By Brian Galante and Adam Jacobson
NASHVILLE — The live People’s Choice Country Awards went off without a hitch on September 28 of last year, with a telecast appearing on both NBC and Peacock from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
Little did viewers realize that the live show relied on three mobile units, a task that proved to be a first for a local live production specialist.
Handling that task was TNDV, which employed its “Exclamation,” a 53-foot double expando tractor trailer with four wired and 10 wireless Sony HDC-4300L 4K/HD cameras, for the event’s presenters and performances.
“Aspiration,” a 40-foot single unit with an expanding side and six HDC-4300Ls, was used to broadcast and stream the pre-show festivities and interviews on the red carpet as well as interviews with winners and crowd members during the main show.
Lastly, “Vibration,” a 45-foot sound mixing trailer with a Studer Vista 9 console capable of 384 inputs, was used to record separate audio mixes of all artists including a complete backup of each performance.
Exclamation and Vibration were tied together with fiber to get the audio signals back and forth and to communicate via intercom, which was tied in with some of the house intercoms. Aspiration was dedicated to producing the red-carpet pre-show, which was completely separate from the awards ceremony.
“We have an excellent working relationship with the Grand Ole Opry because of all the shows we’ve worked on there,” Rob Devlin, President of TNDV, noted. “A large truck like Exclamation was perfect for this event because it allows the production pros from many different departments, such as lighting, script, wardrobe and makeup, to have the working space in front of the reference monitors to check their work.”
Vibration, which handled all the music mixes, allowed every band that performed to get the music dialed in the way they wanted. The number of inputs and presets allowed the audio mixer to easily go from one band to the next. Just by pushing a button, all new inputs generated for the event automatically surfaced. Every instrument for every artist was transferred from the stage through TNDV’s fiber MADI stage box.
“All tracks go through both Pro Tools and a JoeCo recorder, so there’s a redundant backup for each multi-track configuration,” said Devlin. “If any issues arise, there’s always a backup. Having Vibration on site also frees the production truck from all the audio fine tuning, so they can focus on transmission, recording, playback and all the other critical visual program elements.”
Additional audio inputs came from around two dozen audience mics stationed around the Opry venue.
With all three trucks together, TNDV was able to provide a simultaneous recording and transmission of two live network-quality program feeds, an awards show and a red-carpet, behind-the-scenes program, as well as a large volume of live performance and multitrack audio recordings for archive.
Dugger Becomes Executive Director of Midsouth Emmy Chapter
TNDV Founder Nic Dugger has accepted the role of Executive Director for the Midsouth Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), following a nearly five-year run leading the Board of Directors. He succeeds the late longtime executive director Geneva Brignolo, whom he interned with as a college freshman in 1996. “Geneva was a force in television, and a respected producer that shaped the world of televised motorsports among other brilliant achievements,” said Dugger. “Her leadership of the Midsouth chapter over nearly 30 years has given our chapter a strong reputation that I look forward to carrying into the future.”
