I was amazed with the audio of the Royal wedding! Everything was clear and crisp. I wondered how they got a mic on the bride? Was it hidden in her hair? Or in her dress? It was absolutely invisible! I also noticed there were no photographers/videographers running around anywhere... truly professionally done.

And I'm not seeing any so called "cinematic" techniques :-)
Just honest to goodness tv coverage executed to the highest standards. Live as well!
Everyone doing weddings should watch it.
Not exactly short of manpower or gear admittedly but it's a reminder of what we might be expected to try to achieve.

I saw just one young female photog jump into the front seat of the car as the bride got in and after that absolutely not a photog or video camera in sight!!

The BBC did a pretty good job of keeping their multiple cameras out of sight too...I expected to see a camera setup in the wide shots but didn't see any.

Yep, documentary style as it happens is still the most faithful recreation of events.

Even during the exit from the Abbey you never even saw a single flash!!! I would have thought that a great deal of audio thought must have gone into the mic and mixing setup for the ceremony too...what was amazing was there was little or no echo so what the guests heard was different to what the cameras were recording. No reason a tiny lav wouldn't be concealed somewhere on the couple .I don't think the BBC are short on technology and gear!!!

Chris

However, highly unlikely they'd radio mic a royal couple.

I saw a few canon stills camera's but they would be for stills, a good friend of mine was on one camera for the BBC in the abbey but sadly my own booking to give additional coverage for foreign media was cancelled at the start of the week.

No radio mic's on the couple and their vows were probably just picked up on the ministers two radio mic's.

A few articles on the sound system in Westminster Abbey


FEATURE: Westminster Abbey's sound system (http://www.audioprointernational.com/features/259/FEATURE-Westminster-Abbeys-sound-system)
Yamaha Gear On-Site for Royal Wedding (http://www.prosoundnews.com/article/36230)
Case Study Westminster Abbey (http://www.fast-and-wide.com/wideangle/1334-case-study-westminster-abbey)

However, highly unlikely they'd radio mic a royal couple.

I have, more than once... Not on their wedding day though:)

However, highly unlikely they'd radio mic a royal couple.

Then I wonder how did they do it? I've been putting separate radio mics on both minister and groom for many years now. During my vows, even when my couple is standing close together, I can tell that my bride doesn't have a mic. When comparing my bride's vows to the groom's, the bride always sounds a tad more distant, as expected. My bride's audio is good, but not great like how Kate's was. It definitely sounded like her mic was near her throat or neck.

I think that whole event is underrated. That would be one long end video to edit! AHAHA!

I saw a mic attached to a piece of black wrought iron on the bride's side, even saw the wire running down the side. It was clear it wasn't meant to be seen, I'm sure they had the best small mics hidden in several places.

How can anyone who shoots wedding video for a living not find the whole affair interesting? Oh well, I did. The bride took what, 4 minutes to walk down the aisle? I'm coaching my brides from now on to slow down. Working class girls practically run down the aisle, which is not good.

On the highlights you could hear the sound guy pushing the radio mic channels up for each of the replies, the minister had one on each lapel and it sounded like those that were being faded up more for each reply.

There may have mic's elsewhere but I didn't see them or the may have been a mic suspended above and that was being faded in as required.

Then I wonder how did they do it? I've been putting separate radio mics on both minister and groom for many years now.

Protocol wouldn't allow it. Also. the rest room audio would down extremely well, a sound recordist I know still gets reminded by audio guys about the tape he did of a UK cabinet minster relieving himself.

You can hear the acoustic quality change between the minster and their quickly faded up replies.

If you can find a larger version of this shot, it is behind William that I saw the mic and cord, not behind Kate, I was mistaken. I was watching it on 1080p tv when I noticed it, even then it was hard to make out.

Hi all,
I had a chance to be there at 6am, and I was amazed at how many people already was there! The whole atmosphere was amazing! Unfortunatly I had to go to work which is just 3 minutes from Abbey where they held ceremony....but I managed to take some photos of that morning....


It's here: Royal Wedding. 6am. How it was... - a set on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/youmyworld/sets/72157626607928222/)

Wedding Videos London | Wedding Videos Essex | Wedding Videos Surrey from YouMyWorld Productions (http://www.youmyworld.co.uk)

I'm a hobbyest so my view of THE wedding may be from a different angle from the professionals.

Well, maybe last night wasn't "the" wedding because everybody compared it to Princess Diana's, but it was certainly "THE" wedding for the past few decades. We were up sometime around 2am (Pacific Coast Time) to start watching it. My wife was looking at hats, dresses, etc., and I was looking at the video. There were lots of camera angles but, like what was mentioned previously, I never once saw a cameraman or camera. There must have been a lot of remote-controlled cameras.

For live coverage it was extremely well done. Everything from zooms to no zooms, the transitions some of which were fades and some not, audio doing a good job of blocking the overhead helicopter noise, color balance, you name it. We were watching NBC and I don't know how much of this was a data feed from, say, a video contractor, or how much was NBC, but it was very well put together.

When I think about the time I take to edit my videos, selecting the clips and where to cut them for the transitions, etc., and then compare my effort to this live broadcast, all I can say is WoW! Those guys did a fantastic job.

