Bristol Crew connects the freelance pros in thriving production scene

 interview and words for VMI

Bristol is flourishing as a hub for media production in no small part thanks to its freelance community and the networking website and database Bristol Crew which unites many of them.

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As Bristol Crew celebrates its 15^th Anniversary we talk with its founding force Sarah Smither about the site’s genesis and evolution.

 “The thing I am most proud of is being able to nurture young careers,” she says. “It’s not like I’m holding their hand the entire way. I’m just giving them opportunities. Those who run with the opportunities progress very quickly.”

Smither was already an established lighting camera operator for LE and factual documentaries in London before relocating to Bristol in 2008.

Finding the local scene dominated (naturally) by Natural History she approached the city’s small but thriving group of digital agencies producing online and social content to source work.

That was also the time when the content creation industry was on the cusp of significant change driven by sites like YouTube and the introduction of DSLRs capable of producing high production values at lower cost – in the right hands.

While Smither slotted right in, she noted that many of the region’s freelancers weren’t connected in the same way that they were in London and an idea was born.

“In TV you’d have a producer or a production coordinator with a little black book of contacts but the digital agencies in Bristol were working independently and didn’t have the same access to good, reliable crew. I quickly realised the need to bring freelancers together, not only to support each other, but also to be able to reassure these digital agencies that there were good crew available in the city.”

Smither began recruiting camera and sound professionals which expanded over the next few years to encompass skill levels from runners to boom operators and cinematographers.

Unlike some online crew directories, she made sure to vet each person before accepting them onto her books, taking time to chat to them about their experience and ambitions, only accepting applications via recommendations from other network members, or because she has actually worked alongside them herself.

“I’m not just sitting in an office and occasionally interviewing crew. I’m actually out there working on sets so I can see what’s changing and meeting new people all the time.”

Networking is an important part of Bristol Crew membership and something that has grown organically as members share information about rates, contacts, skills and best practice.

“Some other sites may claim to represent hundreds of people but nobody is checking their CVs. I know that producers value having somebody else do the ground work to make sure that the crew they hire are qualified professionals.”

As the city’s production base has exploded into drama with the growth of Bottle Yard Studios, Bristol Crew has met the demand.

“I’ve introduced more specialist roles including production sound mixers, focus pullers, gaffers, high-end drone operators and art directors. I’m trying to reflect the job roles required by the productions coming to the city. Commercial agencies use us too. It makes sense for sustainability and budget reasons for them to hire as many people as possible in the place that they’re going to shoot.”

Smither’s business partner in the venture is sound recordist and web developer Rob Saunders, but other than that, she still runs the site in her spare time alongside her DoP work on short films and indie features, music promos and commercials. 

Every member now has their own profile and login so they control the information that’s held on the site about themselves.  There are also new formalised connections on Bristol Crew for equipment supply companies including VMI Bristol.

“I own a certain amount of kit but quite often I’m hiring additional items, so I need the support of a local hire company in those situations, especially as technology is changing so fast,” Smither explains.

“We can’t possibly keep on top of it just by watching YouTube videos. Being able to see the kit in person and test cameras and lenses is crucial, especially for commercials and drama. You need to be able to test cameras in controlled environments with technicians who know what they’re talking about. Now that we’re offering crew at that higher level it made sense to invite hire companies to join us on the platform.”

Sarah is planning to celebrate the Bristol Crew’15^th anniversary with a party in the early Autumn – “We plan to invite everyone who’s been on the journey with us including the local studios, digital agencies and hire companies.”

Short film, CARE was shot in Gloucester Prison in July 2024 and crewed almost entirely by Bristol Crew members, including three more who are about to join. 

More recently, Bristol Crew also became an education partner with Bristol Film School and in a neat circularity, one of its graduates, Lucy Wallis now works at VMI, having previously been Smither’s camera trainee and mentee.

“What Bristol Film School are doing with their students is something I’ve been trying to push for a long time, which is to close the gap between higher education and the real world of work for freelance trainees and runners joining the industry at entry level.

“A number of our members teach workshops and mentor students at the Film School. I’ll also be taking a handful of their best graduates every year to join the site as trainees. Now, it feels like we have a proper sustainable ecosystem that’s introducing new talent from the local area.”

Now in its 10^th year, VMI Bristol has known Sarah and been working with Bristol Crew for a full decade and welcomes the chance to be more formally involved.

“We know a lot of the members on the website, either as clients of ours directly or as the regular crew working for our clients,” says Gary Davis, VMI Bristol’s Branch Manager. “It’s been amazing for our clients to enable them to find local crew for their West Country-based shoots. Whether it’s looking at a production’s carbon footprint or helping with budgets, sourcing local crews can offer a massive benefit.

Davis adds, “When we have had crew from the website contact us wanting to come in and play with particular kit, we try to accommodate them as much as possible. You know they will have a great duty of care towards the kit and a professionalism in what they do. So, when Sarah expanded the website earlier this year to include local kit rental and studios we jumped at the chance to sign up, as much as a way of saying thank you for being a great resource for our clients and to officially show support for the website and to the crew on it.”

Saudi Arabia + NEOM: AV comes to the Kingdom

AV Magazine

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Vision 2030 is a comprehensive plan to diversify the Saudi Arabian economy away from oil. Although much of it is artist impressions, the project claims the kingdom’s non-oil GDP growth rate rose from 1.82% in 2016 to 4.93% in the first half of 2023*. This economic expansion is the backdrop to many opportunities for the AV sector. 

With its glossy high tech artist impressions Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 can sometimes seem a mirage. In fact, it remains on track to deliver a comprehensive transformation plan aimed at diversifying the economy, modernising infrastructure, and improving the quality of life.
AV is a crucial component of this vision, contributing to the country’s rapid development.

“Saudi’s AV market is experiencing remarkable growth and transformation, driven by ambitious plans across various sectors albeit with a high degree of skepticism due to the scale of development and investment,” Ahmad Dahmash, Daktronics regional sales chief tells AV Magazine.

