studio 7B

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived at the world’s doorstep, Lux Aeterna and all of our touring and staff partners were definitely concerned about what to do next. After a couple months of weathering the storm and standing by for our clients to potentially resume their plans for the year, we got restless along with our friends at MS Events. The result was a complete overhaul of our office and warehouse facility into a turn-key streaming and pre-record studio for corporate productions, panels, as well as concerted events on a variety of platforms. We called it Studio 7B after our building name. It gained so much traction that it was our primary source of work for a year+, before live events started to build up again, and installs began for us. 

Because of the list of demands emerging for artists in the post-venue economy, we outfitted a permanent infrastructure of video wall, overhead flown lighting grid with swapable fixtures, audio monitoring and broadcast mixing, as well as a full arsenal of cameras and video mixing equipment for live line-cuts and iso record capture. Drawing on the Lux Aeterna and MSEP’s knowledge, we ran hundreds of pounds of cable throughout the walls and roof of the building to provide video, audio, and communication throughout the production studio. We also built out a fully functional Production Control Room, to isolate Technical Director’s with broadcast Audio Engineers along with client overseers, designers and directors. 

The main soundstage for the studio has 14’ clearance, giving us lots of options for hanging the grid and augmenting otherwise. We installed two 12’ x 40’ blackout 16 oz commando cloth curtains on track that flank the video wall and painted the entirety of the floor black to give us a sleeker stage look overall. 

For the crew members, each department had a designated zone to keep with pandemic safety protocols, and latitude to augment the offerings of the production. Lighting department’s GrandMA 3 was seated directly next to the Lux Aeterna server running video, and we had room to sequester a monitor engineer in their own offstage world to provide mixes/mix minuses for site audio monitoring, which was distributed to the PCR, the green rooms, our offices, and the studio itself for operators and directors alike. 

The build out of Studio 7B opened up a lot of familiar work to come through, but it was also a great learning experience for us to get more broadcast-oriented skillsets. Along with this, we got to learn with the rest of the world how streaming platforms would play a critical role in our work and the future of live events. Our studio brought us musical performances from Smokepurpp, Miguel, Kingstarlight, Kamasi Washington, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, and more, but it also allowed us to interface familiar stage-focused productions directly with Youtube, Twitch, Flymachine, Cadenza, and more.