more on Canaries Post, go to:  www.canariespostsound.com

By Diane Gershuny

When the EA Chicago facility was shuttered, Allen moved on to Sony Online in San Diego to reprise the tasks he undertook in Chicago. As with EA Chicago, Allen focused his efforts on organizing the audio teams and upgrading the audio gear in studios located in San Diego and helping to upgrade the Austin, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Blue Sky 5.1 monitoring systems were again instrumental in his efforts to establish more uniform monitoring environments, so that mixes would translate properly between all of the audio people and that their quality would be consistent, so as to avoid the need to continually remix the audio. That year-long agreement culminated in projects including “EverQuest”, “EverQuest II”, and “Free Realms”, as well as the formation of a partnership with Sony PlayStation audio department. Also, during that time, he helped raise the awareness of audio for MMOs (online multiplayer games) to help bring it up to the high audio standards.

But once the year long agreement was over, he realized it was time to venture out on his own. Beginning in early 2009, Allen packed up and headed to Austin Texas, where he formed Apparatic, a turnkey audio outsourcing company to provide compelling audio programming, implementation, sound design, asset creation, music and dialog for a range of gaming platforms.

What led to the decision to open your own shop?

When I was at EA and Sony online, I had the opportunity to work with a lot of contractors, and I was testing out the notion of whether people can work remotely. The interesting thing about the game industry is that it’s becoming more like the film industry, and it is getting to the point where you’re starting to see a lack of staff at all the game studios because of companies downsizing. What this means is that the demand for outsourcing for game audio is going to go way up, and I wanted to take advantage of that. Because of this downsizing, some of the most talented individuals in the industry are working for Apparatic. People that have many years of experience doing game audio and know it well. This gives us an extra edge.

When I left Sony, I decided it might be a good time for me to venture off on my own. I think the biggest reason was I wanted to help other fellow audio people. I came up with an idea for a company that would tap into the talents of all of the sound designers out there, and to bank on my 18-years of industry experience and credits. So I started Apparatic, to handle primarily audio for games—ranging from handheld/small console audio like iPhone, DS and PSP, to large format games like the Wii, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Why Austin?

There were a couple of reasons. There’s a huge gaming community here. A big percentage of the major developers have locations here—both large and small—EA, BioWare, Sony etc. Also, the cost of living and running a business is 50% less than it is in California. Put those two together and it just made sense. Plus, Austin has an amazing community of musicians, and as a big music lover, that was an added bonus.

How is Apparatic structured?

There were a couple of reasons. There’s a huge gaming community here. A big percentage of the major developers have locations here—both large and small—EA, BioWare, Sony etc. Also, the cost of living and running a business is 50% less than it is in California. Put those two together and it just made sense. Plus, Austin has an amazing community of musicians, and as a big music lover, that was an added bonus.

But the biggest problem I saw working with contractors remotely, was the consistency of the sound quality and the ‘implementation’ of technical game assets wasn’t there. When I started Apparatic, I made a decision to outfit all of our employees, the remote staff, and our clientele, with Blue Sky 5.1 systems, so that way we’d have a sonic consistency across the board.

You’ve been a big proponent of Blue Sky over the years, having worked with literally all of the components in whatever studio you’ve outfit, be it EA or Sony. What is it about these speakers that works well for what you do?

I call Blue Sky the ‘bang-for-the-buck’ speaker, not because it’s an inexpensive speaker, but it’s a very good speaker for a reasonable price. In its product line, Blue Sky has everything, from the smaller desktop EXO’s to the rather large mid-field ‘Big Blues’—and everything in between. I’ve worked with other speakers in the past, but for me Blue Sky is a must-have tool whenever I’m doing audio for games. Additionally, Blue Sky’s Bass Management Controller, which integrate and control their 5.1 systems, help to complete a very useful tool for sound design and mixing.

You mentioned moving from creating audio for the larger console games like PlayStation and Xbox, to the smaller platform games for iPhone and the like… How does that impact your approach?

Coming from the larger console and PC gaming world, the bar for audio quality is similar to that of film. In the world of MMOs and smaller gaming platforms, the audio quality was not up to par when compared to where console audio was. Similar to what I did at EA, working with Sony I was able to get EXO and MediaDesk 5.1 systems in many of the office suites, all the edit rooms were outfitted with Sky System One , and we installed I/ON in-wall speakers in the conference room. That, all put into place, really helped with the consistency issues. Granted, it took many months to get together. You’ll hear a major difference on the last game we worked on, “Free Realms”.

