Indie feature shoots under Covid-conditions

VMI

Reports of the death of independent filmmaking are premature. Indie feature This Is The Night Mail has been produced entirely under lockdown with a degree of ingenuity and ‘can-do’ spirit that augurs well for the future of the sector. 

https://vmi.tv/case-studies/article/165

The micro-budget British feature was written and shot in Covid conditions by filmmaker Joanne Reay. A successful screenwriter and producer with credits including Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis, Gallowwalkers and Brothers of the Wind, Reay began to write This Is The Night Mail as an exercise in keeping herself busy when quarantine shut down the industry in March. 

“I had this striking image of a row of five old-style telephone boxes which I couldn’t shake out of my mind,” she says. “I knew there was a story there but I didn’t know what it was until lockdown gave me the time to explore it. The only benefit of the industry going on hold was freedom from the time pressure of your normal work agenda. I thought, if I don’t write whatever this story is going to be in lockdown, I will never get it out of my system.” 

She describes the story as a love letter to London, and a satire on the gig economy with a supernatural twist. 

“In the gig economy you can hire anyone to do anything for you – so what would happen if the person hiring you was dead?” 

Reay finished the screenplay by the end of March; about the same time as producer’s guild Pact released the first set of guidelines for filming under Covid conditions. 

She hadn’t scripted with Covid shooting conditions in mind but of all the projects she and business partner Andrew Goth had in the pipe, This Is The Night Mail suddenly looked the most viable. 

For instance, the interaction between characters in the film would be mostly between an actor and a ghost, in other words actors acting with themselves. The story takes place over 24 hours meaning actors could start and finish in the same costume. 

“I lived most of my career on instinct so no matter how crackpot it sounds I did wonder what had been the driving force in my brain telling me to write this story which ended up fitting so well into the parameters of Covid,” she says. 

Nonetheless, with the pandemic not only halting the photography but icing investment too, Reay and Goth (who together run indie Unquiet Skulls) decided to fund production themselves. 

They located a make-shift sound stage in a huge freezer at a disused abattoir at King’s Cross which creative studio hub Tileyard plans to develop into a fully functioning production space.  

“I had to adapt the script to make it less reliant on location but the advantage of being producer, director and script writer is that I only had to argue with myself about the treatment of my creative vision,” she laughs.

“We had the good fortune of being connected to VMI through our B-unit DoP Nicky Matthew. We had absolutely no hope we would shoot on ARRI Alexa. That was so far beyond our budget. We were prepared to borrow cameras from friends and colleagues and that was the way we approached it when we met with Barry at VMI.

Reay continues, “What was so incredible was where Barry was in his personal journey in terms of wanting to commit to projects with meaning and purpose rather than just churning the wheel. He was immediately positive about what we doing in terms of trying to get production moving again. Someone had to be the first to jump off a cliff and he really responded to the fact we were willing to take that risk.

“I think we’ve both learned through experience that when confronted by a challenge you can’t let it beat you - you have to find a way to respond. For the first time in my career the deal we made with VMI was based more on mutual support, belief and encouragement than any financial transaction.”

The camera package, worked out with director of photography Beatriz Sastre, included two ARRI Alexa Minis paired with Cooke S4 lenses. They also used GoPros mounted to motorcycles for one stunt sequence.

 Meanwhile, casting for all 34 actors was completed remotely over zoom.  “We made sure the film was fully cast a month before shooting, including all the minor roles,” Reay says. “Everybody signed Covid safety procedures and undertook to report any sign of infection to our dedicated Covid officer. We couldn’t do any last-minute casting or revisions so we worked incredibly fast and furious with zoom auditions.” 

This also benefitted the actors who enjoyed the direct by internet link with the director and reportedly felt more comfortable than having to wait in a room eyeing up the competition. 

Next, a team of runners was enlisted whose sole job was to ensure hand sanitisation for actors and crew, regularly refresh face masks and clean the surfaces of all kit, props and craft stations. 

“That’s an entire tier of work we’ve never had to have before,” she says. “Working in a bubble and maintaining social distancing on set was, on the face it, very daunting. Filmmaking is a very social intimate experience especially on set but it did turn out to be achievable as long as the processes are in place. For instance, nobody could share a walkie talkie as you would normally. Each handset was personalised.”  

Communication and workflow weren’t impaired by social distancing measures. “There’s normally a lot of casual drive-by conversation and white noise around set but that couldn’t and didn’t happen. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. We had to choose what to say and who to interact with; to make sure every single interaction counts.” 

The biggest challenge was dealing with actors who had to take on far more responsibility than usual including getting to and from set and their own hair and make-up. At the end of a day’s shoot they would put their costume in a bag to be sanitised overnight and then pick it up the next day. 

Stylistically, Sastre and Reay opted for an “extremely photographic style” rather than the raw, handheld style that's more typical of stories with a Gen Z target audience. 

“We decided to deliberately counterpoise that ‘edgy’ style and go for something more formal; far closer to a Wes Anderson picture," Reay explains. "That allowed us to have a very composed frame, where positioning our actors either side of a doorway suggests symmetry, whilst at the same time gives us social distance. It might seem that such a visual style is at odds with an urban supernatural narrative, but in this case the juxtaposition adds another level of interest." 

