NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES, MARCH 15, 2011 – Renowned director and photographer Vincent Laforet, has relied on Anton/Bauer®, a brand of The Vitec Group and the world’s premier provider of batteries, chargers, lighting and other mobile power systems for the professional broadcast, video and film industries, for dozens of commercial and film shoots. He has turned to the company once again to power one of his latest projects, the final chapter of the “The Story Beyond the Still”, in collaboration with Canon, Vimeo and Grey New York, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received three Lions at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. “The Story Behind the Still” was the result of the first ever and largest user-generated HD video contest in history. To kick off the "The Story Beyond The Still Contest,” Laforet brought his interpretation of a still image to life, which served as the first installment of a seven chapter collaborative work in which each participant was asked to interpret the previous winning final still image to start their vision for the subsequent chapter. The final chapter was created by Laforet and all the chapter winners.
Laforet’s extensive portfolio includes many noteworthy achievements, including a Pulitzer Prize for his post-invasion coverage of Afghanistan in the New York Times and his video “Reverie,” the first 1080p short film photographed with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR camera, which went viral and garnered more than 10 million hits online. Throughout his illustrious career, Laforet has come to rely exclusively on Anton/Bauer. Today, he chooses to use Anton/Bauer’s DIONIC HC batteries and CINE VCLX power system because of their versatility, dependability and overall lasting performance.
“Anton/Bauer is the leader in the business, which I learned early on in my career,” explains Laforet. “Any time I go on a large production shoot, all the cameras and monitors run off Anton/Bauer batteries. They are the de facto way to go.” Anton/Bauer designs its batteries to be the most durable, dependable and reliable in the world, key factors for Laforet in choosing his equipment.
“People take batteries for granted until they stop working, so it is really important to pick a brand that you trust,” he continues. “Anton/Bauer powers pretty much everything on our set, including our Canon 5D and 7D cameras, our Marshall monitors and our Litepanels lights. On top of their flexibility, the batteries give two really accurate readouts. One is the power readout, and the other is the battery life readout, which tells you how much battery life is left at your current draw of power. So, you can power down a few things on your camera to squeeze out that last bit of battery life at the end of a shoot if you need to. Anyone behind a camera knows how crucial this can be.”
The DIONIC HC delivers up to 10 amps for high current draw applications, including on-camera lighting. With a 91-watt per hour capacity, it can operate a 40-watt HD camcorder for over two hours. The newly designed, built-in LCD real-time fuel gauge tracks up to five hours of run time. Using a seven-segment numerical icon display, it indicates hours by number and circular arcs illustrate 15-minute time intervals. The CINE VCLX power system provides ultimate power performance, extended run-times and flexibility, ideal for remote locations, the safe and high power draw performance of the Nickel Metal Hydride cell technology can also power microwaves, recorders and lighting.”
Anton/Bauer prides itself on the versatility of its products, which further underscored Laforet’s decision. Before he began using the DIONIC HC and CINE VCLX, he used to lug a variety of different batteries and chargers to his shoots. “We used to bring a huge case of chargers with us to each shoot,” Laforet continues. “We had all these different wires and power strips running all over the place. With that much going on at once, sooner or later you’re going to forget to charge a battery, and that’s going to lead to problems.” Now, the DIONIC HC and CINE VCLX are Laforet’s exclusive power options when heading out on location for a shoot. “We’ve completely streamlined our operations,” he says. “We only bring one charger to the set now. We have six DIONIC HC’s and we power one or two camera rigs for full-day shoots, sometimes up to 18 hours, without a problem. We use our CINE VCLX to power our Kensington Laboratories Gyro Stabilization system for aerial photography, as well as for our Marshall Monitors for on set viewing.”
“I haven’t had any problems to date with Anton/Bauer equipment,” he adds. “It works really well and everything is built to last. I haven’t even needed customer support, though they have been incredibly responsive with any requests I’ve had.”
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About Anton/Bauer
Anton/Bauer is recognized as the world’s innovator and premier provider of batteries, chargers, lighting and other key mobile power systems for the professional broadcast, video and film industries. Based in the United States in Shelton, CT with offices in Europe and Asia, Anton/Bauer was established in 1970 and has expanded its product offerings to include many signature lines such as its leading Gold Mount® system, InterActive® chargers and Logic Series® batteries such as the HyTRON® 50, 100 and 140, and DIONIC® 90, 160, HC and HCX. Their products are compatible with virtually every camera brand on the market today. Other Anton/Bauer high performance products include the Ultralight®, ElipZ®, ElightZ®, CINE VCLX and CINE VCLX/2. Their superior-quality products have become an industry standard. For more information on Anton/Bauer, visit www.antonbauer.com.
A Snapshot of The Vitec Group
Vitec is an international Group principally serving customers in the broadcast, photographic and military, aerospace and government (MAG) markets. Listed on the London Stock Exchange with 2009 revenue of £315 million, Vitec is based on strong, well known, premium brands on which its customers worldwide rely. Vitec is organised in three divisions: Imaging & Staging, Videocom and Services. Imaging & Staging designs, manufactures and distributes equipment and accessories for photography, video and events. Videocom designs and distributes systems and products used in broadcasting and live entertainment, film and video production and MAG. Services provides equipment rental, workflow design and technical support for camera, video, audio, fibre optic and wireless technology used by TV production teams and film crews. More information can be found at www.vitecgroup.com.
