I am President and CEO of Leader Cinema Systems America
We are a luxury organization in our 76th year of operation, specializing in Meta-Luxury private cinemas and screening rooms for UHNW individuals, their families, and entertainment industry professionals. From our founding in London England in 1947, our base of operations is located in Vancouver Canada, and Beverly Hills California.
Markets: International
I am an Emmy Award Winner for my work with NBC Television Network New York. While working with Electro-Voice in Buchanan MI, I became a consultant to NBC for the early stereo Late Night With David Letterman shows. While working with BBC Television in London at the BBC Television Center, during the mid-1970s our extensive tests and broadcasts in stereo sound for television enabled my background experiences to play a pivotal role in enhancing the Letterman shows.
I design and engineer world-class recording studios, Meta-Luxury opulent digital cinemas, and screening rooms for industry professionals and our unique international private clients.
My clients include: ISOLAR New York the management company to the late David Bowie | BOEING Aircraft Seattle | Walt Disney Studios Burbank | Carolco Pictures "Terminator 2" | NBC TV New York | National Symphony Orchestra | City of Beverly Hills | William Morris Agency | MGM Television | SONY Pictures | Warner Bros., | 20th Century Fox | Universal Pictures | Paramount Pictures | New Line Cinema | Hollywood Foreign Press-Golden Globes | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-For Your Consideration Oscar Screenings | REAL-D Beverly Hills . . . . .
Leader Cinema Systems America, Vancouver, BC, CA, Los Angeles CA, Las Vegas NV, President & CEO
I have been involved with High Definition Video Systems and Television HDTV when the founder of our company, my father Gerry Leader, and I first saw HDVS while in Tokyo during 1980. HDVS was first shown in America during the 1981 National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas NV. I realized in 1980 that ultimately this technology, that required refinements, would 22 years later revolutionize the cinema industry.
In 2003 Leader created the world's first private Hollywood DCI Studio-Grabe DIGITAL CINEMA screening room for Hollywood professionals in partnership with industry veteran Charles Aidikoff at 150 South Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. The Leader-Aidikoff Screening Room provided complete studio grade optimized levels of performance for both 35mm film projection, high definition TV, and advanced 2K and 4K DCI Compliant digital cinema. This room was the "go to" screening room outside of Burbank to become completely immersed in cinematic excellence.
I, along with my Hollywood colleagues saw the future:
During my involvement with the Hollywood Studio System while with Electro-Voice, those with a vision knew, that, at some time this HDVS or HI-Vision technologies would ultimately lead to "Digital cinema". Today 100 years later, 35 mm motion picture film has been retired in place of digital delivery and highly advanced digital projection systems.
I formed Leader Cinema Systems specifically to optimize the cinematic experience to bring advanced "digital cinema" at a QC Studio Level to include Leader Hollywood Format Sound to screening rooms, post production studios and speciality presentation theaters. Emmy Award winner Michael Leader also realized that a Meta Luxury market exists for ultra luxury residences of the world's UHNW individuals and families. Before there was a "home theater" industry, there was Leader Cinema Systems.
Our first project based in Hollywood North AKA Vancouver Canada was created for a Taiwanese TV and Film producer. His $10 million new residence was equipped in 1990 with a fully professional studio quality HD Vision theater based on HDVS Japanese technologies and applying the MUSE laser disc and professional UniHI video tape formats. This avant grade theater features a Leader Hollywood Format / Dolby Labs professional cinema sound system. From that world-class system at $ 760,000 our systems are now to be found in Maui Hawaii, St.Petersburg FL, Bay Harbor MI, Vancouver CDN, Thule Greenland USAF, Seattle WA and of course throughout the Los Angeles area.
The 1992 San Francisco Chronicle feature article "Home Theaters Cost Only $ 1.5 Million Dollars" ...And Movie Stars Have Them.... This indicates the focus Michael Leader had on realizing a unique market niche. Leader would bring his encyclopedic knowledge that plumbs the depth of elegance in interior design to be skillfully integrated into a masterful Meta Luxury private screening room. Each one a bespoke creation and extension of the spectacular screening rooms and presentation theater to be found deep inside the major motion picture studios. The performance is far over and beyond any cinema world-wide that is available to the general public.