A live grade LUT supervised by on-set specialists Notorious DIT leant the film a 1970s color look; a retro ‘70s soundtrack including tracks by tracks by Joe Meek and Smokie enhanced production values. 

For a few sequences involving hand to hand fighting the actors worked separately with stunt coordinators to choreograph moves akin to training for a dance routine. 

“When they came on set, we put the two sides of the dance together,” Reay says. “On the few scenes which necessitated actors and crew to be really close to each other we shot the scene quickly for the least amount of contact time.” 

With all the PPE and health safety procedures in place, Reay chose to crush the picture’s 18-day shoot into just nine days by shooting A and B units in parallel. 

“Once we’d brought our team together the onus was on me to go forward. Everybody gave of themselves in time and effort to make it happen come hell or high water but there comes a moment where you can’t exploit people’s goodwill any longer. It was not possible to shift our schedule back.” 

The intense timeframe was extremely stressful for her, she admits. “You get no downtime because you’re constantly running between one unit and another but it’s the only way we could maintain Covid standards. I’m not sure we could sustain this over an eight-week shoot simply because everyone’s vigilance would naturally begin to flag. This Is The Night Mail is proof of concept to show financiers that there is a way to shoot safely.” 

 The film’s editor Stephen Forrester also directed B camera, partly because he was keen to expand his experience in that area but also as a smart means for the director to keep in touch with the footage. 

“Since we were filming in parallel it made sense to work with someone who was closely involved with the footage,” Reay says. “It meant he could collect dailies from the DIT team and then load into his laptop watch rushes albeit not sound synced and make selects while on set. We’ve worked together before and I trust that his instinct of what I want in a good take is the same as mine.” 

Online and grade is being headed up by Michael Pentney, co-founder at Newcastle and London-based Fantomeline Pictures with Reay aiming to send out first screenings to buyers in the early autumn. In an ideal world it will open the doors to a bigger budget movie for Reay such as ‘8 Track’ a love story from her script set in South Wales which was in pre-production prior to lock down. 

“The way indie moviemaking works is that you do a movie for next to nothing reliant on the goodwill of others and then you land a proper paying gig and you can go back to the people who helped you before. In that instance, VMI will be the first I hire equipment from, without a doubt.”

Forced innovation and rapid change: John Honeycutt on the new era of sports broadcasting

SVG Europe 

https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/forced-innovation-and-rapid-change-john-honeycutt-on-the-new-era-of-sports-broadcasting/

“Televised sports have changed more in the last six months than they have ever done before,” declares John Honeycutt. “Rule changes, presentation changes and physical environment changes have been forced on teams and broadcasters on a scale never seen before. The fundamental question now is how does the product morph as a result of all this innovation.”

Honeycutt is one of the industry’s foremost thought leaders. After 15 years at Discovery Networks International as COO and CTO, during which he led the company’s move to virtualise its infrastructure with cloud-based playout – where it was considered the first broadcaster to do so at scale – Honeycutt joined Google to establish and implement Google Cloud's initial product and go-to-market strategy for media & entertainment, telco and gaming.

Currently on sabbatical to “recharge the batteries” he has been far from idle. Aside from working with M+E companies as strategic advisor through his own consultancy The Sandy Valley Group, Honeycutt recently became a non-exec director and member of the board at Blackbird.

SVG Europe sat down with Honeycutt to hear his thoughts on the status and trajectory of the industry.

“Fortunately for me I’ve been sitting on the sidelines during the pandemic,” he says. “I would not have wanted to be in any senior role in this process. I’m not abdicating my responsibility as a leader, I have a lot of respect for everybody who had to go through this because by all accounts it is challenging, frustrating, scary and ⁠—when you take a perspective⁠—even irrelevant in the grand scheme of things in terms of your family and friends being sick.”

Presentation changes

Honeycutt had time to consider the impact of behind-closed doors changes to which live events have had to adapt.

“When we really start to think about the future of how we cover sports and entertainment, including large scale shiny floor competition shows, I’m not sensing a huge desire for 50,000 people to get back to a stadium in the short term at least. So that means the product is different.”

A prime example is the NBA where presentation is fundamentally different to that pre-Covid. The teams are playing in a bubble in Orlando with a specially built arena featuring two giant LED walls displaying a virtual audience. Similarly, the MLB are mapping virtual audiences into seats in the stadium on certain cameras.

“You could take that to its conclusion and begin to sell a totally separate ticket for a digital experience versus an in-stadium experience,” suggests Honeycutt. “You could present the product on media differently to how would you do it in the stadium. Maybe you and your friends are displayed within the audience itself and you have an interactive experience that is a subset of the game displayed on a conventional display. 

“Marry that with realtime social broadcasting which platforms like Twitch are leading and you will drive new opportunities for each of the different layers of distribution – telco, cable and online disrupters like DAZN.

“The point is that there has been a forced innovation to use these technologies for the first time at large scale for national consumption rather than for niche experiences. It should force us to think very carefully about how the product is presented visually. Don’t just make it an overlay or a second screen. Simulated crowd sounds don’t work for me either – it’s like adding canned laughter to a ‘70s sitcom.  We need to present the product in a different way.”

Honeycutt points to the convergence of the digital and the physical as a direction to the future of sports presentation.