Calling the market “dynamic and promising” Digital Projection’s regional business development manager, Nizar Samir Naser notes concerns about the pace of technology adoption, market readiness, and the eye-watering investments needed for financing giga projects which “can sometimes be challenging.”

The country is a hot bed for investment and construction with some super scale, ultra luxury and futuristic mega city projects such as Red Sea Global, The Line, AlUla Resort, Qiddiya City and NEOM. These are to be world-leading destinations, incorporating resorts, entertainment venues, theme and water parks, medical facilities, airports and more.

“Naturally, AV integration within these projects is also super scale and the business opportunities for AV integrators and suppliers is significant,” says Justin Joy, senior sales manager, Peerless-AV.

He charts a sizeable uptake in AV adoption since 2019, encompassing digital signage, workplace technology, command and control and AI integration.

“A key focus for the government is opening the region to international visitors,” he says. “It was only 2019 that it first opened for tourism and there’s been a considerable increase since then. A target for the region is to eventually attract seventy million tourists, a rise from twenty seven million in 2023.”

Will they happen?
Whether all 20 mega projects planned over the next decade will be built is another question. The Red Sea project has released its initial packages to tender with more scheduled by year’s end, reports Naser. The Qiddiya project is experiencing some delays but remains ongoing without signs of postponement.

“Projects like The Line might well be scaled back to be shorter than originally intended, but that does not make it a failure,” says Steve Simpson, regional sales manager, Datapath who maintains that even if it ends up being 17kms long instead of 170kms it’s still an amazing achievement.”

Entertainment is a key vertical and focus in the region. Theme parks, such as Six Flags Qiddiya City, are rapidly progressing with 75 per cent complete as of early July. Production companies are seeing big business in the live entertainment and events sector and many are setting up local offices to meet demand.

King Salman International Airport in Riyadh, a new global aerotropolis under construction, will span 57 km2, featuring six parallel runways and aims to accommodate 120 passengers by 2030. A new metro line is also being built which connects the entire city.

Significant transport infrastructure projects, such as the Haramain High Speed Railway connecting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina “have created numerous demands for control rooms and security monitoring,” says Cecilia Willis, Matrox Video’s country manager.

The capacity of al-Haram Mosque in Mecca is being tripled to accommodate up to 150,000 pilgrims heightening the need for enhanced security monitoring. To address this, Matrox has implemented large-scale encoding solutions to capture and display IP camera streams from around the holy site.

DooH on a roll
“Saudi is one of the fast-growing countries anywhere in installing DooH,” reports Dahmash. “You can see lights and screens on every corner.”

He points to the role government policies and support are playing in enabling DooH growth. Regulations are evolving to accommodate and encourage the use of digital advertising technologies too. “DooH advertising has become increasingly prominent in Saudi Arabia,” he says.

Outdoor digital signage is in high demand at entertainment and attraction venues. Peerless AV’s 65in high bright displays are being installed throughout Six Flags in part, says Joy, because of the tech’s performance in harsh, high temperature, sandy environments.

“Indoor and outdoor LED is being installed across all verticals but a few big sectors are transportation control rooms,” he says. “Large-scale, wow-factor outdoor LED is currently going into the New Murabba downdown project in Riyadh and features eighty state-of-the-art venues. Front projection is also being installed in large room projects in entertainment, government, military and corporate.”

Sports and live events
There’s a strong focus on modernising infrastructure to host major international events such as the Asian Cup in 2027 and the FIFA World Cup in 2034. This involves building new stadiums and renovating existing facilities across the Kingdom to meet the latest technological standards.

Trends here, shared by Dahmash, include leveraging government and private sector support to fund and develop sports infrastructure; and legacy planning to ensure the longevity of these investments.

“By focusing on these areas, Saudi Arabia is well-positioned to transform its sports and live events market, providing world-class venues and experiences that will leave a lasting legacy,” he says.

The AV market in the Middle East is not homogenous and varies significantly by country. “In the UAE pro AV is more mature and structured,” says Dahmash.

“The market is service and quality-oriented, characterised by well-planned projects with reasonable timeframes and project schedules. The emphasis is on delivering high-quality solutions, ensuring meticulous planning and execution.”

AV channel fast emerging
In contrast, he says Saudi Arabia’s AV market is developing rapidly, with a focus on quick progress and fast-tracked projects. However, decisions on technology tend to take longer, leading to urgent delivery requests that can compromise the quality of solutions. “Frequent last-minute changes and the involvement of multiple stakeholders often impact the final outcomes.”

As you’d expect there’s been a significant demand for rental equipment in recent years. Shows include the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah and the Saudi Light & Sound Expo in Riyadh.

“Despite growing availability of rental equipment, it still falls short of demand, often necessitating local companies to source equipment from the regions, or Europe,” says Naser.

Digital Projection is finding fixed installs of its kit in demand in museums and exhibition halls. “In 2023, our sales in this market doubled, and we anticipate even greater growth in 2024,” says Naser.

Hospitality and CCTV
Plans for hospitality and tourism look to build some of the best luxury hotels in the world, not just inland but on the Red Sea such as the Nujuma, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve. “The demand for safety and CCTV is a major factor where all large hotels will have a control room as well as many thousands of cameras and, of course, the need for IPTV in boardrooms and auditoriums,” says Simpson.

Datapath has already provided video processing for upgraded stadiums and hotels in both signage and CCTV requirements. Whether it’s a microphone or a lighting system or HVAC to cool all the new buildings and AV racks, a whole world of AV products will be needed.

“I’ve seen more control rooms being proposed not only for CCTV but cyber security, new transport links and other government sectors as they all ramp up with the new demand,” says Simpson. “There’s something for every AV integrator to work on.”

Business culture
Business culture across the Middle East is generally similar. “Some places are more conservative, but overall, there’s a focus on fair competition and mutual respect,” says Naser. “This creates a positive environment for business, similar to the UAE and neighbouring states.”

Ninety-five per cent of Saudi projects are government backed with semi-governmental entities overseeing them. “To get your products or solutions approved as a vendor, you would need to be in contact with the entities responsible for procurement and approvals,” advises Naser.

