Wireless Systems

Here is how this works in practice. Our team designs and delivers complete wireless system packages for shoots working across Belgrade and the wider region, drawing on a rental base that has matured with Serbia's fast-growing film-services industry. A production runs many wireless services at once, including radio microphones. IFB and IEM feeds, wireless intercom, audio hops and lens control, and our role is to plan all of them as a single set up range map rather than department by department.

Here is the short of it. We start with a RF survey of each location, identify clean frequencies, and allocate channels so that no two services interfere. For a large-scale shoot at PFI Studios near Simanovci, that means logging frequencies for sound. The camera department and the AD team, then supporting the plan through the shooting day with on-site RF tracking. Each wireless package is prepped and tested before delivery, with backup units staged for the services most key to the day. Where a production needs more wireless infrastructure than Belgrade inventory holds, we supplement from suppliers across the wider Balkan region.

Here is the breakdown. All RF range used by production wireless in Serbia is covered by RATEL. The Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services. Our planning works strictly within its allocations and any sign-ups its rules need for higher-power systems. The RF picture changes markedly across Serbian locations. Central Belgrade, set where the Sava meets the Danube below the Kalemegdan fortress, is a congested environment crowded with broadcast and mobile signals, so the survey before a shoot in the old town or the New Belgrade blocks is key.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. Remote locations such as the Djerdap gorge on the Danube and the mountains of Tara, Zlatibor and Kopaonik give cleaner range and simpler planning. Serbia's 25 to 30 per cent cash rebates, administered through the Film in Serbia programme of the Serbia Film Commission, makes hiring local wireless infrastructure and RF crew cost-good. As Serbia is not an EU member, any wireless gear brought in travels on an ATA carnet for short-term import.