Obviously someone had a storyboard done well in advance. Among the highlights were THE Dress and THE Kiss, or rather kisses. Frankly, my opinion, THE Kiss was not very good from an acting standpoint and I could have done much better myself, and I don't mean the video part either! My wife tells me that royals don't kiss in public so that probably has something to do with it.

One only has to watch a football game to understand this is what broadcast companies do regularly, and do best: huge productions. This was nothing short of a military type operation I'm sure. Crews involved hundreds of people who are the best in the world at major events. Billions of people tuned in, so clearly millions were spent in capturing the event. Trucks with crews hidden, sattelite trucks, audio teams, the long shots from a mile away with cameras that probably cost, what? $300K? $500K? I couldn't even begin to guess, that level is so far beyond my experience.

Anyone know what kind of cameras might have been used outdoors? Indoors? I would find it really interesting.

An inside look at the broadcasting of this event would be awesome and an excellent case study.

This does not directly answer your questions but if you look at both the left and right areas of this ultra high definition picture composite (taken just outside Buck Palace) you can see the temporary green structures housing some of the World's TV media etc. You may need to zoom out first to get your bearings. Extreme zooming shows some interesting details in various parts of the picture!

BBC News - Royal wedding: Spot yourself in our hi-def crowd picture (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13200114)

To quote the BBC website: "This high-definition, 1.15-gigapixel picture, is a composite of 189 images. The full picture measures 81,471 pixels by 14,154 pixels. The field of view covers 200 degrees."

Andy, great link, thanks. Amazing.

I really liked the camera work. Many of the shots were dynamic'; that is the camera was moving. I really like glacier zooms and slow pans and tilts where the motion deaccelerates at the end of the move so slowly that you aren't even sure exactly when the motion stopped. I would love a behind the scenes look at the equipment and methods used for something like this.

Anyone know what kind of cameras might have been used outdoors? Indoors? I would find it really interesting.
.

Here's a pretty standard camera on UK outside broadcast units.
http://www.gearhousebroadcast.com/i/ldk6000_ds.pdf

I totally agree: I really liked the camera work. Many of the shots were dynamic'; that is the camera was moving. I really like glacier zooms and slow pans and tilts where the motion deaccelerates at the end of the move so slowly that you aren't even sure exactly when the motion stopped. I would love a behind the scenes look at the equipment and methods used for something like this.

Wouldn't it be great if they would make a movie or video about how they did the coverage? This has to be one of the major video coverages of the decade, or more.

Planning - when did they start, what was their organization?
Storyboard - taking the timeline or schedule and putting the storyboard together. Obviously all, or almost all, of the shots were pre-planned.

Audio - how did they do this? What did they do?

Feeds - what did they do, and how?

Editing - totally mind boggling! and on the fly, Live!

Someone could write a book about this and insert a DVD.
Good job for a few PhD students - they could put together a small team to do this in sections.

This coverage was over the top, absolutely Awesome. I told my wife that Hollywood or Disney couldn't have done any better if they had a year to make a movie using a story.

I liked the horse drawn carriages and I think the overcast helped with the colors. The cathedral shots were awesome. There was one clip that featured a tall arch that went to a pointed top and it seged into another shot that also had a similar arch, that was neat. One shot I remembered was of the newlyweds kissing on the balcony and the little girl grimacing and holding her hands over her ears.

Heard an estimate for the wedding at 40 million pounds. I would imagine the media helped to fund a lot of the coverage themselves.

Interesting to find out if you experienced commercial advertising during the Live Broadcast?

Here in the UK, along with the BBC, which does not carry any advertising within the UK, a condition of the UK Commercial TV Companies showing the Royal Wedding was that no advertising at all was to be shown during the event, which cost these companies over £8m in lost advertising revenue during that day.

I'm not sure exactly what arrangement regarding coverage was made between the TV Channels, but I would expect that the BBC, with its Royal Charter, would at least be leading the coverage of the actual event if not providing all of that seen on every channel.

Basically the Royal Family will not allow any commercial activities which use the Crown for financial gain.

So did you see adverts outside the UK on NBC etc?

The BBC DVD is apparently available from Monday...

The most important piece of learning for our clients is that the official photographer, Mario Testino, was only involved in the formals at Buckingham Palace and a guest who's a close friend of the Middletons and a photographer took pictures of the evening party for them not publication. Apart from that the entire recording was a VIDEO - a fact our business should shout about.

No photographer walking backwards down the aisle, no idiocy with the ushers and their hats, no holding hands round the trees in St James' Park - a real 21st century wedding. All the stills photographers as out of sight as the TV cameras - where they should be given the capability of their equipment. Like Chris, I noticed the girl photographer at the Goring Hotel but my guess she was employed by the dress designer.

As others have noted, with the notable exceptions of the pairs of omni sub-miniature mics on the two celebrants (wouldn't the silver versions have been even less conspicuous than black?) and the single one on the Bishop of London who gave the homily and the reader (plus a short stick in front of each) the cameras and mics were well placed to avoid revealing the means of production.. No steadicams or sliders but any number of cobras; genuine fly on the wall production done to perfection. Incidentally, a previous poster commented about no echo - that might have been because, according to one person present in the congregation, there was no PA within the Abbey.