That may first require registering your business in the country, says Simpson who also points to strict importation rules for products that have to meet local SASO standards. “If a product does not meet these standards then it will not be imported.”

Electrical equipment must have the latest CE certifications and any product with an Ethernet port will be subject to strict regulations.

Willis says the UAE remains a key gateway to Saudi business, with many large distributors in Dubai serving the Saudi market. “Additional regulatory requirements and documentation, such as SASO certification of conformity and certificates of origin, add complexity to the export process. Some companies lack the resources or in-house expertise to manage these requirements, leading them to prefer selling through a third country like the UAE.”

However, an increasing number of distributors and manufacturers have been investing in staff, offices, and/or demo facilities within the Kingdom. This strategic shift aims to build closer ties to the market and respond more effectively to opportunities.

“Visibility in the market is very important, so whether you have an office in Saudi Arabia or local representation, it is crucial to visit the country regularly to build trust with prospective customers and learn more about the local market and projects.”

The importance of local relationships is further stressed by Joy. “Anyone trying to engage in the region must have a strong understanding of the culture, religious holidays and business intricacies. Close business ties are forged by regular in region visits. Public tenders are floated to everyone but what’s most important is to have a local distribution and reseller network with reach into all major territories.”

Whereas government contractors were once prepared to pay for the highest quality products and services, there are now more competitive valuations.

Simpson puts this down to SIs from UAE or Qatar establishing Saudi offices to tap the market. “I’ve seen a brain drain with several of my friends now working in Neom or at the Red Sea projects,” he reports. “With this comes more competition and unfortunately also the rise of cheaper made products which claim to do the same thing as the more established brands. While this settles down there will be a fair bit of a price war which may affect the quality of service.”

Joy observes more global OEMs setting up local manufacturing. Dahmash agrees that the entry of international companies makes the market more competitive but adds “its size allows opportunities for all players.”

Client demands are becoming “more customised and mature” says Dahmash, “requiring tailored solutions.” He warns of potential delays and changes in project plans “highlighting the need for effective project management.”

When projects get greenlit product is needed ASAP. “Having a distributor with good stock levels and fast delivery is very important,” says Joy. “Seeing is believing with integrators in the region. Regular in-person training on products is highly valued.”

Simpson has lived in Dubai for over 20 years and saw The Palm archipelago being built from just a small patch of sand on Jumeirah beach. “I have seen firsthand how this region can transform itself, even through the financial crises of 2008. Some projects were slow or scaled back, but some are coming back to life now.

“Saudi will probably exhibit a similar cycle where things will slow, change or even be cancelled, but something else will come in its place. No country since the rise of the UAE has captivated our imagination with mega projects like Saudi.

“Whatever happens it is changing Saudi forever and should firmly put the country on the map for future tourism, something I never thought about even 10 years ago.”

 

Gaming the system with photoreal CGI

AV Magazine

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The ability to fuse real objects, people and environments with photoreal CGI is supercharging almost every part of every industry. One of the key technologies driving this are games engines and the leader by virtue of its creation of online games like Fortnite and its use in the virtual production for film and TV is Epic Games.

“We’re more than just a games company,” declared Epic’s business director for broadcast and live events BK Johannessen (who keynoted ISE 2023). “Unreal has broad adoption across industries from architecture to live events, training and simulation, manufacturing to advertising and beyond.”

Game engines are touted as the bedrock on which the digital future will be built. Epic’s vision is for one holistic platform that covers the entire pipeline from creating and visualising initial designs, through reviewing, testing, and training to creating marketing renders and photoreal product configurators.

Epic wants to house all of this on its platform. It says: “The data model of the future is to stay contained within a game engine where the features and tools that you need are already available without you having to switch between different software packages.”

Take automotive. While CAD capabilities have increased, inefficiencies remain. Vehicles are manufactured from thousands of parts, and each one needs to be created digitally before it goes into production, and made again for the photorealistic touchscreen car configurator online, again for a TV commercial, and remade yet again at mobile-friendly resolutions. At this point, managing these multiple assets and the reams of metadata creates even more inefficiencies and introduces inaccuracies.

“Realtime visualisation”
Epic contends that there is a way to produce an asset once for use in every stage from design and validation through to marketing. Johannessen calls this “realtime visualisation” and says industry after industry is adopting it.

A games engine is not for every instance. If you only need to generate static 2D images or don’t need realtime rendering, you’re best served with existing tools and workflows designed specifically for those purposes. However, for 3D data visualisation, realtime physics simulation, or recording a simulation in realtime, then GPU-accelerated game engines are the most powerful option.

Adding artificial intelligence into the mix takes this to another level entirely.

Stephan Baier, associate partner at Porsche-owned consultancy, MHP says: “In the future, all product-related content will be generated on demand in a personalised way.”

Digital twins as a communications platform
Digital twins are a mathematically perfect representation of a physical object or entity like a city and all its variants in a digital space. It’s a 3D model but with data continuously updating its functions and processes.

“When live data from the physical system is fed to the digital replica, it moves and functions just like the real thing, giving you instant visual feedback on your processes,” says Epic Games. The digital twin can be used to calculate metrics like speed, trajectory, and energy usage.

Microsoft and Nvidia are building platforms for companies to use data that is malleable. This means that users can change pieces of the process or workflow in realtime and view, via collaborative online platforms and VR, how those changes ripple across real world scenarios.

Science and education
An example: Surveying remote subterranean systems has always been a technically demanding job and very few people actually get to experience them.

That changes if you can map cave systems with all the detail that geoscience demands. In the US, arguably the leader of this effort is Blase LaSala, a former cave technician for the National Parks Service who is now the go-to person for 3D digital cave tours.

Using a LiDAR scanner and photogrammetry and Unreal, he scans caves and produces videos and VR experiences, for both scientific research and virtual tours for the public. The LiDAR scans produce billions of data points that are then processed in supercomputers. This is rendered with photoreal textures and global dynamic lighting in Unreal.

“I don’t have a computer science or 3D modeling background,” LaSala states. “All I know how to do is convert terabytes of data into a format Unreal can understand. Then it does everything else for me.”

