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 Custom Sound and Projection Transforms Auditorium into World Premiere Showplace Starring Sean Penn, Kate Winslet and Jude Law, All the King’s Men is based upon the life and times of legendary Louisiana politician Huey P. Long. A lucky 1,500 guests were invited to the McAlister Auditorium at Tulane University in New Orleans to celebrate the movie premiere. In order to ensure a picture perfect presentation, Sony Pictures employed the services of Boston Light & Sound to transform the 65-year-old structure into a world premiere quality event showplace. Special event audio and projection challenges in New Orleans McAlister Auditorium posed numerous production challenges: The existing projection room and its outdated projection and sound installation were unusable; the ceiling is a large self-supported concrete dome, which caused sound intelligibility issues; and the side walls had no acoustical absorption. A rear mezzanine with low ceilings created problems with sound penetration and intelligibility. Side alcoves created live acoustical traps, and the stage lacked a rigging structure to hang necessities such as the screen and large sound system. Since the movie was shot largely in locations around New Orleans, it was important to all involved to stage the event so that the local community could participate. McAlister Auditorium was the only auditorium available for the premiere in all of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Because of the city’s importance to the production, and in an effort to bring further attention to the devastated region, Sony Pictures, the film’s cast, and director decided to move forward in spite of the technical problems with the room.
A unique theatre sound and projection system — including weather balloonsBL&S developed a creative plan to stage the event. They employed the services of the New Orleans Opera Company (itself without a home) to design and construct a temporary projection room in the rear of the mezzanine area. BL&S’s sound engineer Michael Rome designed an acoustical environment that would mitigate the hard side walls of the auditorium and make them more appropriate for film sound reproduction. BL&S designed a free standing ground support system from which to suspend the three-channel EVI Compact Line Array speaker system and a 17 x 40 ft screen. The team used more than 1,000 ft of ground supported truss black velour drape to deaden the reverberation of the side walls. Local area contractor Gulf Coast Sound, lead by its principal, Larry Habitz, provided the sound gear and truss system for the event. But what about the ceiling? Nothing could be attached to it or suspended from it. In addition, the team sought to preserve the architectural wonder of the space in keeping with the ambience of the event. The solution: BL&S strategically positioned large weather balloons around the space to break up the sound field created by the focus dome. Long part of BL&S President Chapin Cutler’s “bag of tricks,” the balloons proved to be a perfect fit. “As soon as the first balloon went up, we knew we had a workable solution,” said Cutler. “The acoustical problems of the dome just went away.” And, much to everyone’s satisfaction, the balloons looked like they belonged there. Concurrent digital and 35mm projection The premiere of All the King’s Men was a digital cinema presentation. The state-of-the-art digital cinema projector and content server were installed under BL&S’s supervision. For redundancy, a 35mm film system was installed to run in tandem as a live back up. The film sound was reproduced as a 5.1 Dolby stereo playback. Because of the pinpoint precision of the EVI XLc Line Array system, the audio levels were smooth and even from the front row to the rear seat. Every word of dialogue was clear and easily understood from every part of the auditorium. From start to finish, the set up, preparation, performances, and removal of this world premiere production took a single week. The results were spectacular. In an unprecedented move, film director Steve Zaillian thanked BL&S publicly from the stage for their expertise and effort in transforming the hall.  Request an Estimate  Download Client List
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