“There will never be anything that replaces that moment of standing in a stadium, everybody in it together, celebrating when your team does something spectacular but at the same time you cannot ignore the virtual engagement with live. It’s something that younger sports fans simply expect. The communication that happens on a channel like Twitch is incredible.  These codes and mediations that take place between pro gamers and fans is fascinating and is akin to having the referee and players miked up on a football field. 

“So how do both of these things come together across various sports? It challenges how we think about presentation.

“There is no single ingredient. I believe you need the mix of technical enhancements like UHD, wider colour and immersive sound and larger displays, combined with social and layers of data, tracking and virtual views, plus rule changes in sport such as VAR or segment racing in NASCAR.”

Then you add betting. 

The PGA Tour just signed a multi-year content and marketing deal that makes BetMGM an official betting operator of the PGA Tour.

He says, “I’m neither an advocate nor a critic I’m just stating a fact that betting has a huge role to play as hook into the storytelling of sport. It’s just one more ingredient for engagement that cannot be ignored.”

Cloud accelerant

All of this change is happening at a moment when we were all teetering on the edge of mass innovation in terms of cloud adoption and advanced analytics and advanced tracking. The pandemic, he says, both disrupted and accelerated the progress but media organisations and leagues/federations have to act.

“You can draw an analogy to the decision that Discovery had to make 20-25 years ago. They could have entered the syndication market by making a content output deal with a distributors like Sky or Telenor but it chose to create its own distribution platform and that became a massive international success.

“For sports leagues there is a viable model for going direct to consumer while the penetration for payTV shrinks on a worldwide basis. The arbitrage process for rights is not as strong as it was a decade ago and the leagues have a real question as to whether they want to control the product or be the one standing in the middle. I would assume that every sport league has done some level of analysis about bringing back their own rights and exploiting them themselves at various levels of scale.”

It's less easy for traditional media organisations to pivot. These are big heavy complicated infrastructures that take time to turn around. Honeycutt draws on his experience to urge broadcasters to create an environment that encourages risk taking.

“I used to say to my team all the time at Discovery that I guarantee that any capital project we build or any transition we undertake then we are going to fail at some point. But I will go to the CTO or CFO and defend the fact that we might have wasted 10% on what we spent because we were pushing and trying to innovate.

“As a CTO in a media company today, if you are not creating that environment and letting people know you are going to be there with them, then you are not going your job.

“You’ve got to create an environment that lets people know there is more beyond simply making a legacy system obsolete or cutting a function out of the supply chain.  You should be making the case for needing their skills to help the business innovate in different ways, to generate revenue rather than just be a cost centre.”

Honeycutt acknowledges that other factors play into driving a business toward virtualisation. Even something as mundane as when the lease expires on your bricks and mortar will drive how and when you transition.

“Fundamentally you need to make a decision, then expose your business case as good or bad as it is and then drive forward,” he advises. “That has to be the culture at the organisation because there is no space for any kind of defensive attitude. If you are not doing that then you really need to be thinking about your technical leadership.”

Blackbird has wings

Honeycutt met Blackbird CEO Ian McDonough when the company was introduced as a partner to Google Cloud. During sabbatical, Honeycutt says he’s on the look-out for exciting new ventures.

“There is no shortage of content being created and no shortage of content that needs to publish quicker. So, I saw in Blackbird a few things. One, it has great IP and the capabilities of its codec are strong and that brings opportunities to innovate. Two, it has a clearly defined space in which they operate in. They do not approach the market with the mindset of traditional workflows and I like that. It’s a publicly traded company, and such transparency inspires confidence in partners

“The traction the platform has gained really shows the need for a toolset that allows people to quickly, efficiently with as little on-prem as possible, access, manipulate and publish. If you can do that, you can tell a story and there’s a real hunger for that today whether its new, sports or entertainment shows.”

Olympic logistics

The one-year shift in the 2020 Summer Olympics means that there is only 128 days between the closing ceremony in Tokyo and the opening one for the Winter Games in Beijing 2022. Logistically, that is giving broadcasters pause for thought.

“Typically for an Olympics you shift your infrastructure to venue a year in advance but the whole approach this time might need revising so you shift once to accommodate both events. That could mean building out one shared data centre rather than having to build up and tear down.

“At Eurosport our desire to do more at home was driven by the horizon of Paris 2024. Since Eurosport’s HQ is in Paris the goal was to increasing pull back personnel and work into a central infrastructure over successive Games leading up to 2024. I think we were pretty successful in that endeavour. There were more studios and people across Europe for Eurosport than there were in PyeongChang.” 

 

 

 

Safe, creative and ready to get back to work

IBC / HPA

As the focus intensifies on getting production and postproduction back on track, we know that the way we work going forward will be different than before. Whether you are a facility manager, a sound mixer, editor, VFX supervisor or colourist, from the business, technical and creative point of view, your roles are changing. 

https://www.ibc.org/thought-leadership/safe-creative-and-ready-to-get-back-to-work/6373.article

Various countries governments and craft organisations and industry bodies are issuing safety guidelines that, with local variations, are broadly similar. In reality, we all benefit from learning how others are handling the same situation. If you run sound stage facilities, if you operate a post house or a mixing theatre then you are already engaged with how to protect your people and your clients when admitting them into physical spaces.  

HPA created an Industry Recovery Task Force in May, with the goal of keeping the postproduction community informed about the latest health and safety guidance, to make sure that that community  continues to be a part of the conversation and to ensure that we emerge from this challenging time stronger and more creative as an industry. 