Automotive
Electric vehicle maker, Rivian equipped the engine of its R1T truck with sensors and fed the data into realtime rendered graphics augmented with data from the original CAD model of the vehicle to develop a Human-Machine Interface (HMI).

“There’s a lot of math involved to convert the data that you receive from the cameras into the engine,” says Eddy Reyes, Rivian’s in-vehicle experience software engineer. “We had to go through multiple iterations until we got it right.”

Rivian showcased the RT1’s physics with the truck’s digi-double exhibiting precise tyre deformation as it bounds over rocks and roots in digital simulation. This included ‘true-to-life’ independent air suspension that softens as it splashes through mud and puddles with realistic fluid simulation and water rendering.

Volvo Cars is also using Unreal for developing its HMI, beginning with the Driver Information Module, one of the displays inside the cabin that provide the driver with relevant information and infotainment features. The electric flagship model Volvo will unveil later this year will be the first to contain the new graphics.

“When you bring interactive, high-resolution graphics running realtime into the car, you open the door to a vast range of new ways to inform and entertain everyone inside,” said Heiko Wenczel, former Epic Games’ director of automotive, now at Nvidia.

As vehicles become increasingly autonomous, their ‘digital brains’ will become as important as the frames from which they’re constructed. Data will be captured in realtime from computer vision (cameras, radar, LiDAR). While real life testing won’t be replaced entirely, the thousands of hours of tests required to prove concepts in the real world can be accelerated by photoreal sims.

“This is a race,” says Emmanuel Chevrier, CEO at AVSimulation, a Paris-based driving simulator company that works for Renault and BMW. “Customers must race to find the right asset, and the right software if they want to be the first to put their autonomous vehicles on the market.”

Architectural inspiration
In 1967, decades away from any computer technology, 23-year-old Masters student Moshe Safdie designed a novel, mixed-use community in Lego and submitted it to the 1967 Montreal World’s Fair.

“Lego was modular,” says Safdie. “It could be stacked and shifted in increments. It was working with that system that I designed Habitat.”

Safdie’s original design would have cost $45 million (equivalent to $450 million today) to build but with a budget of only $15 million Habitat was scaled back to less than half the planned size. It was built as a 158-unit housing complex at Cité du Havre, on the Saint Lawrence River, Montreal.

Fast forward to 2022 and Safdie’s company Sadfdie Architects realised the project in full albeit in photoreal 3D.

“Many of the foundational principles that continue to advance architecture today can be traced back to Habitat 67,” says Safdie Architects’ senior partner, Jaron Lubin. “To be able to use the latest technology to demonstrate the potential of these ideas allows them to live on beyond the walls of our studio.”

Working with Australian creative agency, Neoscape the team flew a drone equipped with a camera and LiDAR to map the existing building. A second drone captured 4,136 high-res images of the structural details. These datasets along with information from the original schematic drawings were combined and processed to create an accurate digital model in Rhino and 3ds Max. In Unreal, elements such as trees, plants, and general set dressing were added.

More than 4.5 billion triangles comprise the virtual Habitat of thousands of residential units. These assets are available for anyone to explore or to be incorporated into a cinematic project.

Says Safdie: “This is exactly what we need to rethink how our cities are made. I hope that the idea that you could live somewhere like Habitat 67 helps advance people’s desire to have this realised.”

Digital Us
Creating one high-quality digital human is difficult and time-consuming. Scaling that to create many diverse digital humans is a formidable task indeed. Enter MetaHuman Creator, a cloud-streamed app that draws from a library of variants of human appearance and motion, and enables users you to create convincing new digital human characters in minutes not months.

“You can populate a background scene with a big crowd of MetaHumans, or make a MetaHuman your centre-stage star,” Johannessen said at ISE.
Fashion brand, LVMH presented Livi, its first virtual ambassador, last year developed using MetaHuman technology.

A MetaHuman Animator feature of the software, released in June, speeds the process even further. With a professional stereo helmet-mounted camera or just a standard tripod mounted iPhone, users can reproduce any facial performance with the fidelity of an AAA game. The key is in ensuring the system understands the unique anatomy of the actor’s face, and how that should relate to the target character.

The software’s timecode support means that the facial performance animation can be aligned with body motion capture (provided you’ve access to a mocap system), and audio to deliver a full character performance. It can even use the audio to produce convincing tongue animation.

Epic claims the tech enables digital human identities to be created from a small amount of captured footage, that the process takes just a few minutes and only needs to be done once for each actor.

Future of concert visuals
Live streaming music festivals are nothing new but at Coachella 2022 acts including Australian DJ Flume had their performance augmented with realtime 3D graphics.

Pre-designed photoreal AR graphics including of giant cockatoos and golden flowers were composited live into the broadcast feed and streamed on YouTube using a combination of media servers running Unreal Engine, camera tracking data (from Stype) and the band’s timecode to automatically trigger graphic changes.

There were also the eye-catching interstitials - including deforming doughnuts bouncing off the stage - that entertained audiences while waiting for the next song.
“Engagement went crazy on the stream when the birds came out,” reported Sam Schoonover, innovation lead at Coachella. “People weren’t sure if it was real or CG.”

This represents a turning point for live show visuals, he suggests, one that could serve as a template for future hybrid events and festivals in the metaverse.

“As online audiences grow, it’s crucial that digital events bring something unique to the table. But it’s also important to think about how new tech could affect the experience on site. We hope this project will usher in the next era, where AR glasses and virtual worlds allow fans to experience a completely new dimension of music.”

Eric Wagliardo, Live AR producer at Coachella goes further: “The transition from 2D to 3D will be as revolutionary as the shift from mono to stereo.”

 

Drive to success/ The winning Formula

My interview & words for RED Camera

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With an instinctive understanding of racing and a skillset honed as a photojournalist, Ryoma Kashiwagi has mastered the art of motorsport photography.

The Japanese artist specializes in photography of Formula 1 and the WEC: World Endurance Championship, including the 24 Heures du Mans, documenting the drivers, their mechanics and the machines with a signature style uniquely captured with RED cameras.

He is currently the official photographer for the French Alpine Endurance Team treating his work as an artistic project rather than a conventional press and public relations shoot.

