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BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 8 POST APRIL 2016 MINNETONKA EXPANDS SURCODE & AUDIOTOOLS MINNETONKA, MN — Minnetonka Audio (www.minnetonkaaudio.com) will be featuring and demonstrating its latest digital audio software solutions at the 2016 NAB show, including SurCode Dolby Digital Plus for Avid and SurCode Dolby E for Adobe Premiere Pro CC. The company's SurCode for Dolby Digital Plus Encoder and Decoder is a solution to bring Dolby Digital Plus to the Avid platform. SurCode for Dolby Digital Plus enables encoding and decoding of Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital audio files. The plug-in is available as an iLok protected 32-/64-bit AAX realtime or AudioSuite plug-in for Pro Tools 10.3.6 or higher and Media Composer Family 8.1 or higher. The SurCode Dolby E Encoder and Decoder works with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. SurCode allows for files to be encoded and decoded directly within Premiere Pro CC. The iLok protected VST decoder can be instantiated as a realtime confidence monitor, and used for faster than realtime export. The encoder is available as a WIBU protected export plug-in in the Adobe Media Encoder export engine. SurCode for Dolby E Encoder and Decoder for Adobe Premiere Pro CC is included at no additional charge in the SurCode for Dolby E Bundle and Master Suite. [For more NAB Products news, turn to page 42.] PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF NEW YORK MERGES SYMPHONIC WITH 4K VISUALS NEW YORK — The Philharmonia Orchestra of New York (PONY) (www.nyphil harmonia.com) debuted its season at Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall last month, bringing together a unique blend of visuals with two symphonies of Mahler and Berlioz in a pair of concerts under princi- pal conductor Atsushi Yamada. The first, which was performed on March 29th, brought together the most performers ever assembled onstage at Rose Theater for Mahler's Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" with PONY's 80-plus musicians and a chorus of 230 Japanese and American singers. The second, on March 30th, fea- tured Berlioz's tour-de-force Symphony Fantastique and a performance of Minoru Miki's Requiem for chorus, vocal soloists and piano. PONY played each symphony accompanied by a full-length original film shot and projected in 4K, created by international stage director and video designer Joachim Schamberger. "We're trying to destroy the stuffy classical concert traditions that can make this wonderful music inaccessible to new audiences," says Atsushi Yamada, who conducted regularly at the New York City Opera during the 2000s. "We're break- ing classical music taboos and bringing innovations from the world of film and popular music to add excitement, while staying true to the integrity of the music with exceptional playing by some of the world's finest musicians." "Striking visuals have been part of the PONY experience from the beginning," says David Titcomb, co-founder and orchestra manager of PONY. PONY had commissioned Schamberger to create full-length films to accom- pany the Mahler and Berlioz symphonies projected on a massive screen and pro- jection towers (two new Christie Boxer 4K30, 30,000 lumens projectors). Shot by Schamberger himself on a Canon EOS-1D C camera, saying, "It's one of the only DSLRs that shoots 4K," with additional support footage captured on GoPros and a DJI drone, the films draw imagery from the composers' personal lives and the stories and themes explored in their symphonies. Six Panasonic HD PTZ cameras also scanned the orchestra and projected live images of the musicians on the screen, drawing the audience close to their intensity and athleticism. "We're taking the kind of information a concert-goer would typically read in a printed program and expressing it in a grand visual way on the big screen," says Schamberger, who has designed video for over 30 original productions in the Americas, Europe and Asia using digital film, 3D animation and projection map- ping. "My goal with the visuals is to enhance the experience and suggest a story, while leaving enough room for the audience's own imagination to respond to the musical storytelling of the orchestra and chorus." For Mahler's symphony, Schamberger's film reflects on the theme of resurrec- tion, taking the audience to locations of Mahler's own life from the small hut on an alpine lake where he composed the work through natural vistas, all the way to the composer's final resting place in Vienna. The film accompanying Berlioz's symphonic hallucination has a stronger narrative thrust as it tells the story of the composer's infatuation with famed Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, for whom he wrote the symphony. Audiences followed Harriet in a story of obsession and unrequited love, which comes to life onscreen. According to Schamberger, "We started using 4K footage because of the qual- ity, plus it helps us project the images on a large scale, with more detail." Schamberger completed all of the post himself with Final Cut Pro and a mix of Photoshop, Maya and Daz Studio for graphics, animation and 3D work. "The challenge and fun really is that it needs to be done very tastefully, with the timing of the music and the theme of the music so that the visuals don't overpower the music but, rather, really go very much with it," said Schamberger just prior to the performances. "The idea is to create visuals that pull the audience into this world, but also leave them with enough space so they can put their own fantasy and imagination into those parameters."