One of our favorite stories concerns David Bowie’s organization ISOLAR New York, the management company to Bowie and his manager Bruce Dunbar. Commencing around 1990, the organization had conducted a world-wide search for a manufacturer to create an exceptionally unique sound system. This search across North America, Europe and Japan included the major speaker manufacturers of the world, both consumer and professional. None could guarantee it could be achieved. Through their Canadian architect, the late Arthur Erickson, Michael Leader was introduced to Isolar’s Bruce Dunbar. Dunbar with his Masters in Music along with his award wining Broadway choreographer wife Christine Dunbar also had extraordinary demands. Bordering on the impossible, which makes us thrive at Leader, we were up to the task. And we listened……..
This complex highly evolved project has its Hollywood Leader-Studio-secrets and proprietary studio custom engineered systems. However, here is just a taste of how extraordinary this majestic world-class priceless project is.....
The Maui Hawaii Project
The Living Room: Overall room size for their Maui Hawaii waterfront residence 2800 sq ft (approx 280 sq meters)
Residence is ultra modern: concrete, glass and steel
140 ft / 42.6 meters of retractable glass walls sheathe the room on three sides
The open plan convertible cinema area of the living room 600 sq ft (approx 60sq meters)
The requirements: Sound System to play everything: Classical Music, Jazz, Multi Channel Surround Sound to Hollywood
Studio standards of performance sound system for ad hoc requirements keyboards etc,
and of course rock and roll...at live-you-are-there concert levels for hours and hours and hours to entertain up to 250 professional entertainment industry guests.
Spatially, the system must perform in the same league of the best studios in the world. Dunbar spending hundreds upon hundreds of hours in recording sessions with Bowie knows what exceptional is, and this is his reference standard.
The sound system must be able to operate at sustained levels approaching full rock and roll concert levels for the international elite jet set of music and entertainment industry professionals. A function may include guests ranging in number between 100 to 250. The reliability must be by definition, designed to “mission critical” levels of sustained reliability.
The system must provide a musical experience and expression of sensuality, transparency, immediacy, and spaciousness together with exceptional ease of use and reliability.
The resulting sound system was engineered, designed and ,manufactured by Leader in Canada
The Leader Hollywood Format™ large scale system has a total net weight of 3.9 imperial tons / 7800 Lbs / 3545Kgs. The final installation spanned 5 months on site. The results were astonishing!!!!
The clarity subjectively had to match the transparency and ease of listening to Dunbar’s expensive Sennheiser headphones…and this must be maintained at all levels from a whisper to full on levels!
Special attention must be given to bass extension, control and musical balance across all musical genres with special attention and software for the cinema chain of the sound system.
The invisible Surround Speaker array is located above the expanded metal ceiling grill work.
Six Leader 1502 Bi-Amplified systems contain 15 inch studio woofers.
The constant directivity wave-guides are identical to the main screen channels.
The total weight of the surround array is approximately 1560 lbs / 709 Kgs.
The MAUI music studio in Paradise
Subsequent to the extraordinary success of this $ 1,700,000 USD project, we then created the Studio In Paradise on the lower
Level. This 450 sq ft / 42 sq M rooms' sound system is acoustically 8 times larger than the massive Living Room System.
Today these two systems remain ahead-of-the-art. They were each designed, engineered and built that way. Room isolation and acoustics by Leader Acoustic Labs.
Bowie’s Gold & Platinum Records adorn the walls.
Equipment Racks contain over a ton of
of Swiss and American amplifiers
dedicated only to the Living Room
System.
The massive picture sound block
window was designed & engineered
by Leader Cinema. Laminated glass
outside 1.18 inches, inside 0.98 inch
custom extrusions and 10 inch air
space. Very very costly !!
The Maui Hawaii waterfront residence project for David BOWIE's manager represents our most unique system at $ 1.7 million USD. Now in the design phase is our $7.8 million private theater to be incorporated into a privately owned BOEING 787 BBJ Dreamliner. Our client is based in Switzerland. Completion and we expect completion to occur in 2027.