“When I told people about my plans to shoot still photos of racing cars with RED, many were skeptical, but I always believed in the very cinematic idea of capturing photographic images with the DSMC,” he says.

“When KOMODO was announced in 2019, my certainty was replaced with confidence. I am one of very few photographers who know that a RED Digital Cinema camera can produce high quality photographs even in one single frame.”

Ryoma’s passion for motor racing began as a child in the 1980s at a time when many racers and rally drivers were still losing their lives on the track.

“I was interested in the machines themselves, but I was most fascinated by the way these racers lived,” says Ryoma. “The way they try to achieve victory and glory while risking losing everything.”

Motorsport competition today is far safer than it was, but the safety risks have not been eliminated. It is why Ryoma has made it his life’s work to document the humanity of those who choose this path.

“They could leave this world a minute after I photograph them in the pit garage,” Ryoma says. “Behind their helmets, they are not necessarily thinking about death but I sometimes feel that there is a split second of hesitancy in their eyes. By documenting them in a very cinematic way and by releasing the shutter at the right time, I try to capture this fleeting human moment.”

Ryoma bought a KOMODO 6K in October 2021. The following week he took it to an endurance race in Bahrain. “The results and the operation of the camera at that time were even better than I expected,” he says. “Since then, I’ve shot all races with RED KOMODO and used KOMODO X for the first-time last year at the F1 Japanese GP.”

Using the REC function for each individual shot, Ryoma creates high-quality work from RED RAW files. “I produce still images by processing the R3D files,” he explains. “My images have a high percentage of black on the frame, and I also emphasize the gradation of that black. In this regard KOMODO-X is without comparison. It enables me to push the blacks to the extent that I am looking for in the image. Being able to shoot 15 stops of exposure, especially in shadows, is another excellent attribute and gives the shot beautiful blacks in any situation.”

He considers KOMODO exceptionally durable and reliable during extreme temperatures of racing. Even when the cameras become too hot to hold, the data remains perfectly intact, he says.

“People told me that hand-held control of a cinema camera is impractical, but the KOMODO's body size showed that this is possible,” he adds.

“I shoot RED because I love RED. It’s that simple. For me, RED is supreme. I am a passionate user and have become enamored with the camera’s great performance. The global shutter feature of KOMODO is the biggest factor in my success.”

He pairs RED with Leica lenses which he has used throughout his career, most recently favouring the APO-Summicron-M F2.0/50mm. This minimalist approach to equipment comes from his experience as a photojournalist in the Middle East. He was based in Jerusalem as a correspondent for Newsweek and National Geographic magazines.

“I mainly used a 28mm lens there. This technique was the opposite of aiming at a subject with a telephoto lens at the trackside in the circuit. I learned how to find the best lighting in the field, the best distance from the subject, how to focus visually, and how to avoid danger. I took this knowledge and my growing shooting skills and returned to Europe to pursue motor racing.”

Before going to Jerusalem Ryoma was a student of the late photographer Yoshikuni Okumura who advised him against shooting motor racing.

“He said shooting a racing machine on a track is like shooting a bird in a birdcage, with no photographic freedom at all. After returning from photographing conflicts in the Middle East I found that the "birdcage problem" was no longer a worry because I had developed my own shooting style that was different from other photographers. I had found a way of expressing the racer’s lives I wanted to show.”

Ryoma prints his work on carbon, aluminum, titanium or acrylic which gives a unique aesthetic to the final image. This idea was inspired by his grandfather, who worked as a machinist and by his father who designed and engineered tools in a workshop at the family home.

“I remember playing in the factory of my own house as a child. I also studied metals in high school and later, automotive engineering. For me, it is natural to express myself on the materials used in racing machines than to print photographs on paper. I am creating a collection of machine-like works and to make the most of these, I am creating an art piece with a machine-look.

Ryoma is planning to make a short film which he will direct and serve as cinematographer. “KOMODO-X will be the main camera used for this shoot,” he says. “Creatively, it will be extremely ambitious. I'm hooked on this project right now!

“I want to find the bridge between photography and moving images within the context of art. What kind of picture is a photographic image in the context of a motion picture? That is the realm I want to explore.”

Peak TV has been reached and UK public service broadcast is shrinking

IBC

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At the Edinburgh TV Festival producers and broadcasters were urged to face up to the facts of an oversaturated market with few solutions on offer to stem the decline in work.

The writing is on the wall for many of the UK’s hundreds of independent TV companies and even one or more of the core public service broadcast (PSB) channels that have been the driver of the UK’s creative media industry for decades, according to senior TV executives.

Hearing from panellists at the Edinburgh TV Festival session ominously titled ‘Back from the Brink: Reimagining The Future of Television’ it seems the only way to survive is to admit that the decline in viewing to traditional TV is irreversible and that contraction is inevitable.

Patrick Holland, CEO, Banijay said: “Just in terms of the sheer economics there too many production companies for the amount of hours that are commissioned each year, too many.”

Dan McGolpin, Director, iPlayer and Channels agreed: “There are too many production companies and it going to be really challenging. You can’t sugarcoat that. People are going to have to move into other areas. There isn’t perhaps the amount of demand, the money or hours to keep everybody alive.”

Currently in the UK TV industry, an estimated 51% of those in TV drama are out of work. In unscripted, 57%. In commercials, 53%.

Their situation raises a profoundly difficult question. How big can this industry be?

Fatima Salaria, Executive Chair of The Edinburgh TV Festival said: “While BBC, Channel 4, and Channel 5 do a completely different job, I think combining them all together on some kind of super iPlayer-type content platform would be an idea because I think that would ensure the survival of Public Service values.

While Freely, the newly launched streaming service, is an attempt by the four UK PSBs to do just that, Salaria voiced concern that shows with a PSB remit, particularly documentaries and current affairs reflecting issues impacting the audience, will be lost.

“There will be indies that will not be able to compete in the [streaming and social media] world because of the way their business is structured and I fear that you’re going to end up with an elite class of people who are going to be making elite type premium factual programs, and dramas who are going to be the winners and that shows about harder issues will get lost.”