The first in a series of virtual Industry Recovery Task Force global town hall events took place last week. The global town halls will continue for the following months, and each will feature major voices from the creative, health and political arenas. Our first event included expert opinion and advice from Dr. Daniel Z. Uslan, co-chief infection prevention officer for UCLA Health; Steve Rivkin, ACE, president, American Cinema Editors; Katie Fellion, head of business development and workflow strategy, Light Iron; Michael Cioni, sr VP of innovation, Frame.io; Doug Kent, president, Westwind Media; and Zev Yaroslovsky, former member of LA’s Board of Supervisors. HPA’s next global town hall is set for 19 August. 

The Town Hall is a forum for everyone, no matter your location, to learn about best practises, explore experiences of experts, and, importantly, it’s a place where topics of interest among our community are articulated and explored. 

While the principles of ‘wash hands, wear a mask and maintain distance’ are well understood, they present intricate complexities when applied in practice. From on-set video village to craft services and catering to make-up and wardrobe, there are dozens if not hundreds of variables that need careful consideration before we consider stepping back into the soundstage or facility.

Testing times 
Another essential strategy for returning to work is testing, which is and will remain a hot topic. There is still a lot we don’t know about implementing optimal testing strategies and understand that medical studies are constantly emerging, making it critical to keep abreast of the latest information. The Industry Recovery Task Force will invite medical and scientific representatives to each Town Hall to share up-to-the-minute information and be available for your questions. 

As we look back to the industry reaction to the early stages of the crisis, we can be proud of our collective resilience and ingenuity. The crisis literally flipped a switch and we figured out how to work from home in relatively short order. 

The experience forced a cultural change about the capability of tools for remote working. The industry’s problem-solving approach quickly tackled developing and deploying techniques for continuing to work under lockdown with as few gaps and lags in the chain as possible. 

Now, as we resume principal photography and post pipelines—albeit gradually—we are in a position to assess the situation. While many collaboration tools have been excellent, many are not quite the finished article and need further evolution. Hosting resources into the cloud is a target but we shouldn’t rush to expecting that today’s solutions are a silver bullet. We need tools to enable better remote calibration of monitors. We need to combat last mile bandwidth bottlenecks. From a technical and security standards point of view there is still work to do.  

Yet we can also use some perspective to understand the significance of this moment in our history.  When the crisis hit, we needed remote production tools for a global content creation industry in enforced isolation where work is increasingly international, highly collaborative and spans time zones.  The technologies and techniques brought forth in this time will benefit workflows long after the pandemic subsides.  

In the same way the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 hastened the arrival of file-based workflows (by eliminating tape manufacture), the pandemic will be an accelerant of thought processes extant before Covid – notably virtual production, migration to cloud and software services. 

The connection factor 
There is no doubt that the experience of work from home has been very challenging to some, fantastic for others who have embraced a more positive work life balance, and a mixed bag for those who have made the very best of what they had to do but desire above all to get back into one-one creative spaces with a client, a director or DoP.  

This connection factor is arguably the main piece missing in the back to work scenario. Filmmakers have always created content close up with each other on sets or in small rooms with intimate human interaction. Working from home has highlighted how hard it is to simulate the one on one nature of human creative engagement without physical presence. 

In Hollywood, production is very slowly beginning to ramp up but not close to pre-pandemic levels. That’s likely to be the case for some considerable time.  We’re beginning to see pockets of different types of programming being done in LA and in other places across the US. While production has begun in spots around the world, parts of post have never stopped while many have been side-lined.

There is clearly a concern that work in the industry has slowed and that there will be challenging times ahead.  Yet, the industry had been undergoing an explosion of global content creation prior to the pandemic. Content orders were reaching unprecedented levels and not just from Hollywood-based studios but across a wide number of platforms on a truly global scale. The economic power of our industry gives us an important voice which we need to ensure resonates with political leaders. 

While acknowledging the very real concern among us there is also optimism that, as the pandemic evolves and hopefully resolves, that the level of global content creation will resume. We need to weather the storm and prepare for what we were in the process of readying pre-COVID; namely to create and service the extraordinary amount of quality content for platforms worldwide with a strengthened, creative and safe production and postproduction industry. 

Super Resolution: Why more pixels makes creative sense

 IBC

The industry isn’t stopping at 8K. All bets are off for in a million Megapixel-plus future where massive digital screens, VR and lightfields take centre stage.

https://www.ibc.org/trends/super-resolution-why-more-pixels-makes-creative-sense/6367.article

Ultra High Definition is far from the last word in TV resolution. Though not yet widespread, the industry is going beyond 8K UHD and entering the era of “Super Resolution” where there are no limits to what can be achieved.  

Common broadcast systems may not reach let alone exceed 8K any time soon but Super Resolution technologies capable of new creative options and visual experiences will eventually consign even 4K imaging to a blur. 

“The moment when the resolution ceases to matter and we can cover 12K or 16K resolution per eye for VR (virtual reality) - which requires 36K or 48K respectively - we are getting somewhere,” says Jan Weigner, Cinegy co-Founder & CTO. “Then there is volumetric video. 12K just gets us warmed up.” 

