AI-powered automated cameras introduced into live host feed for Supercup

SVG

article here

As part of its drive to generate more content with the same or fewer resources, the Bundesliga conducted a live test of a fully automated pan-tilt-zoom camera system incorporated into the live host feed of the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup.

The live integration has been deployed on other football leagues and others sports before but this is a first for the Bundesliga and also for its broadcast partner Sky.

“We’ve done several tests, including a fully automated tactical feed last week in Hannover for a Bundesliga 2 match,” explained Dave Greene, Sales Director at Dutch AI specialist Studio Automated.

“We’ve already deployed automated PTZ in ice hockey, handball and football in other leagues. This the first time we’re integrating a technical live AI feed into the Bundesliga match experience together with Sky.”

One camera was in operation at Boroussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park positioned on the main camera gantry. This was mounted on a HotHead 3 remote head from Egripment Camera Support, part of the Broadcast Solutions Group (BSG).

“On‑site it’s plug‑and‑play,” Greene said. “The camera can be reached remotely, so in a centralised production someone can simply access the system over the internet and start or stop the AI through our API. You can connect multiple cameras. The remote head behaves like a fluid head on a tripod, fully integrated into the OB van infrastructure.”

With Greene was Egripmont CTO Martin Dresbach. He described the HotHead 3 as a fully digital, IP‑based remote head with an API that Studio Automate uses for control. “It can carry heavy packages up to 60 kilos, so large lenses up to 122x are no problem. We provide the hardware; the magic happens in the Studio Automate software.”

Jens Fischer, senior business development manager for Global VAR and Sports Solutions at BSG explained that Studio Automated supports 15 professional sports out of the box.

“It has trained an AI to control cameras exactly as you’d expect in professional sports Naturally, for the Supercup it is using the AI model for football. It’s a multi‑camera model that supports standard football positions: Camera 1, Camera 2, the 16‑metre tactical camera, left and right offside, and the high‑behind‑goal angle. Today we’re running the AI model for the tactical feed.”

The team were keen to emphasise that the AI is not simply ball or object tracking. It has been trained to understand the game.

“The AI doesn’t play ‘catch the ball’ like you might expect,” Fischer said. “It actually understands football. We didn’t hard‑code rules—the AI learned them on its own.”

A corner‑kick example explains this well. Traditional automated systems track the ball and keep it in the centre of the frame. That produces bad pictures, according to Fischer, “half the audience on one side, the ball buried in the corner.

“A real camera operator would frame the corner flag on the left and bring the ball into the shot,” he added. “The AI learned that behaviour independently.”

The AI is also smart enough to understand why a person in black on the touchline never enters the pitch, or why there suddenly appear to be 23 players—because substitutions have happened. “It understands the logic of football and frames the game the way a human operator would.”

Dresbach stressed that the AI doesn’t manipulate the video. “It receives the low‑latency feed and instructs the remote head how to move. Production companies take the direct feed, match it with other cameras, and shade it in real time.

“It’s important to understand that the AI has been trained on football movements and anticipates play. If you track only the ball, you’re always too late—and you frame incorrectly, especially on corners. The system detects the integrity of the game, not just a single object.”

Asked how accurate the system was Greene replied, “We work with top‑tier football leagues that demand extremely high uptime. Football has unique situations, but through iterative updates we can teach the AI how to respond.”

The system control can either be on‑premise (which it was at the Supercup) or at a remote production centre. “The AI analyses the live feed coming from the camera lens and sends instructions to pan, tilt and zoom, Dresbach said. “The remote head then executes those movements, giving you the natural look and feel of a football match.”

While a tactical feed was demonstrated here, the Studio Automated-BSG combination can offer solutions for Camera 1, left and right offside, and high‑behind‑goal positions.

“It gives production companies flexibility to blend manual and automated production,” Greene said. “If you have a traditional production and want to add more cameras cost‑effectively, we provide a way to do that.”

Pressed as to whether this inevitably leads to fewer camera-ops down the line, Greene said:

 “Things are changing on the operator side. In five years we may have fewer camera operators, or simply more flexibility. Recently at a EuroLeague playoff—a very downscaled production—they used one AI tactical camera because the budget allowed adding one more camera. In future, automated 16‑metre cameras could let productions stay within budget while increasing coverage. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about doing more with the same budget.”

Supervising this and a whole array of other tech trials was Alexander Günther, Managing Director of Sportcast. The wholly-owned subsidiary of the DFL produces the host signal for all Bundesliga and BL2 matches – some 700 events a year. 

“This is part of our methodological approach: idea, concept, POCs, iterative development, and finally delivery. And today—it’s delivery,” he said.

The AI-powered feed will be evaluated but likely rolled out as standard for every Tuesday 20:30 match this season.

At the Supercup, Sportcast were hosting the match not only for the Bundesliga match but also Sky and other domestic and international partners. The AI tactical feed was in addition to the ‘platinum setup’ of 28 cameras which it reserves for the bigger games such as Der Klassiker.