Jordan Schwarzenberger, Co-Founder of Arcade Media and manager of The Sidemen works with digital creators to scale their portfolios and launch new businesses. He said he believed “attitudes among Gen Z and Gen A are drastically shifting away from PSBs and in reality, I can’t see the license fees sustaining at the same level unless there’s a greater shift towards how and where that audience are consuming, which is short form, which is on YouTube, which is on social.”

He urged indies and broadcasters to “be brave and honest about the [decline in viewing] numbers because they are real. And it’s not going to come back.”

PSB landscape

Earlier, Ros Atkins, Analysis Editor for the BBC News, had given a typically astute summation of the state of UK TV. He explained how UK broadcast had gone from the heady heights of peak TV in the early 2020s - a time when producer revenues reached £6.8bn and the local industry employed over 90,000 people, to now where the freelance market is in a parlous state and serious questions are being asked about the future of PSB.

“I’ve tried to understand this moment for UK television and keep coming back to four major shifts, all of them interconnecting, all of them taking TV somewhere new,” he said.

The first is the shift in TV and video consumption. What people watch - and where they watch - are fundamentally changing.

Last year, broadcast TV channels accounted for 62% of long-form programmes. That’s projected to be 28% by 2035. The BBC’s Director-General Tim Davie acknowledges: “A switch-off of broadcast will and should happen over time.” And already two types of platform are taking its place. VOD streaming services and video-sharing platforms - like YouTube and TikTok. Together, they make up at least 30% of viewing minutes across all devices in the UK. That is certain to go up.

“The broader point is that the internet hasn’t just transformed the distribution of TV and video - it’s transformed what we watch and who is making it,” Atkins said.

The shift in consumption connects directly to a second shift identified by Atkins: the globalisation of TV.

As streaming and video sharing take more of the market - more content and distribution is controlled by a small number of international businesses. Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Apple, and Google – all based in America. And Tiktok, which has a Chinese parent company.

In 2022 - 86% of all investment into film and high-end TV production came from overseas - primarily from the US. Netflix says it invested close to $6bn in the UK between 2020 and 2023.

“But some see the risks of globalisation too. Of marginalisation of British stories. Of British ideas becoming someone else’s IP. Of British media losing market share.”

Ad Tech

To understand the consequences of this - and of the shift in consumption - Atkins factored in a third shift… that of advertising’s digital transformation.

With advertising, there are long-term trends that pose challenges for broadcasters, he said. The amount of money spent by advertisers in the UK in 2023 was over £36bn. But of that total, online advertising is over three-quarters of it, the highest percentage it’s ever been. TV advertising is 13% - down nearly 9 percentage points in 12 months.

Kate Scott-Dawkins, the Global Head of Business Intelligence at advertising giant Group M, recently said: “TV companies may need to accept that their ad revenues from streaming, while being significant, won’t match what linear once offered, at least in the near term.”

That era may be over.

“Across the media, the biggest beasts of the tech world - with their sophisticated ad technology - are taking the bulk of the ad market,” said Atkins. “That’s the context as business models in the TV industry are reshaped.

“In advertising’s move to digital - in TV’s globalisation - in the shift in consumption - we see a fourth major shift - the centrality of technology,” he said.

Of course, technology has always mattered, but now it’s a dominant factor across the industry, from streaming platforms to production to ads - and that requires investment.

This year, the BBC is spending £71m on online and TV development. But Netflix has spent $1.4bn on technology in the first half of this year alone.

“UK streamers can point to rising user numbers, rising viewing hours, to new and improved products, but a truth remains. The need for ever more complex technology is increasing exponentially - not least because of AI. And the biggest global companies - with their vast resources - inevitably have an advantage.”

Shifts of this scale would be a lot for any industry to navigate. They ask fundamental questions about how the UK TV industry works - and what it wants to be. And right in the middle of those calculations is PSB.

ITV has invested millions in ITVX. Channel 4 is accelerating its shift to streaming. The BBC’s Tim Davie has asserted: “We can choose not to rely solely on US and Chinese tech companies that may not have the interests of a shared British culture.”

Yet streaming dominated by international streamers seems an unstoppable force. Viewing hours on streaming for this year in the UK show that Netflix is over twice as big (34%) as anyone else. BBC is next (14%), then Disney+ and Amazon Prime.

“Let’s stop to think what this shows,” said Atkins. “In the streaming market - where we know viewers are heading - where big tech is competing for ad revenue - where expensive tech development is crucial - the PSBs are there, they’re growing - but the majority of viewing isn’t with them - it’s with the global players. If that continues, there are a range of commercial and cultural consequences that may follow.”

The Labour government may choose to provide more protective ringfencing around PSBs – for example by enshrining their right to a high-profile position on the EPG, but they could be fighting a losing battle.

In the meantime, many talented people remain out of work and the longer they remain so poses an existential threat to UK TV and even the UK’s creative industries of which TV is such a bedrock.

To Atkins, the golden age of TV is over. The industry must acknowledge it is now in a different era. “One in which what we watch and where we watch has changed,” he said. “Where new revenue streams are required, and where technology is dominant. Where public service media will have to restate its case, and regulators consider their options. Where the routes to the consumer and the routes to success are changing.

“What to do next is keenly debated. But we can perhaps agree on one thing. The digital revolution in TV and video isn’t coming. For better or worse, it’s here. There’s no going back.

Live from the Supercup: DFL uses AI to scale content creation

SVG Europe

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AI-based processes are being increasingly applied to expand content across the Deutsche Fußball Liga’s (DFL) app, website and social media channels. In particular it is being applied to scale and to personalise content published as Bundesliga Shorts, a sequence of images or videos in smartphone-optimised vertical format. Every image is overlaid with a brief, descriptive text, and users browse through the story image after image.

Since the story format requires much more visual material than conventional articles, along with a different layout, it comes with an increased need for editorial resource. “This has prompted us to search for an AI-based approach to supporting the production of stories,” says Björn Rosenthal, head of product at DFL Digital Sports.

He has led an effort to supercharge editorial with generative AI, continuing a tech partnership with AWS, and the results will be rolled out across the DFL’s app in less than a month.