Why 8K is the new norm  
Currently 8K only accounts for a minor share of sales in both the B2B and consumer display markets. Figures from analyst Futuresource Consulting reveal 8K represented less than 0.1% of global B2B flat panel display volumes and about 0.1% of global TV volumes in 2019. 

The high-resolution specs of the recently announced Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K and 8K internal raw on the Canon EOS R5 mirrorless camera are certainly headline grabbers, but for most users these acquisition formats will only have situational use and will not be the go-to recording format.  

“The high frame rate 4K modes on both cameras are arguably a bigger draw for a greater number of end-users,” says Futuresource analyst Chris Evans. 

Productions shooting in 8K are outliers but they are increasing in number. Among them is David Fincher’s latest feature Mank which is being lensed in black and white for a 4K Netflix release. Fincher and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt are making a habit of shooting 8K, having done so for season 2 of Mindhunter. 

“I would prefer the optics to be the bottleneck in relation to the image and not the sharpness of the sensor or its resolution,” Messerschmidt says. “The highest resolution sensor is best for me because I can make a more measured choice in terms of what I am trying to give the audience visually. It has always led to a better image, in my opinion, when I’ve shot on a higher resolution sensor.” 

He adds: “I look forward to the 12K capture workflow.”  

Even broadcast facility Envy says it has started to deliver in 8K. “The amount of data involved in a project can approach 1PB, and it doesn’t make sense to start pushing an amount of data like this to third party cloud providers in order to provide short term services,” says technical operations director, Jai Cave. “To that end, we envisage finishing post remaining an on-prem service, with offline being remote where it offers an advantage to clients.” 

Oversampling for VFX  
Oversampling higher resolutions for post pan and scan or VFX happened with 4K over HD and acquiring 6K for lower spec deliverables. Blackmagic Design’s stated reasons for a 12K camera release is consistent with this trend. 

“Once you cross the threshold into using oversampling and/or downsampling for a production, by adding further resolution you are only amplifying your received benefits,” Evans says. “Compared against a 6K image sensor, a 12K sensor is only giving you a higher ratio of oversampling and/or down sampling to 4K at the cost of a heavier data footprint and a more resource intensive workflow for your image pipeline.”

The overhead of extra resolution is always a careful consideration when it comes to VFX. “Larger files with more data, sometimes means less iterations because of rendering time which could affect the creative depending on the type of project,” says Gavin Wellsman, creative director & VFX supervisor, The Mill NYC. “Having the choice is always a bonus as long as the pipeline from production through to post can support it. 

“When we went from SD to HD then to Ultra HD the jumps in standards always seemed excessive but once you have a way to enjoy these larger formats it quickly becomes the norm and you wonder how you could ever view a picture with less detail.  

Wellsman adds, “If 8K becomes the standard over the next few years, having the ability to reformat and zoom in to enjoy extra detail from a 12K image might not be as excessive as it sounds.” 

The ‘K’ race 
The arrival of a number of 6K camera options such as the Sony Venice, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and upcoming RED Komodo underline that 6K currently occupies a sweet spot for downsampling to 4K since it has a lighter file size relative to 8K.  

For this reason, camcorders with resolutions greater than 4K but less than 8K are forecast by Futuresource to grow at a quicker rate than pure 8K products and account for nearly a third of the global pro camcorder market by 2024. 8K products, by contrast, will only claim 5% volume share in that time. 

“With the push to larger sensor formats, whether full frame or 65mm in future, the increase in sensor size given the same photosite size will lead to higher resolution sensors,” says Sam Measure, Technical Consultant at CVP. “With 12K on the horizon, we’re also seeing a backend that’s able to handle the increase in data throughput, from more efficient compression technologies to faster and cheaper storage and compute.” 

There will always be a group of users interested in acquiring at the highest fidelity available at the point of capture. However, there are only a finite number of photosites that can fit within the physical dimensions of an image sensor and decreasing the size of photosites to accommodate more of them comes with trade-offs in other aspects of sensor performance such as low-light capture. 

“As a result, Futuresource highlights a divergence in the large sensor camera market. Evans says,  “Increasingly we will see the release of products that have been developed to either prioritise resolution in excess of 4K or not.” 

The Canon C300 MIII, for example, trades the pursuit of greater pixel count for innovation in dynamic range. The cinema camera is Canon’s first to introduce Dual Gain Output technology on the image sensor, which enables it to deliver a claimed 16+ stops of dynamic range in 4K. 

“The release of more cameras that can record 6K, 8K, 12K and so on is inevitable,” says Evans.  

Why do we need Super Resolution? 
The need for an 8K display, let alone anything higher, is typically debunked as being a waste of time since humans can’t physically resolve the visual detail. 

This is being countered by arguments that the most common method for determining whether resolution is visible to humans—termed simple acuity—only tells part of the story.

“Generally, simple acuity is measured via the Snellen eye chart which determines the ability to see distinct black‐on‐white horizontal and vertical high‐contrast elemental blocks,” explains Chris Chinnock, executive director, 8K Association. “However, human vision is far more complex than a simple acuity measurement. Research suggests that 8K images are engaging other senses that can be difficult, if not impossible, to measure but are real nonetheless.” 

He observes that some stars in the night sky are far too small to be seen according to simple acuity theory - but we can see them nonetheless.  

