ITN Productions is the creative and commercial arm of the ITV news organisation, producing bespoke content for broadcasters, businesses, brands, rights holders and digital channels. With a huge and growing output spanning TV programme making, commercials, sport, corporate and branded content, in-house facilities at the London postproduction facility have grown to 60 edit suites in just five years.
Most recently, this has included the opening of a new audio suite – with equipment supplied by HHB’s specialist Scrub postproduction division.
‘We supplemented our original D-Command audio-suite with a new S3-equipped room back in 2015,’ says ITN Productions Head of Post Production, Olly Strous. ‘Adding an Avid Dock last year really supercharged the S3 but the new 24-fader S6-equipped room takes our production efficiency to a whole new level.
‘A lot of our work is fast turnaround, so we often have to work quickly,’ he continues. ‘Critically, the S6 gives us the capacity to produce so much more than simply a competent, R128-compliant mix, empowering our operators to do their best and most creative work, even in the short time available.’
Consequently, adding a third Avid audio console was a logical move: ‘We’re heavily invested in Avid technology across the facility,’ Strous says. ‘It’s what the talent wants and expects to work on, so the S6 made perfect sense.’
The same is true of the facility’s monitoring: ‘We rely on the uncompromising performance and consistency of Genelec monitoring across every edit suite,’ Strous says. ‘And although the new audio suite is an acoustically designed space, the auto-calibration feature of the new 5.1 Genelec DSP system helps optimise performance.’
On the choice of supplier, Strous has high praise for Scrub, the Soho-based and post-focused division of HHB Communications: ‘The team at Scrub knows everything there is to know about audio technology, and we’re very confident in giving them our custom. From spec’ing the system through to installation and on-going support, Scrub is always helpful and very thorough. A few months into using the new S6, the staff were happy to reconfigure the console slightly to fit precisely with our way of working, and also recalibrated the speakers to ensure that no reflections had moved. Working with Scrub is always a positive experience.’
In addition to the 24-fader S6 M40 console and Genelec 5.1 DSP active monitoring system, Scrub supplied ITN Productions with a range of plug-ins, microphones, storage, video-capture cards and ancillary equipment.
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