Electro-Voice Inc (A Bosch Communications Company), Buchanan, MI, US, Vice President Studio Systems Division
I established new direction for the mature Broadcast Division of Electro-Voice. EV was the worlds largest manufacturer of professional microphones and could be found in each and every North American radio and TV studio to include motion picture studios, military and theaters on a world wide basis.
THX Sound systems relied on Electro-Voice professional cinema speaker systems. Tens of thousands of cinemas around the globe were equipped with advanced EV high-power sound systems.
As Vice President of the Studio Systems Division, Electro-Voice custom cinema systems were installed across the entire Hollywood Motion Picture Studio System.
While at Electro-Voice, I created what would become the Leader Hollywood Format sound system. The first advanced system of it's kind, that was superior to any THX styled systems, was installed on the Main Dubbing Stage at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank California. Oscar winning and nominated films for best sound and music produced with this system include Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Armaggaden ......
Digital Sound Tracks were first introduced in 1990 and featured in the film Dick Tracy starring Warren Beatty and Madonna. THX sound systems were starting to show their age, as they were designed before the wider "CD Quality" dynamic range that digital would provide that included greater clarity in sound.
Terminator 2 was released in 1991 starring Arnold "I'll be back" Schwarzenegger. The Canadian Investor The Beacon Group, partnered with Carolco Pictures and invested $ 40 million in T2. Two special investor screenings were held by Carolco. The first at Avery Fisher Hall Lincoln Center in New York where the acoustics of the hall and sound system were not "Schwarzenegger" sized. Carolco was to have a screening in Vancouver Canada for the Canadian investors. The venue, the 2570 seat Orpheum Theater the home to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The enormity of a concert hall spanning 750,000 Cu Ft / 21238 Cu Meters would require an out of the box solution to bring those Schwarzenegger-dynamics to the audience. The enormity of the Leader Hollywood Format sound system for T2 became an extraordinary experience in motion picture sound. The design elements diverged significantly from any ordinary cinema sound system. The dynamic nature of the T2 Digital Sound Track necessitated a total reevaluation of everything that had been installed on a global basis for demanding and explosive sound tracks. Acoustically, the Main Screen Channel Speaker arrays are some 25 times larger than a typical cinema sound system. The powerful bass in each Left-Center-Right screen channel reaches down to 25Hz. The LFE (Low Frequency Effects "Sub Woofer") channel 18 to 60 Hz had the energy ideally to be measured on a Richter Scale! We shook the building down to its foundations! No, it did not appear too loud at all...as that is part of the secret in how Leader Cinema is able to scale our systems from a grand concert hall to the intimacy of a luxury grand cinema for Residences of Distinguished Merit. To date (it is now 2023) no cinema in the world to include all Giant Screen Theaters, has ever had the capability to extract all of the details locked up in the completed sound track and deliver it faithfully to the audience.
Similar levels of performance in our 53 seat Beverly Hills Screening Room were enjoyed by the United States Air Force when screening Black Hawk Down, sponsored by Friend to the Airforce actress Bo Derek. So impressed were USAF top brass the exclaimed "this LHF sound system is better than our military trainers....the power of the rotor frap is better than the real thing!!!"
My work entailed specialized custom microphone design for ABC Radio in Washington DC to overcome a mild speech impediment for one of their journalists.
Leader Sound Technologies Corporation, Vancouver, BC, CA, Seattle WA, Los Angeles CA, President
Provided systems engineering and professional studio equipment to Canadian and American radio and television stations.
BBC Television, London, GB, Sound Department
Sound Mixer for BBC Television Film Department based at the Ealing TFS Film Studios, Lime Grove Studios (Current Affairs) and BBC Television Center.
Advanced engineering and design to cover stereophonic sound for television during 1975. Early three dimensional sound applying periphonic Ambisonic techniques also in 1975 later would see similar techniques applied in Cinema for 3D sound such as DOLBY Atmos.
Sound Operations for Live Television Productions to include: Symphony Orchestra Recording, Sports, Concerts, Current Affairs "Talking Heads"
EMMY Award, Award
Michael K. Leader: AUDIO
1988 Sports Emmy Award
Technical Team Remote
Games of the XXIV Olympiad
NBC TV