While Sony and GV systems cameras are in dominant use across the season this may change as Sportcast evaluates ARRI live cameras.

“We tested ARRI cameras at Sports Innovation two years ago, and yes, we’ll continue testing them. They offer different shading, different perspectives, and a more cinematic look, which is increasingly in demand for documentaries.”

Volumetric capture was also being tested with twenty cameras arrayed around the pitch perimeter. “It’s non‑live for now, mainly for highlight editing, but it looks very good,” Günther said.

Even Meta glasses were being used for the first time in an early exploration of the potential angles and fresh point of view a live stream from wearers (in the tunnel for example) might bring.

Günther echoed the thoughts of Bundesliga CEO in highlighting the macro challenge that he now faces which is balancing the shared experience of soccer with personalisation.

“Historically there was one world feed. Now we’re exploring how to provide both a world feed and individualised streams.

“Centralised production helps enormously. It allows us to bring all feeds into one hub and distribute them to different editorial teams. Automation and AI will change this further—fewer camera operators and more potential for personalised feeds. The next big innovation will be integrating 3D data and audio into a completely new production layer.

“Our primary responsibility however is to provide the correct source. Audio, video, and data has to be accurate and captured live from the field of play. Fans need to trust that what they see is real.”

Bundesliga places AI at centre of its media strategy

SVG

article here

Introducing the Bundesliga’s latest showcase of technology innovation Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) CEO  Steffen Merkel put the emphasis firmly on AI.

“AI is not just another tech trend for us,” Merkel said. “It is becoming a fundamental capability that runs through the entire organisation, just as it does in many other industries—including sports and football.”

The event, held in Dortmund over the weekend ahead of the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup, featured presentations, a tour of Boroussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park and VIP boxes stuffed full of new toys.

“I’m a firm believer in trying things early and learning from every experiment,” said Merkel, who oversees the league’s media and digital strategy. “Sometimes a prototype becomes a product; sometimes it doesn’t. But there is always added value in the process.”

More than 43 million people in Germany—almost half the population—follow the Bundesliga, spanning all demographics, each consuming content differently. Internationally, the diversity is even greater.

“This makes it clear why technology is essential to scale, localise, and personalise content for fans everywhere,” he said.

With around 400 employees across the organisation and roughly 250 dedicated to content production, the Bundesliga faces a scale challenge familiar to many rights holders. “When it comes to our international fan base and localisation, it’s impossible to do that manually. So AI is a huge opportunity for us to close the gap.”

The raw material feeding AI are 200 million data points collected for each match. Event data, positional tracking and 3D tracking feed innovations such as Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS, semi‑automated offside detection and automated event recognition. “Match data has become ever more intertwined with the media product,” he added, describing a future where real‑time insights shape fan engagement, media production, and increasingly the sport on the pitch (through AI assisted coaching and scouting for example).

From a study into AI commissioned by the league two commercial trends stood out. “The ones with the highest probability are personalised content and content scaling,” explained Professor Sascha Schmidt, Chair and Director of the Center for Sport and Management (CSM) at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. Experts expect “a seamless integration of individually curated content in real time” to be standard by 2030, alongside the ability to “double the amount of Bundesliga content produced with the same resources.”

AI officiating support generated the strongest divide. “There was no clear consensus,” Schmidt said, with desirability scores sharply split.

The study also found that clubs recognise AI’s potential but feel “only moderately prepared” to capture its full value due to limited resources, talent and know‑how.

“Our task as a league is to unlock these potentials and help clubs do the same,” Merkel added. “Some clubs are already well equipped; others—especially in Bundesliga 2—benefit from us acting as an early‑stage accelerator.”

Bundesliga tests localised world feeds

The Bundesliga has taken a significant step toward reshaping how global football audiences experience live matches, unveiling early results from a proof‑of‑concept (POC) exploring localised world feeds. The initiative, led by Tabea Wagner, Senior Manager Live Product at Bundesliga Media, aims to deliver tailored match broadcasts for international markets without compromising the integrity of the league’s central production.

“As a rights holder, it’s our responsibility to deliver a top‑notch media product—especially for fans who aren’t privileged to sit in the stadium,” Wagner said. “We want to be the most fan-centric league – but if a Bundesliga match is not shown because there is no local commentary we cannot create any engagment.“

Today, the Bundesliga distributes one English world feed to dozens of markets with different languages, cultures and viewing habits. While broadcasters often add local commentary, resource constraints mean localisation is inconsistent.

“Our concept is straightforward,” Wagner explained. “We want to create many experiences based on the same feed. To do that, we add new layers—graphics localisation, commentary localisation, and eventually content localisation.”

