Crawford Communications, Inc. received top honor for three of its finalist entries at the recent 2000 Imaging Technology and Sound (ITS) International Monitor Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Crawford accepted awards for Best Original Scoring, Best Audio Mixing, and Best Editing.
Senior Sound Designer, Composer and Audio Mixing Artist, Greg Crawford was honored for original scoring in the short subjects category for his work on the “Great Parks” about America’s national parks, produced by JWM Productions of Tacoma Park, MD. Dave Wilson, Audio Mixing Artist and Sound Designer, took top honor for audio mixing in the on-air promotions category for his work on the “Xena: Warrior Princess” series, produced and syndicated by Tribune Broadcasting. Avid Editor, Jim Kenny captured the award for editing for his public service announcement, titled “No Violence,” produced by Latin American Pay Television. Crawford and BellSouth are coming up with some plans. Together, they are introducing a new uncompressed, switched video transport service for their broadcast quality video clients. Transferring from digital to video transport service, the service provides Crawford direct control of transport links that connect venues in Metro Atlanta. The switch, marketed by Crawford, has been designed to interconnect several video transmit and receive locations within the Atlanta area to a BellSouth central office-based video switch. Additional venues can be added in the future. Benefits of the change: direct costumer control for Crawford as well as the ability to arrange or switch sites at any time; it supports both single channel video with associated audio and mutlichannel video transport. Beyond growing their capabilities, Crawford is busy adapting to its new habitat. Crawford Audio is opening 10 new audio post rooms slated for full operation by press time. Five of the rooms will be equipped for 5.1 surround sound. Three new rooms in the new East Wing were designed and built by Acoustician, Tom Hidley. Called Audio A, Audio B, and Audio C, they were conceived as 5.1 post audio mixing rooms. Audio B and C, built in 650-square-foot-shell are aimed at 5.1 mixing for broadcast and home theatre audiences. Audio A is built in a 1,400-square-foot-shell and is designed for audiences and productions that are destined for playback in larger spaces, and features Kinoshita monitor speakers. For the new rooms, Crawford selected the Avant digital post mixing consoles by Solid State Logic to achieve an all digital infrastructure. With good track records backing them, two more Avants were purchased for the new facility. The Avants are on a hub router network that allows the three consoles to share all of Crawford Audio’s I/O resources, offering flexibility and cost-efficiency. Some of the productions targeted for these rooms are advertising, music videos, live concert videos, theatrical trailers, special venues, ballroom presentations, and corporate and museum theatres.