Already an Oscar winner for his work on Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, sound mixer Hammond Peek relied solely upon the HHB Portadrive to record the dramatic location sound on King Kong, on an often arduous shoot that lasted some nine months.
"Solid build, eight track flexibility and reliable hard disk recording made Portadrive the recorder of choice for King Kong," reports Stephen Buckland of HHB's New Zealand distributor Sound Techniques, himself an experienced sound mixer. "The Portadrive also excelled in trials to check compatibility with post-production workflow, a very important consideration for the production."
A massive worldwide TV audience for the Academy Awards show actually got to see the HHB Portadrive at work on King Kong in a VT clip that preceded the award.
"We're thrilled for Hammond and his team, and delighted that he chose to use the Portadrive on King Kong," comments HHB managing director Ian Jones. "Portadrive is designed to provide sound editors with the ultimate location sound recording tool and it's great to see the work of one of our customers recognized with the ultimate accolade."
With features including eight channel 24-bit/96kHz recording in industry-standard formats to a rugged, removable HD, ultra-high quality mic preamps and independent on-board mixers for recording, headphone monitoring and a separate director's mix, the Portadrive is widely hailed as the next generation in film sound recording technology, say the company.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