Four factors convinced the league that the timing was right: rising fan demand for personalised experiences; rapid advances in AI translation and cloud workflows; an industry shift from satellite to streaming distribution; and growing momentum among other rights holders pursuing similar strategies. The Bundesliga’s partnership with AWS provides the technical backbone.

The POC focused on graphics localisation and audio localisation. Bundesliga Media worked with workflow‑orchestration startup Logic, running on AWS infrastructure, to coordinate the process.

Graphics localisation was tested using two methods and four service partners

·        Template‑driven HTML5 graphics, translated in advance and triggered by metadata managed by Vizrt.

·        Computer‑vision models that detect, translate and replicate graphics in parallel streams managed by mobii.

Audio localisation also followed two paths:

·        AI translation of the existing English commentary into multiple languages provided by Camb.AI

·        AI‑generated commentary based on match data, including 3D tracking, from Valka.AI.

Providers were asked to localise graphics into Arabic and German, translate commentary into Spanish and German, and generate new English commentary.

What worked—and what didn’t

“From a technical perspective, it is working,” Wagner said. But challenges remain.

Latency is a major obstacle for live environments. Graphics localisation proved more complex than expected—not in quality, but in how it fits into existing infrastructure. And language localisation is “not yet market‑ready.”

“Latency must go down,” Wagner said. “Commentary needs more emotionality and authenticity. And grammar errors must be eliminated. If the commentary isn’t as good as a human, we won’t put it into production.”

What’s next?

The league will continue monitoring service‑provider development and gather feedback from media partners to build a clear roadmap. Wagner emphasised that the future may not require more content—just more relevant experiences based on the same content.

“Localisation is a possible path,” she said. “It’s too early for conclusions, but it’s worth exploring—and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

At the Super Cup, another layer of sign‑language localisation was trialled in partnership with Synapse.

The more difficult question is whether personalisation should extend to the live match feed itself. Merkel acknowledges the tension.

“Given all the content and visualisation possibilities, the question becomes: do you want every fan to have their own individual experience, or do you still want a shared, joint experience? That’s the trade‑off. On one side, you have deep personalisation; on the other, the common experience that defines football culture.”

He describes this as one of the central debates in football’s AI future. “This is part of the journey toward AI. Finding the right balance between individualisation and togetherness.”

 

 

Crafting the Contenders: Adam Bricker, ASC on bringing Hacks home

interview and words for Sohonet

article here

By the time Hacks reached its fifth and final season, Adam Bricker ASC had spent six years shaping one of television’s most distinctive visual identities. The HBO Max comedy, created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, concluded in May 2026 with 47 episodes, 25 nominations for its final season, and a cinematography profile that had already earned Bricker five Emmy and four ASC nominations.

“From our earliest conversations, Lucia, Paul, Jen, and I agreed that being a half-hour comedy didn’t mean the show had to look a certain way” says the DP who lensed every single episode. “The scripts are so funny and the performances so perfect that the visuals don’t necessarily need to underline the comedy. Our cinematic language is naturalistic, sometimes even moody, and always reflective of where the characters are emotionally.”

That philosophy shaped Hacks from its Las Vegas origins—following legendary comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her young writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder)—through a journey that eventually took the characters to Los Angeles, New York, Singapore, and finally Paris.

Bricker and the creators built the show’s early aesthetic from a mix of references: Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven and Behind the Candelabra, the Judy Garland biopic Judy, and classic Vegas photography. The goal was a modern image with a nostalgic pulse, a subtle nod to Deborah’s heyday.

To achieve it, Bricker partnered with Panavision’s Guy McVicker to rework Primo 70 glass into something more period inflected. “He engineered a custom lens treatment that softened the highlights, added a bit of bloom and gave the flares a warm, vintage glow,” Bricker explains.‍

Carrying the look across five seasons

“Once we established the look in season one, that became our reference point for the seasons that followed,” Bricker says. “It’s been an exciting challenge figuring out how to keep the visuals cohesive as the world expands and evolves in ways we couldn’t have anticipated when we started.”

It helped that Bricker worked with the same core collaborators throughout including colorist Shane Reed, who runs boutique color house MOM&POP. That consistency allowed him to treat the show almost like a long form feature film, evolving the palette and lensing choices as the characters matured.

He established the look in season one with Gaffer Christopher Faulkner and Key Grip Randy Garcia. Gaffer Daniel McNutt joined in season two. Bricker describes the lighting and grip teams as “incredibly dedicated and talented,” helping evolve the visual language of the series over five seasons.

The final season took Deborah and Ava to France, and with it came a major shift in Bricker’s approach.

“The work we did in Paris was the biggest departure from our standard operating procedure,” he says. 

Without the ability to bring the full Los Angeles crew overseas, Bricker and director Lucia Aniello leaned into a more agile, intimate approach. “In Paris, the story really narrows its focus to Ava and Deborah,” he explains. “We talked about approaching it more like an indie film—staying close to them and creating a sense of intimacy in those key, pivotal moments.”