To generate text, the DFL’s content management system uses the large language model ‘Claude’ offered by AWS partner Anthrophic.  “All this runs on AWS’ AI service AWS Bedrock, which we are using,” says Rosenthal. This service is now embedded in the content management system.

Data collected from DFL matches – amassing over 3.5 million data points per game – is already being utilised by DFL subsidiary Sportec Solutions to feed the Match Facts statistical and analysis feed. The same metadata is also being fed into an algorithm along with the timestamp of the TV footage to extract individual frames showing specific match events for stories content production.

The system can automatically search for images using computer vision and AI and generate text components. Further algorithms can then sharpen the pictures, but Rosenthal emphasises that human editors have the last word to check or refine before publishing.

“The source written content is always from an editor,” he says. “AI allows us to piece together all the assets for each story faster, and from that one original source story we can generate versions in multiple different languages and target stories according to target demographics.”

As an example, he cites targeting a 22-year-old male soccer enthusiast in Wisconsin with a different version to what would be targeted at a Japanese female. “Right now we have a German and an English editorial team,” he explains. “To be more present in other markets, we will offer our content in a range of additional languages – such as Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese.”

AI is also being used to enhance media production in ways that remain in test phase.

Another advancement, working with AWS, has been improving the discoverability of content in the DFL Media Hub, considered the world’s largest archive of football footage. “We see major potential in being able to broadcast content in several languages within a narrow time frame and are using AI to accomplish this,” Rosenthal says.

AI-generated metadata allows users to search for content in more than 210,000 hours of video footage more efficiently. Rosenthal suggests that host broadcaster Sportcast and domestic and international broadcaster partners would be allowed access to this content to enhance their live coverage of Bundesliga matches.

“You could type prompts into the AI for the type of information or clip you need and the AI would search the archive and serve it up to you instantly for insert into the live feed,” he suggests.

The DFL says it owns the data on which it is training its AI models. Steffen Merkel, DFL CEO, says he didn’t anticipate any tension between the league’s exclusive ownership of performance data and the players themselves.

“We collect and own match data and, to me, it’s a key prerequisite to making the media product better today. That players might challenge this in future does not concern me at the moment.”

Simon Rolfes, sports director at Bundesliga team Bayer 04 also keeps his eye on AI for possible use in crunching data for scouting and match analysis

“I am very interested in tech but I’m also critical. I believe tech will only survive if we use it. I’m open to testing everything, but if we do not use it, we will kill it. If it’s not useful we will stop the project.”

Live from the Supercup: Sportcast tests new camera positions and plots transition to remote production

SVG Europe

Sportcast, based in Cologne and a full subsidiary of the DFL, has been host broadcaster for all matches in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, as well as the Supercup, since 2006-07.

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In that time it has produced over 12,500 live games, around 700 a season, and managing director Alexander Günther, who has been there since the beginning, is proud of their achievement.

“Since taking over the inhouse role we’ve gone through the entire story of technology from SD to HD to UHD now HDR, but it is not enough to produce 90 minutes of broadcast any more,” Günther tells SVG Europe on a tour of the match day production at the BayArena ahead of the Bayer 04 Leverkusen versus VfB Stuttgart Supercup final. “We have to meet the expectation of fans with digital.”

Günther points to the Olympics and the recent work of Olympic Broadcasting Services in producing multiple versions of content distributed to digital and mobile touchpoints. He had seen this first hand at the IBC in Paris. “This is our roadmap for the Bundesliga,” he says.

Alongside production of the TV base signal, Sportcast coordinates the contribution and international distribution of the live TV signal in over 200 countries. In addition, it provides weekly live games and highlights shows in English, with international graphics via satellite. To achieve this, the video signals of the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 are broadcast via a fibre optic network operated by Sportcast connected to 36 stadiums.

Live tracking, heatmaps and other data are at the heart of this service, developed in conjunction with AWS by the DFL’s Sportec Solutions subsidiary (itself a partnership between Sportcast and Deltatre), continues to produce a Tactical Feed which is taken by several international broadcasters.

Machine learning from AWS is also deployed to glean insights and generate predictions, and provides the bedrock of the Bundesliga Match Facts service. Other initiatives from Sportcast include the implementation of a camera in a corner flag.

“We are always keen to test different cameras, new perspectives and technology to see how much can we get to the match in order to really engage fans,” Günther says.

New angles

While Bundesliga 2 remains a 1080p production, the Bundesliga is UHD HDR as is the Supercup, which is designated by Sportcast as Topspiel+ meaning more firepower than usual.

The Supercup is also used as an opportunity to trial new tech and this year’s tie, held on 17 August, was no different. It was a 29-camera production, 10 more than for regular league games. The additional cameras included Steadicam cine-style cameras capturing teams off the bus and into the changing room and dual ‘coach cams’ trained on the manager dug outs throughout the game.

There was also an Aerial Camera System and a drone for use outside of the stadium used in the pre-match rundown during half time and post game. In the Mixed Zone, Günther points out two fixed cameras that would capture the atmosphere of the media build-up and player interviews during and after the match.

“If it seems to be like a playground for innovation then it is,” he says.  “It is all about providing content, content, more content and experience. To find out about new experiences we have to test them and that includes putting cameras where no-one has seen them before.

“This is what the Bundesliga stands for. It’s technology and innovation on the one hand and sustainable and robust production on the other.”

While the Supercup was a conventional OB, Sportcast is laying the groundwork to transition to regular matchday remote production. It has already trialled remote production of a couple of Bundesliga matches last term and plans to make at least another two remote production proof of concepts of live Bundesliga 2 matches this year.

One proof-of-concept was for the Bundesliga 2 match between Fortuna Düsseldorf and Eintracht Braunschweig, which was produced entirely remotely and cloud-based in parallel with conventional production, using 11 cameras. Key tech components under evaluation are Grass Valley’s AMPP system and the Evertz DreamCatcher system. A second system involves solutions by Vizrt and Simply Live which was integrated via an NDI protocol.