There appear to be two other factors at play: Vernier acuity and the brain’s ability to “fill in the gaps.” According to Chinnock, Vernier, or hyperacuity, refers to the ability to discern slight misalignments between lines—an ability that’s impossible using simple acuity descriptions of human vision.  

“Hyperacuity means we can perceive fine details even at fairly long viewing distances,” he says. “Such results are now motivating investigators to undertake additional studies, which will be very helpful in convincing 8K skeptics to at least have an open mind on the benefits of higher resolution displays.” 

Hyperrealism 
Samsung even suggests that higher resolution displays are able to provide smoother gradients and improve sharpness to the point where objects seem even more realistic than in reality.  

“When we are looking at an object in the real world, we are placing it in focus, while not concentrating deeply on the rest of the surroundings,” writes YungKyung Park, associate professor in Color Design at Ewha Womans University Seoul for Samsung. “However, when we are looking at the same object using the [8K] display, we can focus on every point of the screen, allowing us to perceive substantially more information about this object.” 

Such ‘hyperrealism’ is achieved, she explains, “when we are able to capture and comprehend even the subtlest lighting and shading effects and the display is able to give us abundant information about the object.” 

Almost all 8K content is being created in High Dynamic Range. Any 8K deliverable would be accompanied by immersive audio. Fame rate is another vector that enhances realism by reducing motion blur.  

“You’ve got simple and hyperacuity coming together in the brain to create an image that dimensionalises the image in ways that we’re not fully aware of,” Chinnock contends. “So, whether you have an 8K image or a 100K image, the higher fidelity and lack of artefacts reinforces what the brain is able to do. The brain is not having to work as hard to recreate the image.” 

Since the human eye consists of 100 million rods and cones, perhaps the ideal resolution for a camera is 100 Megapixels. 500 Megapixel cameras exist and are in use albeit in security not broadcast. 

Super Resolution applications 
In just over a month, BT Sport plans to introduce the world’s first live regular 8K sports broadcasts for production of the 2020-21 English Premier League. 

“There are benefits for live productions where you have the potential to operate within a window from a static, high resolution wide camera and be able to place the cameras where you may not necessarily be able to put operators,” says Measure. “For productions centred around wildlife, where capturing behaviour on film could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, super resolution offers a great benefit being able to either re-frame or build digital pans and zooms. Also, for higher resolution volumetric capture for more realistic, detailed background scans and digital people, whether that be for VFX pipelines or even analysis in a separate industry.”  

In 2018, filmmaker Martin Lisius claimed the first 16K film. He used a pair of 50MP Canon EOS 5DS cameras shooting 12 000 images which he then laboriously stitched into a 4-minute time-lapse video (of extreme weather conditions) at a resolution of 15,985 x 5,792. 

“Mega high-resolution projects are being worked on for concert venues and event venues that need to wow people to justify the ticket prices, or more simply their existence,” Weigner says. “With 8K becoming home cinema that increases the stakes. The LED walls modules to build 16K exist.” 

Last year, Sony installed a 16K screen into the front of a cosmetics store in Yokohama, south of Tokyo. “When you get to this resolution it delivers almost a quasi-virtual reality experience as your eyes perceive there to be depth to the content, respected pundit David Mercer told the BBC.  

Measure thinks low pixel pitch, high resolution LED panels may take over from projection as the cinema screens of the future.  

“Depending on viewing distance, low pixel pitch LED panels can demand extremely high resolution, and that’s not necessarily just for delivery,” he says. “We’re also seeing this in use now for things like virtual production using LED screens as immersive backgrounds. The virtual set can of course just be a render, but it can also be a scan from a stitched super resolution, volumetric capture array.”  

“If you take 4K content and scale it across a large canvas it won’t look so good,” agrees Chinnock. “That’s why super high-resolution matters.” 

It’s also the target for a new music and entertainment venue proposed for Stratford, London by the Madison Square Garden group. The 90-ft high MSG Sphere will house the “largest and highest resolution LED screen in the world” - understood to be 32K. 

Another, costing $1.2bn, is being built by MSG at The Venetian in Las Vegas. 

“More and more often we are bidding on projects with super giant screens whether at a stadium screen or a multi-screen installation in a shopping mall,” reports Wellsman. “Most of the time the content is either fully CG or design based and we retrofit a current piece of TVC content and render it at the larger resolution. As larger format cameras are more readily available and 8K becomes the norm there will be a desire to show live action content on these giant screens with various degrees of visual effects.” 

Outside of niche fixed installations consultant and analyst Benjamin Schwarz expects millimetre-thin screens, foldable screens and bezel-less screens to enable whole wall screens with a resolution well above 8K. “Such setups will appear first in places like high-end stores but eventually reach people’s homes,” he says. “A fibre to the home or 6G connection would deliver streams at resolutions above 8K.” 

Given that current UHD standards stop at 8K and because initial applications of super resolutions are in digital signage and venues like theme parks, standards for super-resolution might be driven by the ProAV market and bodies like InfoComm.  

Slightly longer term and the arrival of 5G, then 6G, would finally bring Virtual Reality to fruition. 

“16K for VR is not a whole lot,” says Weigner, whose company has developed a codec called Daniel2 claimed capable of manipulating 16K data. “Give me the pixels, the more the better, and the applications will follow.” 