Instead of transforming locations into heightened worlds, as they often did in Las Vegas, Bricker embraced Paris as it was. 

“Working with found light, real spaces, and a smaller crew created a tonal shift that felt right for where the characters were emotionally.”

A cinematic farewell

It’s unusual for a single cinematographer to lens every episode of a multi-season series. Bricker embraced the challenge.

“I loved these characters. I loved the way Jen, Paul, and Lucia told their story. I couldn’t imagine not being a part of it,” he says.

“By the time we reached the fifth season, there was something really satisfying about being able to make choices with a sense of the whole — looking at a script and connecting a palette or a lens to something we’d established years earlier. You start revisiting the work from those first seasons and realize that some of those early choices were setting up things you’re only now getting to pay off.

“But there’s also a wonderful freedom in trusting your intuition — going with your gut and believing those instincts will keep everything cohesive, because that’s what we’d relied on all along to tell the story.”

The final episode even mirrors the pilot which opened on a oner on Deborah Vance’s back. Episode 47 opens on Ava’s back.

“We knew early on that we wanted to connect the two shots as much as possible, so [Production Designer] Rob Tokarz counted Deborah’s steps, and designed the set so that Ava would take the same number. It was shot by Steadicam Operator Joel Marsh who worked with me on every episode, and with the same focus puller, Jamiel VanOver, another longtime collaborator, and on the same custom 35mm lens we designed six years earlier.

“You can really feel that continuity,” Bricker says. “We all gave so much to the show over those six years, so for me it was genuinely special to have the opportunity to see it all the way through. And of course, it’s not just me. The continuity of this incredibly talented and dedicated crew is a huge part of the show. You can put on any episode and immediately feel that consistency.”

He adds, “We all really grew as filmmakers over the course of making this show. Getting to do that together, over five seasons, has been one of the best experiences of my career.”

Bricker’s other work includes Netflix culinary-doc series Chef’s Table (for which he earned an ASC nomination and two Emmy nominations), and Netflix true-crime mockumentary American Vandal.

 

Network Control: Turning 5G into a production tool

IBC

Speed, flexibility, and reliability – that’s the dream for many a live production. However, when public network coverage is patchy, what’s a broadcaster to do? The 2026 Accelerator Project, Network Control, deploys standardised network APIs to tackle this problem head-on.

article here

When 5G first arrived, broadcasters were told it would change everything. Higher bandwidth, lower latency, and the promise of network slicing suggested a future where live production could finally break free from the shackles of satellite trucks, microwave links, and unpredictable public networks. In many ways, that future has already begun: private 5G networks and bonded cellular systems have proven they can deliver broadcast‑grade workflows in real environments. But as the industry has discovered, 5G is ready for production — just not yet for scale.

A new IBC Accelerator project involving Neutral Wireless, SliceFinity, major European broadcasters, and public mobile operators aims to change that.

Their goal is deceptively simple: To make 5G predictable. In practice, it means turning connectivity from a best‑effort commodity into a programmable, controllable production resource. And if they succeed, it could reshape how live content is gathered, managed, and delivered at some of the world’s biggest events.

5G works, Until it doesn’t

Few people understand this better than Morten Brandstrup, Head of News Technology at TV2 Denmark and a leading voice within the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). TV2 has embraced 5G more aggressively than most. “We use 5G for 99% of all live contributions flowing into our newsroom,” he says. “Gone is the old sat‑truck.”

That’s all well and good but at major events such as political announcements, breaking news, or large‑scale sports, 5G’s reliability collapses. Crowds overwhelm public networks. Upload capacity evaporates. And broadcasters, who depend on stable uplink performance, are forced to fall back on legacy or improvised solutions.

“We’re not browsing; we’re uploading,” Brandstrup explains. “But we can’t predict whether we’ll get a usable service when we arrive on‑site.” At events like the World Cup or Tour de France, every broadcaster is trying to push video over cellular. The result is congestion, uncertainty, and a scramble for alternatives. TV2 has even resorted to deploying LEO satellite terminals — a paradoxical workaround in an era where 5G was meant to eliminate such complexity.

This is a common problem for broadcasters across the EU. As Brandstrup notes, “BBC, RAI, France Télévisions — everyone is facing the same issue.”

The broadcast use case is fundamentally different from consumer mobile usage. Public networks are optimised for download, not upload. And while consumers can tolerate degraded performance, broadcasters cannot. A dropped frame or frozen feed is a failure.

Mission: Control

The IBC Accelerator project to solve this gap in guaranteed reliability was instigated by the GSMA with Neutral Wireless, a specialist in private 5G networks, SDR/FPGA engineering, and rapid‑deployment connectivity solutions. The latter’s work with broadcasters has shown that private 5G can deliver exceptional reliability but only in controlled environments such as studios, OB compounds, or temporary event‑specific deployments.

The challenge is extending that reliability to public networks.