During that time, I got a chance to try out the new Blue Sky dual 6” speakers [the SAT 265; slated for release late summer/early fall of ‘09] with the SUB 212 and was really impressed. What’s really amazing is it sounds basically the same as the Sky System One with more SPL! A couple of the sound guys in the room were like, ‘Whoa! How do we get a pair of those?’

Tell me about your studio set-up and is that consistent across the board with your developers working in their home studios?

Most of us are using Intel Mac’s with Pro Tools and the standard range of plug-ins like Waves, McDSP, Sony Oxford, Altaverb, Audio East, Omnisphere, Vienna Sound Libraries, etc. In our main Austin studio, I have a Pro Tools|HD 3 Accel system but also use Logic for music.

As far as speakers, I use Sky System One and Big Blue, but most of the developers are using Media Desk or Sky System One, with many of the iPhone developers using the smaller EXO system.

Doing iPhone games, one interesting thing is that a lot of people will mix using headphones—and we do check it out on headphones—but you can’t have them on all day long because you’ll blow out your ears. Many developers also mix on smaller systems. The Blue Sky mixes translate over the headphones very well, and sound good on other speakers.

What projects are you involved in currently?

Right now, we’re working on a bunch of casual games, Wii and iPhone titles, and starting next month we’ll be doing an Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii titles. So we have a lot of work coming through.

The fourth iPhone game we’re working on is called ‘Ace Shot’. With everyone using Blue Sky Sky System One, I can’t believe how consistent the sounds are coming in from everyone. You can play the game on iPhone earbuds or other headphones and the sound is incredibly consistent.

Iphone games are fun to work on because the work schedule is short–typically 2-3 weeks of work as opposed to 6-7 months, which is what it takes to do a big console game. So it’s refreshing because the burn-out factor doesn’t exist and you see the results much quicker.

Also, I’m working on creating an audio podcast; the goal being to unite sound designers in all realms, from games, to film, to TV music and to get a conversation going with creators working in different areas in audio. I hope to create a sense of community or awareness of what each sector is doing. The audio community is big, and I want to see the community come together more.

For more about Gregory Allen and Apparatic, go to: www.apparatic.com

By Diane Gershuny

Several years ago, the principals at Reel FX embarked on a project to build a 3D screening room in its So-Cal location to host its industry-wide clientele. A team was put together to bring the project to fruition, which included Charles Pell of Cobalt Blue Technology who conceived the initial design, as well as supervised the construction and audio/video equipment installation, which was provided by Colin Ritchie of Aarmadillo. The architect on the project was Jonathan Brier, who also handled three Blue Sky screening rooms at Light Iron in Hollywood, Bruce Black handled all the acoustic specs and setup the room, Kam Majd and his crew built the basic theater structure, Tim Fejtek of Intek Development then took on all the theater finish work, and Joe Purcell built the custom desk and the client tables.

The screening room boasts a state-of-the-art production suite including a Barco DP2K-20C projector, Global Store system running Scratch Lab 6.0, Real D Post Production 3D system, Stewart Silver Screen, Lynx AES 16 Sound Card, Lucid 192 D to A Converter, and Symetrix Solus 8 DSP Module, in addition to a plethora of Blue Sky components: three SAT 12 Speakers for L, C and R; four I/ON Speakers for Surrounds, and one SUB 15 subwoofer.

Although Reel FX’s new room is technically a screening room, providing stellar sound was definitely at the forefront of the studio’s mind. “Because we work in both 5.1 and 7.1 on feature films, commercials, as well as short films, special attractions among other things,” said Frank Salazar, Reel FX’s Director Audio Engineering, “it was clearly important to us to have it sound as good as possible. We’ve always been a fan of Blue Sky, and the studio first demo-ed Blue Sky stuff back in 2003. Since then, we have been looking forward to working with them, and finally got the opportunity when we built this new screening room.”

“Our selection of Blue Sky components specifically was based on strong recommendations from vendor Aarmadillo Inc.,” offered Post Production Supervisor Tim Archer. “Other decision-making factors included Blue Sky’s reputation, sound quality and available sizes.”

“We found Blue Sky’s I/On speakers were the perfect size for the room,” added Salazar. “The shallow form allowed them to be mounted in the wall, which worked perfectly for our needs.”

“This 3-D theater is the best one we have ever done,” stated Charles Pell, “and is going to be the hottest screening room on the West side of L.A., that’s for sure.”