Even longer term and we can start thinking about lightfield capture and holographic display or genuine 3D TV. The ability to change focus dynamically in post and pull keys from depth maps is raises exciting possibilities but whether you capture with a multi-camera array or some kind of huge sensor with a micro lens array you are talking hundreds of millions of pixels. 

“8K is just a number,” says Weigner. “So is 12K. 16K will come for sure. And higher.” 

Aggregation part 2: Rise of the Super Aggregator

IBC

https://www.ibc.org/trends/aggregation-part-2-rise-of-the-super-aggregator/6350.article

The TV model has definitively flipped from appointment viewing, to streaming on demand but the concurrent trends of cord-cutting and SVOD stacking is benefitting neither consumer, operator nor OTT provider. 

The industry is on the verge of significant change which will see the major SVODs morph into channels and pay-TV providers become giant curators of SVOD bouquets. 

“Self-curated SVOD services are only an intermediate step in the ground-up transformation and reshaping of the industry that is happening right now,” declares Kai-Christian Borchers, Managing Director, 3 Screen Solutions (3SS). “The big pay-TV providers are finally beginning to listen to, understand and act on the desires of their subscribers. The new breed of pay-TV channel is a Netflix, or an Amazon.” 

There is already evidence that cord-cutting has grown as a global phenomenon during the first half of this year. Demand for OTT services is unprecedented with consumer downloads of platform apps far exceeding any analyst estimates.  

The only strategy left open for operators “is to prioritise OTT and SVOD to make up the lost revenue and build a new foundation,” says Bill Admans, consultant for Ownzones Entertainment Technologies. 

In Europe, as elsewhere, broadcasters and pay-TV providers are coming together to create bundled SVOD services that add value through their combined brands. Examples include the BBC and ITV partnering to create BritBox and the Freeview app which unites all the UK’s terrestrial broadcasters on Android and iOS. 

“It’s not unreasonable to predict that these bundled services could replace traditional cable and pay-TV entirely,” says Admans. 

It’s not all rosy for SVOD businesses either. Economic pressure during the pandemic is forcing consumers to make hard value decisions. As quarantines are lifted, services that enjoyed usage and subscription bumps from housebound consumers will find out whether they have what it takes to make a lasting impact.

SVODs need loyalty too 
“For the streaming industry, the hard part starts now,” warns Paul Pastor, chief business officer of OTT platform, Firstlight Media. “To continue to build market share in the post-quarantine world, services in the shadows of the ‘Big Three’ (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+) need to look past the fish-in-a-barrel viewing environment of the past few months and examine how they can maintain their holds on audiences in the months ahead.” 

In February, just before COVID-19 upended viewing norms, the Nielsen Total Audience Report cited 42% of consumers as saying that they cancelled paid video subscription services because they didn’t use them enough to justify the cost.  

“The sheer number of SVOD services makes it likely that not all will survive and those that do will need to have scale and/or branding of unique content to thrive,” says Peter Docherty, founder and CTO, ThinkAnalytics. “The challenge for these new services is that it means yet another subscription for viewers who are already juggling multiple subs and an abundance of content fragmentation, making it harder to search and navigate. As the costs of all of these services mount up, consumers will become more selective.” 

Having cut the cord, the viewer is yet again becoming disillusioned. “Consumers are beginning to tire of all the work it takes to assemble a pool of desirable content and the aggregated cost of all the services you need to sign up for is steadily creeping up,” says Borchers. “The once-spurned pay-TV operator has a golden opportunity for redemption.” 

Pay-TV + OTT = Super Aggregator 
Pay-TV operators should be able to capitalise by onboarding SVODs to their platform and giving consumers the convenience of content all in one place. 

“With smartly integrated apps, operators have the chance to become aggregators, bringing together OTT services with studio content and thematic channels alongside trusted consumer relationships,” says Anthony Smith-Chigenuau, senior director marketing at Nagra. “Operators can also offer SVOD newcomers a platform to reach a large audience and, in return, invest in content that enables them to be a single point of entertainment.” 

In sports, for example, the pandemic has altered the content landscape with paywalls coming down and discounts or additional fatter bundles being offered due to the lack of live content.  DAZN, for example, pivoted from a pure online proposition to explore being part of a more churn-proof pay-TV operator environment.  

“If integrated as a channel and part of an overall subscription the problem of ‘per tournament’ or ‘per fight’ take-up and churn goes away,” notes Smith-Chigenuau. “SVOD companies benefit from a more stable managed pay-TV environment.” 

At the same time, it allows pay-TV providers to increase advertising rates per spot because of the ability to specifically serve spots to target audiences.  

“Some services provide free access to consumers in exchange for advertising with paid tiers for exclusive content as well as premium pricing for first-run content, such as movies and special events. In this model, AVOD, SVOD and Premium VOD are all on the same platform.” 

Borchers argues that customers want world-class content that is curated but the operator needs to figure out how to add value in order to win them back.  

That added value can take the form of managed, curated subscription, creation of skinny (SVOD/AVOD) bundles, and devising and delivering other differentiating extras that make it attractive for the viewer to sign up.  

“Pay-TV operators who cling on to the old model, who do not adapt, are doomed,” he says. 

Strategic challenges 
However, shifting to an aggregator model requires considerable investment to ensure integration between the different services and with back-end billing systems. Alex Wilkinson, Head of Sales and Marketing, Accedo believes this means super aggregation is likely to be limited to the leading ‘Tier 1’ providers. 