“Broadcasters don’t just need bandwidth,” Sam Yoffe, Senior Systems Engineer explains. “They need control. They need to know which device gets priority, when it gets priority, and how the network is behaving in real time. “rivate networks can provide that. Public networks, historically, cannot.”

They believe the solution lies in standardised network APIs, particularly those developed under the CAMARA initiative. This is an open‑source project jointly run by the Linux Foundation and GSMA’s Open Gateway programme. CAMARA APIs allow applications to request network behaviour dynamically: priority, QoS profiles, connectivity insights, and eventually full slice reservation.

“These APIs already exist,” says Joffe. “What’s missing is consistent implementation across operators, and integration into broadcast workflows.”

APIs from connectivity to production resource

Today, broadcasters rely on fragmented, proprietary APIs from individual vendors. These are powerful but inconsistent, difficult to integrate, and impossible to scale across multiple networks or countries. As Yoffe puts it, “No vendor wants to build custom workflows for every hardware manufacturer and every network. For this to work, the APIs must be open standards.”

CAMARA provides that standardisation. The Quality on Demand (QoD) API, for example, allows a device to request higher priority on a congested network. Connectivity Insights provides real‑time metrics about signal quality, throughput, and network conditions — enabling operators to make informed decisions about when to request priority. And QoS Profiles allow workflows to specify the type of traffic they’re sending.

For broadcasters, these APIs aren’t about networks. They’re about editorial speed, flexibility, and reliability. They allow production systems to treat connectivity the same way they treat audio routing, camera tally, or graphics triggers: as a controllable, predictable part of the workflow.

Booking the network like a production asset

Also participating in the project is SliceFinity, a company founded to close the gap between 5G’s programmability and its commercial reality. Its Network Slice Booking API allows industry customers to reserve network resources in advance defining service areas, time windows, QoS parameters, and device access controls.

In other words, says Yoffe, “broadcasters could book network performance the same way they book satellite windows or fibre circuits.”

SliceFinity’s role in the IBC Accelerator is to provide an aggregated interface that simplifies how broadcasters interact with public operators. Instead of navigating complex operator‑specific APIs, broadcasters use SliceFinity’s unified interface to request QoD, reserve slices, or bind devices to guaranteed resources.

This is essential because public operators must balance broadcaster needs with consumer traffic, emergency services, and overall network health. SliceFinity helps manage that balance, ensuring that priority requests are feasible, safe, and aligned with operator policies.

The live demonstration

The Accelerator aims to prove the concept in a live demonstration on a real public network in a stadium filled with tens of thousands of people. The chosen venue is the German Supercup at Dortmund in August, where the project hopes to show that QoD can protect a broadcast feed even under extreme congestion.

Operators are understandably cautious. Instead of testing with 10–20 Mbps video streams, the demonstration will use a lower‑bitrate workflow — around 500 kbps — such as intercom, camera control, or telemetry.

“These are mission‑critical but lightweight, making them ideal for early testing,” Joffe says. “If successful, the demonstration will prove that CAMARA APIs can deliver real, measurable benefits on live public networks. It will also give operators confidence to expand the scope of priority services.”

Path to industry adoption

The IBC Accelerator is not trying to create a commercial product. It is trying to prove feasibility, establish workflows, and build consensus.

According to Joffe, “the real value lies in the collaboration between broadcasters, production vendors, private 5G specialists, and public operators all working together to define requirements and test solutions.”

Brandstrup adds, “We are a small industry. Operators cannot engage with every broadcaster individually. This project gives us one language, one way of connecting with them on behalf of the wider industry.”

For operators, the project clarifies what broadcasters actually need. It’s not always 20 Mbps video slices. Often it’s reliable intercom, camera control, or telemetry — low‑bitrate but mission‑critical workflows that can be protected without harming consumer traffic.

“For broadcasters, it offers a path toward scalable, predictable 5G usage at major events without deploying private networks along entire race routes or relying on satellite backups,” says Yoffe. “For vendors, it provides a standardised foundation for integrating connectivity control directly into production systems.”

5G was always meant to be programmable. CAMARA, GSMA Open Gateway, and projects like this IBC Accelerator are finally turning that promise into reality.

“If broadcasters can treat connectivity as a controllable resource to be booked, prioritised, monitored, and integrated into workflows then it unlocks new possibilities for remote production, cloud‑based workflows, and lightweight field operations,” Brandstrup underlines.

It reduces the need for heavy infrastructure. It increases editorial agility. And it brings the industry closer to a world where live production is as flexible as the stories it covers.

Rai Radiotelevisione Italiana, Italy’s public service broadcaster, is among those championing the project. Gino Alberico, Director of Centre for Research and Innovation at RAI says, “RAI depends on reliable, flexible and scalable connectivity to deliver high‑quality live content across the country. While 5G has already proven capable of supporting TV production through private networks, current public solutions remain fragmented, inconsistent across operators, and difficult to be used into real production workflows.”