With the screening room in place, Reel FX is hard at work on a slew of new projects including dozens of commercials, a CG animated film titled Turkeys, and another, Beasts of Burden. This year, one of their biggest endeavors, the Paramount Pictures/Cirque du Soleil feature film collaboration, Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away, will be hitting 3D screens across the globe.

Top Right Photo (Left to right): Charles Pell, Tim Archer, Tim Fejtek, Sergio Amaya (Fejtek), Chad Eeds (Reel FX Wiring & Equipment Engineer), and Robert Jones (Reel FX IT Engineer). Not pictured, Bruce Black of Media Rooms, Joe Purcell of Purcell Productions, Jonathan Brier of Jonathan Brier Design, and Colin Ritchie of Aarmadillo.

The impetus for creating the studio was three-fold for Myers, whose projects range from music to commercial production. Not only did he want to create a space that would function as a working studio for clients, as well as serving as a for-hire studio for friends and colleagues, but also, Myers engineer-in-training son would eventually inhabit the space.

“My desire was to have a place where I could produce demos for the songs that I write, and needed good acoustics and monitoring. In addition, I have a lot of friends locally in the Pensacola/NW Florida area as well as Atlanta and Nashville and wanted to create a kind of boutique studio where they could cut their band tracks/overdubs as well as vocals in a comfortable atmosphere. And lastly, I wanted a place for my son who is in the process of completing his senior year at the University of West Florida with a concentration in Electrical Engineering.  Upon graduation, he plans on entering the field of Audio Engineering and this studio would be a perfect place for him to learn the equipment and to train his ears.”

Hedback created the room as a “non-environment hybrid,” and felt it was crucial to have a full-range/sealed box system as flush-mounting was not possible for the structure of the room. “The choice was then simple as only one option was available, Blue Sky,” Hedback stated. “Chris, my client, had no previous exposure to Blue Sky, so it was on complete trust of my recommendation that he purchased the System One Left, Right and Sub.  My integration partner, Marc Meeker of Meeker Audio in Nashville, TN, set up the system and we interactively performed measurements and calibration. The system and room are exceptional, considering it’s not a large “pro” room but rather a garage conversion with pro performance!”

Interfacing with the Blue Sky system is a Euphonix MC Mix control surface with an AVID Pro Tools HD2 rig and assorted outboard gear, microphones and instruments. Looking ahead, the Blue Sky room is designed for a 5:1 upgrade in future.

“Wow!” Myers exclaimed. “Everything that I use works together incredibly well and the speakers sound incredible. One of the best things about the Blue Sky System is the instruments sound like they are supposed to. I have been in several studios where the monitors seem to change the tone of the instruments, and what this means is the engineer has to do some serious tweaking to get the appropriate sound/tone that the musician/artist/producer was after. During one of my past sessions, one of the guitar players said to me, ‘I absolutely love cutting tracks here. I’m in and out without the hassle of using plug-ins or other stuff to get the tone right.’ In my opinion, the combination of the acoustics and the Blue Sky monitors truly is unmatched here on the Gulf Coast.  If I could do it again, would I buy Blue Sky Monitors? In a heartbeat!”

“I’m also happy to report that the word is spreading among my friends in Nashville, too. We have several independent session scheduled for the near future and although we are slowly growing, and with the economy the way it is, I’m perfectly content with the progress.”

CEO and founder Michael Cioni has over a decade of progressive post-production filmmaking experience. During his career he has advised hundreds of independent and studio-level clients as they adopt file-centric workflows for their projects. Michael is a well-respected educator and speaker, teaching students and faculty at USC, UCLA, and LMU, and presenting for RED Digital Cinema, The Producer’s Guild, Cinema Audio Society, and Createasphere. He sits on the Boards of both the Hollywood Post Alliance and the Filmmakers’ Alliance.

Prior to founding Light Iron, Michael co-founded PlasterCITY Digital Post in 2003. Michael is a graduate of Southern Illinois University, and during his time there, he became the youngest recipient of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences “Best Informational Program” award when his syndicated program “alt.news 26:46″ won a combined four Regional Emmys in 2001 and 2002.

Blue Sky caught up with Cioni at his new Hollywood digs back in March 2011.

Tell me a little bit about your studio and your primary focus/clientele.
Light Iron is a next generation group of post-production specialists whose forte is in the realm of file-based image capture, storage, archiving, processing, coloring, and mastering. We match the traditional needs of the industry with progressive sequences to ensure artists no longer need conform to tools; rather, tools conform to artists. The people that we have here are specialists and technologists who did not grow up using film and tape. We’re a young group of people, and we’ve made our mark by reequipping the industry, which is in need of serious modifications and progressions.

