CUE-Support thought highly of quality and budget
Bex Communicatie in Eindhoven is a communications consultancy in the broadest sense of the word. Two years ago, the current Impact Academy was realized: a corridor with four studios equipped with all the facilities to help people with media and presentation training, storytelling and feedback training. CUE-Support helped set up the studios to best prepare trainees for difficult situations.
The Impact Academy consists of a long corridor that provides access to a radio studio, a TV studio, a theater and a webinar studio. “The studios are built to make sure that people can really practice in the environment they are actually going to end up in,” says Serge van Rooij of Bex Communications. “For example, do you need to address your employees soon? Then you come here on a stage and prepare that. Do you need to join a radio program? Then you come here in the radio studio. If you walk into the TV studio here, you think: this is where Jinek can be recorded.”
As Bex Communications developed the plans, the search began for a party to help with that. Someone in the network pointed to CUE-Support. Serge: “It was important to find someone who understood that we did not want to become a whole audiovisual center. We have to train, so the technology has to look real and the picture and sound quality has to be good. At the same time, it has to be simple so that our trainers who are not technicians can handle it.”
Large cameras
Serge explained his idea to Roger Creemers of CUE-Support, who then outlined a plan. “Roger understood very well that we need big cameras to make an impression. People are allowed a little scare, not to scare them, but purely because that’s what they will encounter later in the TV studios,” Serge explained. “Roger thought along fine with us in that regard. He understood that we didn’t need the newest of the latest. We watch footage back once or twice, but don’t broadcast. Then we looked at occasions together. That was very pleasant.”
Communication between spaces
Serge is especially pleased that careful consideration was given to what would really be used. “We were very well consulted about the functions of the studios and what we needed for it. If you don’t need it, why buy it? It was nice that CUE-Support didn’t try to sell us the most expensive options.”
The radio and TV studio are used for media training. The rooms are arranged so that they can also communicate with each other. This is especially useful for simulating crisis situations. Serge: “Then the crisis team of an organization sits in the TV studio and in the radio studio sit our people who play a role as a journalist, mayor, family of a victim, colleagues or whatever other role is needed to make the exercise scenario as realistic as possible. We can then watch in the radio studio what is happening in the TV studio. So we can better respond to the situation in the crisis team which benefits the simulation. So the fact that those two rooms are set up so that they can talk to each other gives us a lot of flexibility.”
Attention to detail
CUE-Support eventually helped set up the radio and TV studio, a multipurpose room and the theater. Extensive attention was also paid to details in all the rooms. For example, the theater space is small (25 seats), which is why there are special lights. Traditional theater lights would give off far too much heat, making it unworkable for the person on stage. Also, the camera is hidden in the back of the theater. That way, a person can look back at his performance, but the situation remains as close to reality as possible. Of course, when people give a presentation, there is normally no camera in front of them either.
Trust
The Impact Academy has now been in operation for two years. Bex Communications can still count on the support of Creemers and his team. “We hardly have any problems, but if we run into something it is solved over the phone or someone is here within a day. We can rely on them very much. CUE support is technically competent, fast and service-oriented.”