He continues, “This project demonstrates how potential standardised open network APIs, such as CAMARA’s Quality on Demand, transform 5G from a best‑effort network into a programmable, predictable production resource. By enabling dynamic, event‑driven prioritisation of key devices and video feeds, broadcasters gain the ability to protect critical uplinks even in congested environments.

“Working collaboratively with mobile network operators, production technology vendors and international partners, RAI will evaluate the project outcome as a set of integrated production‑ready network APIs that could strengthen the public‑service mission, modernizing its tv production infrastructure and workflow.”

 

Inside Euphoria’s Editorial Heart: Aaron I. Butler, ACE on craft, collaboration and controlled madness

Interview and copy written for Sohonet

article here

“Our priority was making the best, most powerful, most meaningful story possible,” says Aaron I. Butler, ACE, of shaping the fever dream intensity of Euphoria. The HBO drama’s unflinching look at underage sex, drugs, and loneliness is one of television’s most visually and emotionally ambitious shows, created/written/directed by Sam Levinson and shaped by its editorial team into a multi-award-winning phenomenon.

Season 3 alone shot 348 hours of footage, largely on 65mm film, which the editorial team compressed into nine hours of television. “That’s a crazy ratio,” Butler says. “We like to play with and push the material to see where we can take it.”

‍Joining the Euphoria family

Butler is a six-time Emmy Award-nominated, two-time Emmy Award-winning, and three-time ACE Eddie Award-nominated editor and PGA Award nominated producer who joined Euphoria in its second season. 

He first met the show’s Supervising Editor Julio Perez IV, ACE, Levinson’s longtime collaborator, at a diner. They talked for two and a half hours straight and ended with a hug. 

“We were instant friends,” he recalls. “We went right to the deep emotional stuff. We both had family trauma. Both our parents struggled with addiction. For a show like Euphoria, that’s important. It’s emotional and raw, and you have to be able to talk about these difficult subjects.”

That shared emotional vocabulary became foundational across the editing team for season 2, who together won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series for the episode ‘The Theater and Its Double’.

For Season 3’s eight episodes, all 4 editors are credited on every episode (this season’s editors include Perez IV, Butler, Aleshka Ferrero and Nikola Boyanov), which is unusual for a tv series. They worked as a collective, responding to footage as it arrived. Part of the reason was practical too because the whole season was shot as one big block. 

A collaborative editing culture

Perez acted as Levinson’s proxy while the show runner was on set. Butler explains, “Julio watches everything. It all gets in his head. Sometimes he’ll do selects, sometimes he’ll assign scenes based on who he thinks is right for them. Other times I’ll say, ‘Julio, I really want to do this scene.’”

Once an editor finished a first pass, they screened with Perez, then with the entire team. “Usually once a week we’d get together, all the editors, and watch everything. We’d give each other feedback. We’d see how the scenes were playing into each other. It’s incredibly collaborative.”

This collaboration extended to Levinson himself. “Sam will come in during shooting and watch scenes we’ve cut. That’s very unusual. Most show runners don’t watch anything until there’s a first assembly of an entire episode.” Levinson, however, uses editorial as part of his creative process. “He’ll rewrite things, add things, or shoot different things based on what we do. Editorial and production are informing and inspiring each other along the way.”

Butler calls it “a unique kind of editorial process,” one that demands flexibility, experimentation, and trust.

Finding the style in the finale

Season 3 brought a major stylistic shift and a five-year time jump. “We like to have the footage come in and affect us,” Butler says. “We sat together listening to music — Western themes, Mexican cowboy music, old Hollywood noir. We were trying to feel the world of this season.” 

Once the dailies started arriving, instinct took over. “We react to it and see how the characters have changed.”

The season 3 finale ‘In God We Trust’, which is Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Picture Editing For A Drama Series, is a feature length 93 minutes. It was the first episode the team completed. “Creatively, that’s not a bad thing,” Butler says. “You know where everything is headed.”

His biggest challenge was the Ali–Alamo duel, a sprawling, multi-character sequence inside a strip club. “It was a huge amount of footage and a really complicated sequence,” he says. “You’re in this room with two people having a duel, but there are all these other people in the room. Preserving the sense of space, being on the right person at the right time, was a complex dance.”

Levinson later told him it was the scene he was most excited to shoot and that Butler’s cut surprised him. In the script, Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) fires early, discovers his gun is empty, curses Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson), and then Butler was expected to cut to Ali (Colman Domingo) raising his gun before shooting him. “I cut it that way first,” Butler says. “But I thought, there’s something I can do here to make it even better.”

