IBC
article here
On 19 July, after six warm-up matches the British &
Irish Lions finally face the Wallabies in a three Test series which will run
until 2 August. For the first time Sky Sports is broadcasting the Tests in UHD
but this is almost an incidental upgrade compared to the significant remote
production it is managing from Down Under.
“The 1997 Lions Tour was essentially one satellite World
Feed coming back in. Now its 30 feeds,” says Sky Sports Senior Director, Sam Foskett
who has worked on all eight Lions Tours since 1997. “The difference between
then and now is huge. 2013 was the last time we sent our full crew to Australia
for the Test matches, probably, 25 people. Now it’s just six travelling from
the UK.”
The last two Lions tours have been a joint venture between
the host Union and the Lions. “Up until 2017, the host Union was in charge of
everything and the host broadcaster wasn't but now it's very much a commercial
and broadcast partnership and a real collaboration,” explains Foskett. “That's
given us the opportunity to get all the camera angles we need to be able to
tell the stories in depth in a way we never had before.”
The 2017 Lions Tour from New Zealand was the first sports
event that Sky produced remotely. “That was ambitious. We'd done some remote
for the US Open tennis but there'd never been a remote from the Southern
hemisphere. It was also proof of concept for Formula One.”
At that point, Sky’s F1 team of 40 crew were flying with the
rest of the F1 circus around the world. Following the success of the Lions’ PoC
from NZ, F1 went remote as well.
The host broadcaster is Australian SVoD Stan Sport which is
owned by media group Nine Entertainment. Foskett emphasises the unusually close
collaboration with Stan on the production.
“We’re sharing on screen pundits. Their guys come across and
do content for us and vice versa. We're sharing filming of training sessions
and features. They've given us as many camera feeds as we want. Stan’s vision
mixer used to work for us in the UK.”
Foskett worked with Stan’s host director Hamish France on
the 2015 Rugby World Cup. “We’re very
comfortable with how we can help one another,” he says. “It means I can speak
to him during the game should I need to. For instance, during warm-ups he'll
tell me exactly which camera is doing what and that means I can use his cameras
to augment our presentation. That direct line of communication is very
unusual.”
Since the World Feed is principally for an Australian
audience Sky’s brief is to augment it to tell the story for British and Irish
fans. “The key to that is that we take a clean feed to which we add our
graphics.”
Sky’s graphics (designed by an Australian First Nations’
artist) use match data supplied by Oval Insights and managed by AE Live. “Stan press one button and that does a Stan
wipe on their feed and a simultaneous Sky branded wipe on ours. That means we
have our creative all the way so it looks consistently as our program.”
Sky takes in an exact copy of the Sky World Feed as a backup
and as further redundancy takes in Stan's World Feed as well. “That's got all
of their graphics on so should we have any trouble with our clean Sky feed we
can jump to that, but it’s not ideal because we would be using their graphics
and we're trying to keep the Sky look across everything.
Among the 30 feeds that Sky is bringing back from Australia to Osterley is a
Spider-Cam for every match, super slow EVS for replay angles, coverage from
changing rooms pre-game and halftime and coach-cam during the game. There is
not though for this event any RefCam since World Rugby declined its use.
For the first time the Tests are being broadcast in UHD
(SDR) and will feature Sky unilateral cameras including its own RF cam
permitted to enter the pitch during warm-ups and post-match and (potentially)
half time. Stan Sport will share additional RF Cine cams with depth of
field lenses/sensors for post-try celebrations.
“The great thing is that Rugby Australia and all the teams
seem quite relaxed about cameras on the pitch during warm-ups or during tries,”
says Sky’s production manager Rebecca Lea.
Sky has a couple of ENG crew on tour, one focussed on Sky
Sports news and the other shooting feature material. “On matchday, one of those
is located behind the goal post the Lions are attacking. The other has got a
roaming brief and can go anywhere to get fans or injured players on the bench,
or live action.
“We’re also taking a lot features from Stan Sport and we're
reciprocating with cameras so if we get a definitive angle on something, Stan
will have a feed of that as well. We're essentially collaborating on everything
we can.”
During the warm-up matches all Sky’s ISO camera feeds were
returned via internet points around each stadium to LiveU800s positioned in the
OB compound. The two ENG cameras each had their own LiveU600 attached to them.
For the Tests the level of facility was ramped up to include a dedicated NEP
Australia OB truck at Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.
“To make remote production workable city to city we’ve
shipped Sky’s Remote production flypack into Australia,” Lea explains. “With
this kit plugged in, it will provide a consistent remote production experience
at each Test Match venue.
The Sky Flypack contains; Net Insight Nimbras to build the
data trunk over the Telstra network to the UK, NTT encoding and decoding
devices, Riedel talkback, plus Calrec RP1 for remote audio mixing.
This is kit normally put to work on Sky Sports’ remote
coverage and will be shipped to New York for the U.S Open immediately following
the Lions Tour.
“For Sam in the gallery [in Osterley] it will feel like a regular
remote production just like we do all the time and we're not relying on internet
connectivity with the LiveUs,” Lea says. Sky HQ is also where highlights and
show closures and teasers are postproduced.
All of this is achieved with a minimal crew of six from the
UK (plus seven talent) and a couple more local staff. The Sky UK crew includes
production manager, sound guarantee, camera-op, producer, and data engineer.
“That's where the big Sky tech jigsaw is really clever. The
distances in Australia mean logistics are challenging but the remote production
kit means we can produce the show just as efficiently from the UK.”
Indeed, Sky Sports is able to throw more creative bells and
whistles at the Lions Tour coverage because it is able to host presentation
from the flagship studio used for Monday Night Football. The Studio features a
Virtual Window in the central LED screen allowing presenters to stand in front
of the screen, creating that illusion of depth. Former Lions captain Sam
Warburton will lead analysis in the studio interacting with the Piero graphics
system.
No comments:
Post a Comment