Some of our biggest clients are Sony, Disney, Lionsgate, and Lakeshore Entertainment. These are all companies that have hired us to provide data-centric services on feature and independent films as well as TV shows. The data-centric movement started with independent film, which is where we got our start. And as the data-centric workflows grew and became more stable, the studios started looking at them as viable options; of course we’ve been there to answer the questions and perform the tasks.

The world as we know it is currently cemented into film and tape. The funny thing is, the visual effects industry has been data-centric for 15 years, as has the post-production audio industry. While data centricity is still very new to the motion picture capture and finishing sectors, we’ve come a long way in the last 5-6 years. More and more major motion films, even $300,000,000 films, are being shot using progressive tools. It’s really very exciting.

Why do you think this industry has been slow to embrace the new technology?
It’s a comfortability factor. When you say you’re going to shoot, store and manage a movie completely on a hard drive people got concerned. They’re worried about control, fidelity, and archiving.

What was the impetus to start your own company?
Many members of my team worked together at PlasterCITY Digital Post for about 6 years, and with the changes in the atmosphere–both from an economic and technological perspective–we felt it was the perfect time for us to go into business for ourselves. With Light Iron, we’re able to move at the speed which we felt the industry would need to move; owning the company was pretty much the only way to ensure we were empowered to make decisions super fast. With the speed at which things are changing right now, one of our biggest weapons in satisfying customer requests is having the ability to move quickly. All of my principals are partners, and that provides a strong ‘checks and balances’ system. We’re a great group of friends who have been together for many years. Our clients feel like they’re being taken care of by a family, not a corporation.

You’ve recently completed work on your new facility in Hollywood, which boasts numerous Blue Sky 5.1 systems. For a post house that specializes in imagery rather than audio, why so much attention to the sound?
Our new facility has 3 cinema-level color correction theatres, each of which has a Blue Sky 5.1 system consisting of SAT 12’s, SUB 212’s, and I/ON speakers. In our former facility, there were a lot of systems throughout. JBL was very popular and we had experience with them. But in the new facility, we wanted to purchase a system that was more intuitive, easier to tune and not overkill. The fact of the matter is that we are not a sound-mixing house. But I’d say in terms of digital media, we have some of the best sounding rooms for color correction.

Typically, most sound mixing facilities don’t invest in the highest quality projector because they’re mixing. And color corrections rooms typically don’t invest much in sound systems because they’re looking at picture. But we wanted to make sure that when we offer color-correction services we screen it at the highest quality possible, which is why we invested in one of the best color-correction systems called Pablo. This system is able to output the Blue Sky surround mix at the same time we’re color correcting, so our clients can view a sequence while simultaneously experiencing it from a 5.1 perspective. This is a value-added tool because it offers clients the ability to take in the whole movie as a finished piece before it gets turned in.

The Blue Sky system gave us the opportunity to incorporate high-fidelity sound in a color correction theatre without having to invest in a mixing stage-level sound system. That’s really important to us. Our theatres range from 600 to 1200 square feet, and the Blue Sky system is easily configurable for any of our spaces. Having variations of the same system in each room, our operators can go between each space and have consistency.

What are some of your favorite features of the Blue Sky systems?
I’m really impressed with the I/ON speakers, too. In the past, with the JBL system, my surrounds had been a pretty substantial speaker in terms of size, weight and visibility. Some people like having speakers penetrate the room walls. I don’t. I like things clean; I like things modern. I like walls to be straight and flat and I love cleanliness in a room. Because of that, we’ve decided to go with the I/ONs that basically sink into the walls and are very unobtrusive. But although they’re small and recessed, they still pack a big punch and a have a good dynamic range. Using I/ONs are encouraging from both an aesthetic as well as a technical point of view.

What other gear does the Blue Sky systems interface with in each of the theatres?
Being data-centric, most of our playback is done through computers and digital disks and is all file-based. We have a Blackmagic Design HDLink Pro de-embedder that takes any signal that we want to put in any theatre and sends it through one single SDI cable. That single cable is carrying 12 channels of audio and a 2K signal! So it’s full-fidelity, digital cinema quality in one cable. That cable can be patched from any computer to any theatre and once that cable is patched to a theatre, we automatically de-embed the audio from the picture using the Blackmagic de-embedder and send the picture to a Christie CP2000 projector and then it goes into the Blue Sky’s. What’s great for our engineers, our colorists and our editors is they can basically just patch one cable into wherever they are and the entire system is on-line and running. There’s no adjustment, no repatching, no separate sync delaying…

