Fremont, CA – November 6, 2023 – Blackmagic Design today announced that Brooklyn Quarter, a Los Angeles based creative collective, is using ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO live production switcher and Blackmagic Studio Camera 6K Pros for multi camera productions, such as their “Novel Chronicles” YouTube series, and at global events such as San Diego Comic-Con International and WonderCon.
Brooklyn Quarter is a storytelling collective and production company that creates unique web series, films, and podcasts. Timothy Reese and Danielle Beckmann cofounded the company and the two have decades of filmmaking experience to bring interactive live events and multimedia performances to life. The two are among top speakers at conventions such as Comic-Con and WonderCon.
To live stream and capture events for post production, Brooklyn Quarter uses the ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO and three Blackmagic Studio Camera 6K Pros, along with a number of other Blackmagic Design products, including ATEM SDI Extreme ISO live production switcher, ATEM Studio Converters, HyperDeck Studio HD Plus broadcast deck and an Ultimatte 12 HD real time compositing processor.
For mobile events, such as their recent sessions at Comic-Con, Brooklyn Quarter created a flypack named Penelope-02, which includes ATEM SDI Extreme ISO, ATEM Studio Converters, Blackmagic Studio 6K Pros and HyperDeck Studio HD Plus.
Reese explained the advantages of using the new workflow both in studio and at conventions: “Last year we did panels at WonderCon and San Diego Comic-Con, and we recorded both to post on YouTube. Recording at a convention can be a tricky thing because you need something that sets up very quickly and breaks down just as fast. This year, the added 6K resolution on the Studio Camera 6K Pros made framing and punching in a breeze. Large rooms can make camera placement very daunting when you’re in a time crunch, but we didn’t have to worry about the distance.”
He continued, “We returned to San Diego Comic-Con this year to host two panels: ‘Women In Entertainment: How to Blaze Your Own Path’ featuring Ashtyn Karachristos of Entertainment One and Kelsey Roberts of Paradigm Talent Agency, as well as ‘Creating an RPG Empire,’ which included Matthew Lillard and Bill Rehor of Beadle and Grimm’s Pandemonium Warehouse.”
One of the most important new features of the ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO for Brooklyn Quarter is the ability to record all video inputs. Brooklyn Quarter can edit live events and record all inputs to separate video files with matching timecode and sync, with the program video recorded onto a separate master video file. A DaVinci Resolve Project file is also saved and linked to the input video files, so live switching is converted into an edit timeline that can simply be clicked to open.
Reese explained, “We have two ATEM switchers that we use for different types of projects, and our workflow would not be possible without the ISO recordings and Resolve Project files. Our HD8 ISO lives in our studio and is the heart of our setup. It drives the multicam shoots for ‘Novel Chronicles’ and all of our project builds. We use all 8 inputs for cameras, and change the configuration based on whether we’re recording episodes or DIY tutorials.
“The ATEM SDI Extreme ISO is used for anything outside the studio. It lives in Penelope-02 and is simple to deploy for more complex on site setups. Everything is contained in one package, and it’s very portable.”
Historically with other cameras, Brooklyn Quarter would send display information to HDMI or SDI outputs into multiple capture cards on a PC, and then have to “frantically” check that they were all still recording onto their local SD cards after two or three hour sessions.
“‘Novel Chronicles’ is complicated to edit. But now after a shoot, an editor can open the DaVinci Resolve Project file and trim the timeline from the ISO inputs. The turnaround is in a fraction of the usual time. It’s glorious,” Beckmann said.
One of the biggest headaches that the new products have helped with is allowing them to fix the “nightmarish audio explosion of different hardware and cables.” With a built in Fairlight audio mixer, ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO makes it possible to do complex live sound mixing. The internal mixer features enough channels for all SDI inputs, as well as extra channels for the XLR, RCA and MADI inputs.
“Because we run eight cameras and five microphones for every ‘Novel Chronicles’ episode, the amount of cable runs increases logarithmically. If we are not careful, there will be cables everywhere. Literally, everywhere! A great feature of the HD8 ISO is the MADI input, allowing us to radically simplify our audio setup. We historically used a separate PC, soundcard, and ADAT to record the microphones in ISO within Reaper. Now with the ATEM Microphone Converters, we can connect all of the microphones into the ATEM with a single cable for built in sync,” Reese explained.
“I’ve used quite a few Blackmagic switchers, and I am most impressed that all the functionality present in the HD8 is built into the device. There aren’t secondary or tertiary rack units required. It’s one device, it does everything we need, and even records locally for networking accessibility,” Reese concluded.
Press Photography
Product photos of ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO, ATEM SDI Extreme ISO, ATEM Studio Converters, Studio Camera 6K Pro, DaVinci Resolve Studio, HyperDeck Studio HD Plus, Ultimatte 12 HD, ATEM Microphone Converter and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com