Brand New Flashmob scoops award for ‘Best Technical Execution of an outside broadcast'

9 March 2006: BBC Outside Broadcasts and BBC Classical Music has won an award for Brand New Flashmob Opera , which was recorded live at Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield in April last year, amidst hundreds of shoppers. It scoped up ‘Best Technical Execution of an outside broadcast' at the BBC's Radio & Music Awards 2006.  

A contemporary take on the classic story of Faust, it featured well known arias and choruses from popular operas, including music by Bizet, Handel, Mozart, Offenbach , Verdi and Wagner, as well as contemporary classics, sung by opera singers, local choirs (Cantamus and the Sheffield Teachers' Operatic Society), flashmobbers and flashdancers. The programme was broadcast live on BBC Three.

BBC Outside Broadcasts delivered stunning pictures and sound from an extremely difficult broadcast environment. The team had just hours to rig and rehearse. The shopping centre's activities continued as normal and cables could not be laid in any public space, so all cables had to be rigged through the roof girders.

BBC Outside Broadcasts used its Unit 2 multi-format production truck and MasterSound unit to capture Brand New Flashmob Opera . Ten cameras were used, including digital radio cameras, which were complex to operate as they depended on line of sight to deliver the pictures, which was very difficult to achieve with the production staged on different levels of the shopping centre with lots of people above and below.

Nicholas Kenyon, Controller BBC Proms, Live Events and TV Classical Music said, "It is great to have the brilliant technical expertise of this production recognised, in an event which kept the innovation of TV Classical Music up there with the best!"

Brand New Flashmob Opera follows in the footsteps of BBC Classical Music's Flashmob: The Opera , the first live multi-camera opera to be staged at one of Britain 's busiest railway stations during rush hour. Flashmob: The Opera scoped up two Royal Television Society (RTS) Craft and Design awards in November, for ‘ Lighting, Photography and Camera - Multicamera Work' and ‘Sound'

Coming soon is Manchester Passion – an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester , offering a contemporary re-telling of the biblical story of Easter. It is being captured by BBC Outside Broadcasts for BBC Classical Music and BBC Three and will feature pop stars from The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and songs by The Smiths and New Order.

Brand New Flashmob Opera Credits

Steve Chapman: Engineer Manager
Vincent Spooner: Camera Supervisor
Paul Cunliffe: Sound Supervisor
Colin Meaban: Comms Supervisor
John Roberts: Comms Supervisor
John Collins: Rigging Supervisor

Press

For further press information:
Georgie Hollett , PR & Communications Manager,
BBC Resources
Tel: +44 (0)20 8576 2250
Mobile : +44 (0) 783484 5612
Email : georgie.hollett@bbc.co.uk
www.bbcresources.com/ob