Success Stories:
Berklee Overhaul Has Students Taping the Pros
By Rule Broadcast SystemsBerklee Overhaul Has Students Taping the Pros
By Erin Trahan
Every day Berklee College of Music students are practicing guitar, trying out new lyrics, or hearing legends like Quincy Jones talk about the heartbreak and satisfaction of making a career of music, so much so that the halls buzz with a palpable creative force. It’s a feeling that anyone would want to capture and take with them long into their adult lives. All this activity keeps associate director of video services Reggie Lofton recording as many as seven events a day.
From seasoned musical greats to burgeoning young artists with raw potential, Lofton relishes that the Berklee video program has “captured some amazing shots not found anywhere else.” Just this spring Berklee sophomore Justin Hughes co-directed “From the Block to Booth, the Evolution of Hip Hop”—a history lesson/performance that drew a crowd of 1000. Thanks to Berklee’s recent multi-camera upgrade, Hughes walked away with a DVD of the event that night.
Reggie Lofton is a one-man show with help from eager students wanting to learn video and sound skills tailored to recording live music performance. Lofton, a drummer after hours, has been head of video at Berklee since the early 80’s and has seen technology come and go.
The time had come (and gone) for an overhaul, since Berklee’s three-camera SVHS outfit was no longer meeting the production standards befitting a school of Berklee’s artistic scope. (It is the largest music college in the world, always on the forefront of training students to have music careers). Lofton started researching new technologies last fall, and like a moth to tungsten, found his way to the Sony traveling truck tour parked in Rule Broadcast’s lot.
A long-time Rule renter, Lofton thought the locale a coincidence until he learned that Rule was now an authorized Sony dealer, licensed and trained to sell the whole range of middle to high end professional Sony products—from DV to HD. The traveling Sony showcase highlighted many of the products Reggie was considering for his multi-camera performance center.
“I made one phone call,” Lofton explains when asked about how he chose Rule for this critical investment. Lofton confides that he knew Berklee would be taken care of up front and, more importantly, down the road. In his last two decades at Berklee, Lofton has relied on Rule’s rental equipment for bigger shows and when his older equipment needed a breather. “Rule maintains equipment to manufacturer specs. I can pull something out of my rack and take it to them and they can replace it or repair it right away. It’s a no-brainer.”
While Rule is known for its expertise with the moving electronic image, Berklee is, after all, a place where sound reigns. Did Rule meet Lofton’s expectations for integrating a cutting-edge sound system? Lofton admits that Tom Talbot paused when he started talking about audio requirements, not wanting to overstep any boundaries with respect to Berklee’s known expertise. But while Lofton had selected the major components he relied on Talbot to fill in the gaps. Additionally, Talbot came in with ideas about rack layout that allowed the engineer comfortable access to all the important controls, optimizing both quality and functionality.
Justin Hughes reports that the sound is “ten times better” than the old system, that the bass drum actually sounded like a bass. “Not like a little tick.” Lofton thrills at those moments of student appreciation. He knows that his crew receives highly specialized media training, likening their skills to the camera operators for Saturday Night Live’s music acts. Lofton is anxious for the day when performance videography is institutionalized as a credit-earning class at Berklee. It was part of his vision for the new equipment overhaul.
One major use of the Berklee media system is for distance learning. Lofton oversees the transmission of multiple courses and lectures that connect Boston-based students to musicians, record producers, composers, and others to Burbank, California and even Athens, Greece. “My crew sets up the gear, wires into the video-conferencing box and initiates the call,” he says. Recent hook-ups include two-way talks with pop singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb, jazz drummer Peter Erskine, and film composer Alf Klausen, whose session was broadcast from a scoring stage while he recorded a soundtrack to an episode of The Simpsons. Berklee is now working out the kinks to enable students to perform real-time with musicians halfway across the world.
According to David Mash, Berklee’s vice president of information technology, the upgraded digital system used by the video team is a significant step towards an integrated, more sophisticated means for connecting Berklee students to a higher quality education. “Within months we will be on a high speed internal network, so students can access these recorded events in the ensemble rooms, the media center, and even the dorms,” comments Mash. (Berklee students all have laptops with wireless capability). Not only does Berklee’s new system facilitate this access but also allows the events to be documented and archived for future or ongoing use.
Lofton has been almost giddy with the excitement of the new toys at work but, always an educator, it is his students that really light his fire. After Rule installed the new system and trained Lofton and his crew, Lofton started seeing the grins. “You could see them light up, realizing how easy it was. I just sat back and watched the students’ excitement about how much better things were going to be.”