Instead of showing Ali raise his gun, Butler cut straight from Alamo’s curse to Alamo getting blasted with Ali’s gunshot. “I cut it so that the shot comes out of nowhere. The audience isn’t expecting it.” Levinson was totally surprised when he saw the first cut of the scene. During a 600 person New York screening of the finale, when Alamo gets suddenly shot, Butler says, “The theatre just gasped. Then everyone screamed and cheered. That made me feel like mission accomplished.”

Documentary instincts 

Butler’s documentary background is central to his approach. “In documentary, the editor is the writer,” he says. “You have 300+ hours of footage and you’re literally writing the story line by line.”

That mindset shapes his scripted work. “A good scripted editor will cut the scene as written. But a really good editor - especially one with documentary experience - doesn’t stop there. You ask ‘how can I make it even better? How can I elevate this?’”

He offers an example from Season 3 where Ali and Natasha Lyonne’s character are shadowboxing in a drugged-out haze. “Sam shot it like a mini-doc. They were just playing.” The scripted transition cut from their drugged chaos to Ali waking in a hospital bed after heart surgery. Butler felt the cut needed more escalation.

“I thought: addiction feels like fighting yourself. My parents struggled with addiction. I saw them constantly in this internal battle.” So he found one random shot in the footage where Ali fell down on the hotel bed. Then he recut the shadowboxing footage so Ali starts punching himself in the face and then knocks himself out and then falls into the hotel bed (“a symbolic collapse”). Then it cuts right to Ali in the hospital bed, his chest full of stitches. “Sam never expected that. Julio said it was so innovative. The audience will never know it wasn’t scripted that way.”

‍The Idol

If Euphoria blends scripted precision with improvisational looseness, The Idol leaned almost entirely into chaos. “The biggest difference is that Euphoria had eight scripts. On The Idol, we had two full scripts. The rest was outlined.” Levinson received the project late, Butler says, and time was short.

“The Idol was shot like a documentary. They’d throw the actors in a room and just shoot. Sometimes we had four hours of footage for a two-minute scene.” Scenes moved all over the place. 

“It was all made in the edit room,” he notes. “But all of the editors had documentary experience. That’s why we could do it.”

A life built for storytelling

Butler’s path into filmmaking began on a small ranch in Atascadero, California. “My escape was going out into the fields with my dog and making up stories in my head,” he says. He loved movies and books, especially fantasy and science fiction.

His first spark came in seventh grade, when he wrote a creative story for English class inspired by a rose growing outside his bedroom window. It was so accomplished, his teacher accused him of plagiarism. “She said, ‘There’s no way you wrote this.’ It really crushed me.” Despite his parents showing the teacher the drafts he had made she didn’t believe him. “I didn’t want to be an artist after that.”

But what doesn’t break you makes you stronger. Butler’s father bought him a Hi8 video camera. “I fell in love with making little short films. My friends were blown away. I loved making them laugh. I got addicted to it.”

At UC Berkeley, he studied pre-law and theatre but kept making films. “I got a little cult following,” he says. That led him to the Saul Zaentz Film Center in 1997, where he edited his first documentary Learning to Fly with two-time Academy Award-nominated director Bill Jersey. The film won Gold Medals at the New York Festivals and U.S. International Film Festival and aired on PBS. In 2002 Aaron edited on Jersey's documentary series The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, which won the Peabody award, the IDA Award for Best Limited Series, and was nominated for three Emmy Awards.

Other projects he has edited include the 2013 HBO documentary feature American Winter, the Sundance and HBO documentary Cries From Syria, the IMAX short film Jesus is King for Kanye West, the Sundance feature I Am Michael starring James Franco, and the Toronto International Film Festival feature J.T. LeRoy starring Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern, which was the closing night film in 2018.

Whatever the project, Butler approaches every scene the same way, with curiosity, empathy, and a desire to surprise. “How can I add layers of meaning?” he says. “How can I elevate this? How can I make the audience feel something deeper?”

 

BBC R&D bid to bring interactivity to the TV

Streaming Media

article here

A new technology being developed by BBC Research & Development aims to reclaim attention by bringing interaction back to the TV screen itself.

“We want to guide viewers back to the heart of the viewing experience,” says Laura Harrison, principal product manager in BBC R&D. “Interaction you actually want to take part in.”

Signals made a public debut as a test during the BBC’s recent coverage of Wimbledon 2026, adding a live, interactive data layer directly onto Centre Court broadcasts. Built by BBC R&D’s Future World Design (FWD) team, Signals blends real‑time ball‑tracking data, dominance graphs, serve‑speed overlays, winners maps, quizzes, polls, and audience participation into the same frame as the action.

“We were trying to think about, with all of this distraction happening on second screens, how can we bring people back to the primary screen?” explains Harrison. “Audience expectations have changed. Watching sport is no longer enough; people want to respond, interact, and feel part of what’s happening in the moment.”

Part of BBC R&D’s remit is to explore how internal technology can be commercialised and scaled beyond the BBC.

“From the start, we were thinking about how Signals could work for other broadcasters, rights holders, or partners and not built solely on BBC infrastructure.