A lot of facilities that have invested in audio/video patching de-embed audio in the machine room and then feed it separately from the picture. The problem with that is that you can have delays depending on the cable lengths, and then you have to resync everything in the theatre. And depending on what machine you’re going from, it may induce a delay. People have gone to great lengths to build these nice little delayed presets, and that makes sense, but that all takes equipment, time, and technology. Computers crash, you may make a mistake and the movie is out of sync, and someone’s going to freak out. By having a single tie-line going into each theatre and de-embedding at the projection instead of at the source, we cut out all those potential points of failure and we have a big control volume knob. In fact, the other night I had a screening after we finished coloring a movie and the director stood up and said, ‘I’d like to hear it a little louder.’ He just went up to the volume knob and turned it up himself! He didn’t know how to work the system, but it didn’t matter. It’s pretty self-explanatory. I’ve had systems in the past where you’d need a computer, touch screen, lot of buttons and passwords, and a client could never feel comfortable or in control.

What are you currently working on?
Most of my stories cater toward the picture-side of things. The latest and greatest is the RED Epic and the AARI Alexa digital cinema cameras. These are two newcomers to the data-centric table and they are really changing everything: people are getting more acclimated to using file-based systems from start-to-finish, instead of using them for just post sound and visual effects. The projects we’re currently working on are all going file-based, including The Amazing Spider-Man film for Sony, Underworld 4: New Dawn and Gone for Lakeshore Entertainment, The Muppet Movie for Disney, Haywire and Contagion for Lionsgate, and a few we can’t mention yet.

It’s a really exciting time for us. This new file-based system is really efficient and is paving the way for so many filmmakers. You’re not just changing the camera or simply moving from film to files; you’re changing an entire system and I love introducing people to new systems. And for a lot of people, the Blue Sky’s are a new system. What’s interesting about Blue Sky—and I’ve had lots of conversations with clients about this—is that this is a system that people can invest in for both their home theatre and for post production use. It’s not easy to have a crossover system that works well for both the high-end consumer market and the professional market. Blue Sky does offer a bridge for that and it’s encouraging for a lot of filmmakers who need to check their work at home and who may want to invest in a better home theatre system instead of purchasing something from Best Buy.

Under the supervision of Audio Director Fabien Noel, the studio has constructed a new audio room with a 7.1 Blue Sky Pro Desk MKIII system (with two BMC II bass management controls) for the production of sound FX, game dynamic mixing (for PCs and consoles), and for its day-to-day production reference and sound sync-to-video prototyping.  Currently, Noel is involved in multiple AAA projects, including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell video game franchise.

Tell us a little bit about your background.
I spent 5 years studying at the University of Paris 6 France, specializing in acoustics for architecture and mechanics. I am currently working as Audio Director in the Ubisoft Toronto studio, after having spent around 10 years at Ubisoft Montreal working on multiple titles. Prior to joining Ubisoft, I spent 4 years as a programmer for Cap Gemini in France.

What other gear is the Blue Sky system integrating with in the room?
We’re using an Avid Pro Tools 8.04 system on an Apple Mac (8 core Mac Pro), with several plug-ins like McDSP, Waves, Audio Ease and Native Instruments’ Komplete.

How important are monitors in the grand scheme of things for the kind of production you do at Ubisoft and why?
It’s very important, of course. We need to have a precise monitoring system for sound creation that reproduces every detail of the sound design — from very subtle Foley sounds to high-energy guns and explosions. Also, it is important to have good monitors you can work with for a long time. These speakers are very comfortable to work with. The Blue Sky remote for soloing specific speakers on our 7.1 setup is really useful.

Are you using Blues Sky’s Bass Management and if so talk about how they’re working for you?
We’ve got a pair of BMC II units linked together, which give us the guarantee that we are adequately managing the LFE channel and bass for our end-users who play our games. Also, they make it much easier for calibrating the acoustics of the room.

Do you work solely in 7.1 these days, or are you sometimes mixing in 5.1?
All of our game content is created to get the best from a consumer surround sound system — music, ambiance, sound effects and some specific voice effects. We either let the console do the 3D rendering or we specifically encode sound in a multi-channel format in Pro Tools. Game audio is then played back from the console on the Blue Sky system. We mix in 7.1 for our PlayStation PS3 games, and in 5.1 with Dolby extended (or other similar technologies) for Xbox 360 and PC users.

What are you currently working on?
We’re heavily involved on the next Splinter Cell game!