“We’re evaluating the remote setup quite intensely,” Günther says. “As we build up a green production environment we’re collecting all the data that is necessary to reduce the carbon footprint.”

It is possible that all Bundesliga 2 games from the 2025-26 season will be produced remotely. Decisions will be made on where to site a national remote broadcast production hub, with Cologne the current frontrunner. The city currently hosts the DFL’s VAR centre.

Live from the Supercup: DFL showcases Refcam, fresh angles and in-car streaming

SVG Europe

As the first big game of the season, the Supercup presents the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) with an annual chance to showcase the media products it has recently developed. And this year’s curtain raiser between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and VfB Stuttgart at the BayArena on Saturday 17 August was no exception.

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“Innovation is really important for us,” explained Dominik Scholler in charge of DFL’s international product portfolio, ahead of the match. “We try to be ahead of the curve by trying new things very early. We look at disruptive tech, which has the potential to really revolutionise how you experience media products, such as immersive reality. At the same time, incremental innovations are very important for us because these help to constantly improve our media product.

“Because none of us can really predict the future it’s very important to monitor each innovation to understand which ones we move forward with.”

The DFL doesn’t just take learnings from internal experimentation but watches developments in other leagues, other sports and other entertainment properties too.

“We try to understand what the best examples are that we can see in the general entertainment industry,” said Scholler. “We ask for feedback from fans and media partners and adapt our media product.”

On the incremental side being trialled at the Supercup are new camera feeds following the team out of their team bus on arrival at the stadium and then, a little later, following them into the sanctum of the locker room. In addition, both teams provided a player in the starting lineup for an interview just after the bus arrives. One interview was conducted by pay-TV rights holder Sky Deutschland and the other by free-to-air broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1. 

“Everything is in effort to get viewers closer to the pitch and the atmosphere,” said Scholler.

In the same vein ‘super, super flash interviews’ were arranged for immediately after the final whistle with players and managers on the pitch, something familiar from the Champions League but new to the Bundesliga. There was also a new half-time interview with one of each teams’ assistant coaches to get a feel for what was being discussed in the locker room.

There will be further such trials this season with the aim of adding them into regular Bundesliga matchday coverage from 2025-26.

RefCam video trials

Also trialled at the Supercup was live video streamed from a tiny Riedel-designed RefCam worn by the official over his ear (pointing forwards). Footage included pitch inspections and team handshakes prior to the game.

Football’s law making body IFAB currenttly does not permit any live footage to be used from refcams, though DFL execs as well as representatives of Riedel hinted that this could change.

“We are trying to push them and I personally think it’s probably only a question of time,” said Scholler. “When it is allowed we want to be in the position that we can activate it.”

RefCam was devised as a joint venture named In-YS (In Your Shoes), in which Riedel collaborated with referees Patrick Kessel and Nicolas Winter. The system comprises a head-mounted camera weighing just 6g integrated with a transmission system that can stream live or recorded footage. Its battery can last about 90 minutes. The system features a mute and shutdown function for the mic to ensure privacy for the referee using the system.

The RefCam debuted as a trial in a match at the beginning of the year between Eintracht Frankfurt and VfL Wolfsburg using just the record-only version. One aim is to bring greater transparency to officiating and give fans a greater understanding of the challenges of being a referee.

DFL Digital Sports also produces its own Netflix-style documentaries, including one last season built around the Bundesliga 1 relegation battle, and makes it available as part of the rights package. It’s something that is only possible with the close cooperation of the clubs.

“We basically knocked on the doors of the clubs that were in the lower part of the table and asked if we could accompany the teams and head coaches in the closing half of the season. That’s something you can’t script but turned out to be super exciting [culminating in the play-off between Fortuna Düsseldorf and Bochum].”

One of the reasons the DFL team chose this story to concentrate on, rather than Bayer Leverkusen’s historic run to the title, was to give fans in US markets an understanding of what relegation means to teams.

“That was exactly the story we wanted to tell and we will definitely go on and produce more content like that in the future,” he added.

In-car live match streaming

In the camp of emerging immersive applications was a live stream to displays in a BMW car. The DFL views the sale of rights for in-car experiences as a new type of media inventory.

“We see a trend within the automotive industry to develop in-car entertainment systems and therefore they need the best content,” said Roman Schade, the DFL’s head of audio visual rights in the DACH region. “We think that Bundesliga is really valuable in this regard.”

In 2023 the DFL began a project with BMW to broadcast select Bundesliga matches live and on demand into BMWs equipped with its in-car entertainment system. It was the first professional sports league anywhere to make such a move.

“The idea is to have dedicated content for dedicated driving situations,” he said. “So if the customer is waiting at the traffic lights and a goal has been scored, they can click a button and replay the 15 seconds of the goal. They can watch recorded highlights while waiting for the engine to charge. Those in the back seat or passenger seat can watch the game live anytime.”

The BWM 7 Series car showcasing the live streamed Supercup action in the OB compound at BayArena retails at around €180,000 but the TV system itself (built around an Amazon Firestick) is available in most BMW models including its cheaper range. Indeed, the pilot programme featuring live in-car Bundesliga matches (along with apps like YouTube) is said to be already included in over 400,000 vehicles.

“It’s a global use case, not only a German case available in premium cars, and also on a broader range of cars for Bundesliga fans around the world,” said Schade.  “We’re looking to triple that 400,000 number by the end of the year.”

The full package includes immersive surround sound, vibrating seat movements (similar to a 4D cinema experience) and even lighting effects that might activate in the colours of your team when they score.

“You could even have the car emit scent so that it smells like the pitch,” said Schade. “I know that sounds gimmicky but it also has a purpose in giving the fan an immersive experience.”

The signal itself is transmitted over cell networks to a SIM card built into the BMW’s in-car entertainment system. The deal with BMW is non-exclusive and the DFL is looking for other automotive manufacturers to hop aboard.

Scholler sees it as a logical evolution of classic radio transmission where fans consumed football by listening live while travelling.

“We believe that there is a new model where people can consume football as a video product in the car where they couldn’t do so before. Rapid developments in autonomous driving will free drivers up on the autobahn [for viewing the live stream],” he concluded.