“Initially, we explored whether Signals could sit as a layer on top of Freely interacting with other broadcasters’ content.”

Freely is the internet-based free TV platform that carries the live streams of BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5. 

The goal was to build a genre and delivery-agnostic platform that could sit on top of broadcast TV and work across BBC and non‑BBC environments.

“We weren’t thinking of sport specifically,” Harrison explains. “We were thinking quite broad about how we can use engagement and interaction to bring audiences outside the broadcast environment into the room.”

The opportunity to collaborate with the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) ahead of the BBC’s 100‑year Wimbledon anniversary accelerated the sports use case. Tennis, with its rich ball‑tracking data and clear momentum shifts, offered fertile ground for experimentation.

The technology wasn’t quite ready for use on TV but was instead deployed both on the BBC Sport website and at Wimbledon.com, proving it could run on external platforms with keyboard and mouse interactions.

“We had our own landing page on BBC, but we also worked with the All England Tennis Club to have an instance on their website,” Harrison says. “Proving we could publish externally was a key part of the next step.”

Signals runs as an internet‑delivered layer alongside the broadcast stream. It is agnostic of the TV’s media player, making it easier to integrate and scale. In case of Wimbledon, the system ingested real‑time ball‑tracking data from official third‑party providers — including Hawk‑Eye — and processes it through a custom Signals hub.

Synchronisation was the hardest technical challenge. Wimbledon’s broadcast stream can carry a delay of around 30 seconds, while ball‑tracking data arrives in real time.

“If we’ve got a tennis serve coming in at 100 miles an hour, and you’ve got a 30‑second delay on the stream, it’s really key to get that synced up exactly,” Harrison says. “Timing was probably the most difficult thing.”

Two‑way participation

Signals overlays during Wimbledon included a ‘Dominance graph’ showing who is in control, updated continuously; Serve performance cards comparing serve metrics and a animated serve‑speed overlay reacting instantly to every serve, plus quizzes and polls triggered during breaks in play.

“Tennis produces a huge amount of data, but much of it has traditionally been out of reach during live play,” Harrison says. “Signals turns that data into clear, timely stories that make matches easier to follow and more engaging. Signals is about two‑way participation — letting audiences respond to key moments and see the collective reaction unfold in real time.”

Audiences response was encouraging. “Interaction varies by match and by tournament stage — second‑week matches, especially with British players, saw spikes in usage.”

BBC R&D say 66% of users rated Signals five stars (the overall rating was 4.5/5). Average dwell time was an impressive 19–20 minutes.

For comparison, previous BBC interactive experiences — such as the World Cup 3D model — saw average engagement of around 5–6 minutes.

Serve‑speed overlays and quizzes were standout features, but Harrison notes a clear audience split. “Entry‑level fans gravitate toward quizzes and fun interactions and data‑driven fans dive into dominance graphs and detailed stats. Signals is designed to serve both.

“Two‑way participation is key editorially. If audiences respond in certain ways, that can influence the types of quizzes or polls editors push out, both in the moment and in future matches. Some questions might be driven by real‑time data — serve speeds, spin, rally length — helping fans understand the sport better. Others might be more light‑hearted for entry‑level viewers. Audiences could see responses coming in live, so they felt part of a group rather than interacting alone.”

Next steps

BBC R&D is already prototyping experiences for entertainment formats and current affairs. Instances include viewers scoring a routine on Strictly at the exact moment the judges reveal their scores. Or choosing which route contestants should take in reality game show Race Across the World, building a living map of their journey. Or responding live to discussion points on current affairs flagship Question Time, generating a real‑time snapshot of national sentiment.

Signals also integrates emerging R&D technologies such as time‑addressable media and ‘claim extraction’, a new R&D project which identifies factual claims within speech. In a talk‑show context, viewers could jump directly to moments where specific topics were discussed.

Voice, gesture, and ATSC 3.0

Future trials will take Signals to the TV screen with viewer interaction enabled by the TV remote control.

“As TVs become smarter, with more sensors and AI on the edge, we’re exploring voice, gesture, and other new ways audiences might interact.”

Signals is also being explored for international deployment. In the US, that could mean integration with ATSC 3.0 / NextGen TV, which supports interactive layers and data‑enhanced broadcasts.

BBC R&D sees multiple commercial pathways: TV manufacturers, rights holders, distributors, or broadcasters. Wimbledon itself is a good example — the BBC is the UK distributor, but the AELTC works with NHK in Japan and ESPN in the Americas. Signals could sit at different points in that chain.

“We’re still working through opportunities. After Wimbledon, we had a lot of incoming interest from external companies. Internally, we’re exploring how Signals could integrate with BBC product and editorial teams.

Externally, we’re looking at partners who might move quickly — likely in sport, at least in the near term. But we’re also thinking about other genres such as entertainment, current affairs, talk shows.”