Sony Pictures Releasing (UK), the films distributors hired event specialists Andy Peat Associates to manage the auditorium transformation and Nibbs Events to produce the 'Red Carpet', press and VIP arrivals on the South Steps. These two companies, who worked together successfully on the previous Bond films Die Another Day and Skyfall (that also had their World and Royal premieres at the Royal Albert Hall) had a very tight time frame in which to work, given the fact that Bob Dylan performed in the Hall the night before.
Technical director Andy Peat explained, "The film's producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Brocolli are very clear and precise in what they want so we all know exactly what's expected of us."
Inevitably this was more than just installing projectors and a screen. "The screen was 20m wide by 8.9m high, a 2:39 'scope ratio. A high gain Perlux 140 perforated screen was commissioned and custom built by Harkness at their factory in France especially for the premiere. An air conditioned booth in Grand Tier Boxes 21 / 22 & 23 was built to house the projection & playback systems. Primary projection was from a pair of Sony SRX-R320 projectors with a DoReMi IMB and Showvault to run the film in 4K. "The picture quality was simply stunning," concluded Peat.
"It's not until you get into the realms of sound reproduction that thing become a little trickier. Britannia Row Productions provided the audio infrastructure for us and there is history here. We've worked together on all the premieres I've done at the Hall and all with the sadly missed Derrick Zieba. It was he and Britannia Row's Bryan Grant that came up with the audio designs for the ideal 5:1 and 7:1 systems for this auditorium and refined them over the years. Bryan Grant suggested Colin Pink as the ideal man to fill Derrick's shoes and so it proved; he and Richard Sharratt, who he brought in to engineer the system, did a really great job."
The system comprised L'Acoustics K1 and K2 hung L/C/R upstage of the screen, with a large contingent of L'Acoustics coaxial MTD 108P for surround sound distributed throughout the auditorium.
"Of course the film is not recorded in 7:1," says Pink. "That sound track is created by, in this instance, sound director Scott Millan. He and the film's sound editor Per Hallberg (seven Oscars between them) came down to the RAH mid-morning to check how we had the system set-up and how it sounded. With my background in the theatre (Pink worked at the National for ten years) I always set up in rehearsal not to make it sound good, rather I try and anticipate what will happen with a full auditorium."
(Jim Evans)
