A new postproduction theatre at New York City’s Digital Arts studio is home to a 7.1-channel Meyer Sound cinema monitoring system – which has alreadt seen action on Woody Allen’s forthcoming film Blue Jasmine, and the recent HBO movie, Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream.
Digital Arts provides production/postproduction services for digital cinema, television and other media industries. In addition, the facility has two shooting stages and provides 4K and 2K Digital Intermediate colour grading and finishing, and DCP mastering.
‘With our new mix stage, we decided to take everything to the next level and redefine industry standards with meticulous attention to detail,’ says company founder, Axel Ericson. ‘We’ve put a lot of focus into the design and architecture, and created a luxurious modern oasis in a sky-lit penthouse with best-in-class equipment.’
The monitoring system in the 30-seat mixing room comprises three Acheron Studio screen channel loudspeakers, three X-800C cinema subwoofers and 12 HMS-10 cinema surround loudspeakers. A Galileo loudspeaker management system with two Galileo 408 processors provides system optimisation.
‘We’ve had several well-known film editors and mixers come in to assess the theatre’s capabilities – a practice that we encourage,’ Ericson sreports. ‘We keep hearing how great the room sounds on everything from soft dialog to explosive action effects.’
According to Ericson, the contrast of the mixes in different films highlights the Meyer Sound system’s accuracy and linearity: ‘The system easily handled the big sound for concert segments in Beyoncé’s HBO movie, but it also accurately carried the subtle intimacy of Blue Jasmine,’ he says. ‘In fact, before Woody Allen decided to mix here, his long-time legendary mixer, Lee Dichter, came in and played some of his old mixes. He noticed the clarity of the dialogue, and a big smile spread across his face the second he heard the system.’
Digital Arts also provided dual 32-channel Avid Icon D-Control ES consoles linked to four Avid Pro Tools HDX2 systems with satellite options and 512 channels of Madi I/O.
‘We focus on the future and set the quality bar high,’ Ericson adds. ‘Meyer Sound has given us tremendous support and is playing a huge part in the results we’re able to achieve.’
More: www.meyersound.com
