PMC At Pinewood Post
PMC IB2S & Wafer Monitors Play Critical Role In Pinewood’s New Dubbing Theatres


The post-production division at the world-famous Pinewood Studios, London, is one of the major players in the UK post industry re-equipping its dubbing theatres with PMC monitoring. Two 7.1 PMC systems were sold to Pinewood´s post division last year, each comprising three IB2S monitors to cover the Left, Centre and Right channels, and two pairs of PMC´s slim-line Wafer1 speakers for the Rear surround channels. One of the 7.1 systems has been up and running in Pinewood´s Theatre 3 since late Autumn last year, and the other will shortly be installed in Pinewood´s Theatre 5, currently under construction.

The new PMCs were installed as part of a programme of major upgrades that have been taking place at Pinewood over the last three years. As Dennis Weinrich — Managing Director of Pinewood Film & TV Post Production — explains, the changes have altered the mix of post-production work passing through the studios. "We´re doing a very different type of work here than what we were doing even three or four years ago: a lot more TV work, for example, and we´ve also started a foreign-language versioning service.
"As a result of these changes, Theatre 3 is now our main TV mix room, and when we were looking at what monitors to upgrade to, we wanted to find speakers that were not only pleasing to listen to, but which also fit the acoustic profile of the room. The IB2S also had the same balance at lower listening levels as it did at higher levels. In our film studios, sometimes you only think about what the speaker can do at +85dB — but in this theatre, where we´re often thinking about TV, you need to make sure that your speakers are performing honestly at every level. We didn´t want speakers that would flatter at a high level of operation and be less forgiving at a lower level. That is why the PMCs seemed to work for us: at every listening level, there was a consistent satisfaction to what we were hearing."
For Pinewood post-production mix engineer Andy Hagon, the PMCs have improved Theatre 3 at Pinewood considerably. "Our previous speakers were very film-orientated, and weren´t really up to the kind of brash soundtracks you get with TV light entertainment, for example, or some foreign-language pictures. The PMCs are big and loud enough to handle anything we can throw at them at full theatrical level, but they´re detailed enough for the smaller work, too.
"They´re also honest monitors. When you finally hit that sweet spot with them, you know you´ve got it right — and we never got that with our old speakers."
"The speakers that you have in control rooms are not the speakers you´d have at home," concurs Dennis Weinrich, "and here, we need a response that’s honest, not flattering. There were times when we listened to the PMCs and they sounded bad — but each time that happened, it turned out that there were problems with the mixes we were listening to that needed to be fixed. We don’t want to be lied to — and that´s why we went with PMC."