As often happens here the main feed was reportedly from the BBC with additional cameras from ITV and Sky where they could justify them. Interestingly, the newspaper reviews considered that Sky had the best pictures whilst the commentaries were rated as universally awful catering for the X-factor conditioned audience with ITV marginally less awful than the other two.

Overall, let's celebrate this as a wonderful advertisement for our products.

Hi Wayne,
Interesting to find out if you experienced commercial advertising during the Live Broadcast?

Here in the UK, along with the BBC, which does not carry any advertising within the UK, a condition of the UK Commercial TV Companies showing the Royal Wedding was that no advertising at all was to be shown during the event, which cost these companies over £8m in lost advertising revenue during that day.

So did you see adverts outside the UK on NBC etc?..


To answer your question, we were up somewhere around 2am or 3am Pacific Coast Time (my wife set the alarm clocks and I was too groggy to know anything except the darn lights went on) and we started watching THE Wedding. What I remember were a number of black highly polished cars for quite some time so this was pretty early on. We stayed up until shortly before THE Kiss but couldn't stay away any longer. This had to have been some where near two hours and there was never an advertisement that I can remember.

However, the next day there were some repeats with highlights. Oprah (I think) had a fairly long segment and I don't think there were any advertisements during that period. In the evening there was another program with wedding highlight coverage that did have some commercial breaks, around 8 to 9pm, but I don't remember what channel it was.

The wedding production was absolutely fantastic.

This is the OB company who covered the abbey.
NEP Visions - Outside Broadcasting, Staines, UK (http://www.visions-ob.com/index.php)

Some idea of the size of the operation
TV's royal wedding nerves | Media | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/04/royal-wedding-television-prince-william-kate-middleton)

I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC or ITV bring out a making of documentary.

This is the OB company who covered the abbey.
NEP Visions - Outside Broadcasting, Staines, UK (http://www.visions-ob.com/index.php)

Some idea of the size of the operation
TV's royal wedding nerves | Media | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/04/royal-wedding-television-prince-william-kate-middleton)

I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC or ITV bring out a making of documentary.

If indeed that was the case Brian, NEP (North East Productions - Pittsburgh) who came into the UK a few years back by purchasing/merging Visions, were early advocates of Calrec audio consoles in the late 1990s originally purchased for their sports trucks - analogue S2 and Q2. Calrec then went on to dominate the truck business and other broadcast areas in the US.

Why? One principal reason was their 30mm fader pitching which meant you could get many more "analogue or VCA fader channels" across the operational width of the truck. Also a mixer can get a bunch more channels in the finger spread compared to 40mm pitching. And of course, Calrec's reputation for sonic quality and reliabilty in broadcast.

So for the audio interest, it's very likely for the Wedding if NEP were involved they were using the Sigma or Alpha series digital audio consoles (or whatever they are calling the newest spin off). Just a hunch...

:)

Yes, you need to squeeze the last millimetre in those units. The scanners (UK term for the OB control truck - it's a term left over from WW2 radar units) are jammed with kit, even with the extending walls.

All the visions trucks i have used in the past (scanners, haven't heard that phrase for ages) use calrec console, I was parked next to them two weeks ago at the UEFA champions league match at Spurs but didn't have a chance to spy inside, but as calrec are about the only OB custom desk manufacturer I suspect all the big trucks out there use their desks.

Yes, scanner is very BBC, but still used, Visions use the term when describing their trucks. The Beeb have their own language at times, although perhaps less these days. Not sure if they still use the term CSO (Colour Separation Overlay) instead of Chroma Key, I haven't been working in one of their TV studios for years.

I was amazed with the audio of the Royal wedding! Everything was clear and crisp. I wondered how they got a mic on the bride?

No mic on the bride or groom and the audio level lifts for Kate's responses was clearly audible. I'm pleased to see the BBC face the same problems I do, and use the same corrective techniques.

Hmm typical British OBV's.. Huge production areas in them.. Never really understood that fascination, we usually have production seperatly so the director doesn't get disturbed.

Where I work we use Studer as audio consoles btw :)

No mic on the bride or groom and the audio level lifts for Kate's responses was clearly audible. I'm pleased to see the BBC face the same problems I do, and use the same corrective techniques.

I wonder if the learning that can be drawn from this broadcast can put into context the endless "arguments" in this and other forums about shoving recorders into the groom's pockets and the merits/de-merits of guns v lavaliers mic etc etc?

Of course I realise that our clients' weddings aren't on the same scale but the example (and, as Tom writes, the "endorsement" that broadcasters use the same solutions as we do) should stand as just that in many respects not just audio.

Equally, few if any of us will be able to afford to equip to the standard or complexity of the broadcasters nor will the alternatives be without merit in particular circumstances eg we still prefer boundary layer mics for the breakfast speeches, but as a guide to principles it should be a great help for the newcomer.

Incidentally, may I correct an earlier post; I was misinformed about the official photographer. I'd read it was Mario Testino but I now learn it was Hugo Burnand. My apologies for the misinformation.