Level Rises To The Challenge For Halo

Level Acoustic Design has risen up to take post production house Halo to new heights with the refurbishment of their film dubbing theatre including an upgrade to Dolby Atmos, giving the award-winning team an exciting and well-equipped, state-of–the-art creative space.

The theatre is one of only three cinema-scale audio mix rooms in central London. Level Acoustic Design gave the 105m2 audio theatre a new look. The project included the design of the speaker layout for Atmos, the fine tuning of the acoustics, and a re-design of the seating areas for editors, directors and clients.

An ambitious timeline of six weeks gave Level Acoustic Design just three weeks to carry out the construction before the start of the technical installation and commissioning.

Commenting on the daunting task, Level Acoustic Design's Managing Director Chris Walls said: "The project threw up a few challenges, the biggest being the timescale of the works. The profile of the studio ceiling also made it incredibly difficult to optimise the position of the 36 JBL surround speakers while maintaining the 6.8m wide screen due to the steep changes in angle and the areas with limited height, both of which caused potential clashes with the projection beam.

"In the end, we got around the problems by making some minor structural alterations which enabled us to get the speakers in the ideal locations while retaining the huge screen so it was a good result!"

Adjustments to the acoustic treatment were made to extend the critical mix area to cover the directors' seats and also the client seating area in front of the console.

Walls continued: "The new layout offers improved ergonomics and communication between engineers, editors and the director. The Atmos upgrade gave us the opportunity to reconfigure the back of the room so that the director can now sit within the critical mix area and improve the listening experience and communication with the engineers."

Halo's Head of Film Dave Turner added: "The enhancements we have made in Studio 1 really couldn't have come at a better time. Not only are we now ready to service forthcoming Atmos releases with the most technically up-to-date installation in town, but the improvements to the rear staging have significantly advanced the overall client experience."

Richard Addis Head of Audio Operations at Halo described Level Acoustics as "A safe pair of hands to help us achieve the very best sounding, best looking and most functional studio spaces".

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