What’s more, the flexibility of adding or cancelling SVODs and their cheaper basic costs has critically exposed the lack of value in traditional pay-TV, according to Shan Eisenberg, Chief Commercial Officer, Netgem TV. 

“The threat is quickly eroding the appeal of pay-TV and limiting it to their incumbent base of inert viewers,” he warns. “If you want your family to be able to watch kids’ programs, is your only option to buy a kids add-on package and commit to it for 12+ months? 

“Even if the main streaming services are available, consumers question why they should pay for them on top of a £30/month entry package when it is precisely those add on services that they are wanting to watch. The extreme example here would be that of US cable TV, which is experiencing an increasing rate of cord cutting. But a similar trend can be increasingly observed in the UK on Virgin Media and Sky TV.” 

Importance of the UI 
There are other keys too. Operators need to understand how to integrate apps - via app stores like Google Play or Metrological; or in integrating individual apps like Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video or YouTube. 

The other challenge is in developing a user interface that not only showcases available content, but also creates an engaging experience for consumers.  

A recent report from PwC that user experience has become more important than content for keeping viewers engaged and subscribed.  

“The biggest benefit of pay-TV to consumers is simplicity,” says Erik Ramberg, VP, Head of Global Business Development, MediaKind. “One bill, one activation, and ideally one way of discovering content.” 

“Consumers should be able to simply switch on the TV and find something to watch without thinking about where that content is housed,” Wilkinson agrees. “An aggregated SVOD service should therefore by tightly integrated so that consumers login once and get access to all content, regardless which service it is from. This should include billing, which is arguably the hardest part but something that all providers are striving to get right.” 

A perfect example is AppleTV, the roadmap from Apple is very clearly to force content providers to comply with Apple’s aggregation scheme which will result in Apple being the default SSO and billing interface to all services.

“We are increasingly visual in how we search and select content, but we also want the related metadata that describes the video,” says Jamie Mackinlay, SVP Global Sales and Marketing at Amino. “The interface must present both visual and textual elements in an appealing manner - of course while also maintaining the operator’s brand identity.” 

Another aggregation challenge is the sheer mass volume of content required to satisfy all of consumers’ preferences. Sophisticated digital supply chains need to be in place to manage the thousands of titles being delivered by content creators and owners. New formats for exchange, like SMPTE’s IMF, allow for flexible automated delivery and processing of media files. This can be managed by content service providers using cloud-based technologies.  

A lot of the current challenges facing service providers are around business issues; for example, Netflix doesn’t want its competitors to look into their library and disaggregate them from their content.  

“If a service provider does want to go down this route, they have to understand why they are being circumvented from a direct to consumer point of view - both in terms of the consumer and the content provider,” says Ramberg.  

“Service providers can also harness the power of data to better understand their consumers and to share audience data to the content providers. While they are notorious for never doing so, sharing data is one of the most valuable things they could do. One way to do this would be to share it appropriately to enable the service provider to work with content providers so they can ultimately make better content. This means they can also become more efficient in making decisions.”  

New model, same as the old?  
As pay-TV operators reform their offering what risk is there that this will simply be a repackaging of the old pay model which consumers deserted? 

“They are deluding themselves if they are somehow thinking they can achieve both the super aggregator model — which none of them is truly embracing — whilst protecting their existing ‘channel bundles’ approach,” says Eisenberg. 

 “The main difference is not live versus on demand, it is about flexibility and metadata aggregation which is not in their technology DNA or commercial DNA. This leads to, at best the BT and Now TV model which is indeed resurrecting a pay-TV bundle, only with a more disjointed experience.” 

Eisenberg identifies a huge opportunity for large telcos (or smaller telcos who can rely on a third-party service like Netgem TV) to get more involved in their customers’ connected lives.  

“Traditional pay-TV cannot play that role because they are associated in consumers’ minds — rightfully — with the old model,” he insists. 

While the pay-TV operator may want to aggregate, they have to prove to the SVOD provider that the integration effort is worthwhile, says Smith-Chigenuau. He adds: “It is after all a subscriber game and if there are not sufficient gains for the SVOD provider or the market is not on their target list due to content catalogue reasons, then they may not be willing to be part of the operator’s desire to aggregate.” 

Courage to change 
The consumer shift online is inexorable. The major SVODs are steadily morphing into channels built around their own exclusive content and dedicated to every sport and hobby,” says Borchers.  

He predicts that that the pay-TV provider of the future will be a curator of SVOD bouquets, “providing whole theme-specific SVOD bundles to subscribers hungry for a meaty offering of truly relevant programming - uncluttered by the noise of content that is of no interest - conveniently packaged and priced.” 

 Eisenberg urges operators to give up the “age-old reflex” of counting on “customer inertia” to payback investment in content. “Operators should be courageous and have confidence in their content and the renewed investment in it to allow customers the flexibility to freely choose,” he says. “This is the only way to really revolutionise the customer experience which at the moment remains very fragmented, whether that’s account details, passwords, billing, or presentation of content.” 

“There is too much money at stake to blindly operate business as usual,” says Admans. “Like any change process, there are early adopters and those that stand back and take their strategy from lessons learned. There is still a place for terrestrial broadcasting and pay-TV, but it would be arrogant to predict just how that will look in ten years’ time.”