Studios rush to expand as demand soars

Broadcast

New facilities are being built around the country and existing sites are adding extra stages, but there is concern over soaring energy costs and a lack of crew.

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Investment in studios topped £4.77bn last year, reflecting the UK’s evergreen appeal to high-end TV producers. Space remains oversubscribed, crew shortages are acute and rising energy costs are putting the sector under further pressure, but with more stages, training schemes and strategies to combat inflation coming on stream, it is not a perfect storm – yet.

“The scale of shows keeps increasing and impacting demand on space,” says Barnaby Thompson, partner at Ealing Studios. “From wardrobe and props stores to offices, everything is growing exponentially.”

Ealing has a relatively small campus (four acres) and is building an additional 14,000 sq ft stage and workshops. But that won’t open until August 2024.

“We’re the traditional home of low-budget features and BBC drama. Now it’s much more about shows for Netflix, Apple and Amazon,” says Thompson. “Some studios have been taken out of circulation but the UK has had a historic shortage of stages. We’ve been full for the past eight years.”

Amazon Prime has a 10-year lease on nine sound stages at Shepperton Studios. Disney has a similar deal at Pinewood. Apple has secured facilities at Symmetry Park in Aylesbury and Netflix plans to double the size of its production base at Shepperton.

Elstree, where Sky and NBCU opened a 13-stage complex in 2022, is “100% full”, says consultant operations director Rebecca Hawkes. The BBC occupies three studios and The Crown holds the remaining footprint – though Netflix will vacate after the final series shoots next summer.

There is around 6 million sq ft of production facilities in the UK, according to real estate consultant Knight Frank, but with total production spend forecast to double over the next five years to £11.16bn, it is reasonable to assume that space requirements will need to increase by a similar proportion.

“The supply of film studios is insufficient to keep pace with the rising demand for new content,” says William Matthews, head of commercial research at Knight Frank. “This shortage is placing sustained upward pressure on rents, driving the case for new development and investment in the sector.”

RD Studios opened in April with more than 45,000 sq ft of space in Park Royal, London. While owner Ryan Dean was looking to fulfil demand for space from commercials clients, the new studio has been booked up with drama, doc reconstructions and sitcoms for clients including Apple TV+, Factual Fiction, Pulse Films and ITV Studios.

“We target everyone and because we have five sound stages inside the North Circular, we get a good mix,” says managing director Stephanie Hartog.

Crew shortage

As new space expands, the lack of skilled crew is a pressure point – and a supply shortage means crew are more selective. “Crews don’t like having to travel a great distance, and since the majority still live in and around the M25, it means that London area facilities tend to win out,” says Hartog.

The answer is to focus on training. “When I came into the industry, it felt like a closed shop run by a few families,” says Thompson. “That’s changed but we still have to find a way to get the message out that there are opportunities here. The one thing that will hold us back as an industry is the lack of crew.”

Laura Aviles, senior film manager at Bristol City Council, points to a shortage of location unit managers and line producers. “Before we greenlit expansion [at Bottle Yard Studios], we wanted to make sure we could sustain three new stages and our feasibility assessment did flag that there would not be enough crew to service 11 stages.”

A workforce development programme is expected to create 860 jobs in Bristol over the next 10 years, and similar schemes are happening around other studio hubs: Stage Fifty’s new studio in Wycombe will support about 1,200 jobs, with many introduced via its own training scheme.

Rising energy costs are a global issue, but film and TV production can be particularly energy-intensive. “The cost of energy is definitely having an impact,” says Maidstone Studios commercial director Josephine Clark. “Productions aren’t getting bigger budgets so we are all having to find cost-effective, imaginative ways to deliver efficiencies.”

Most studios are rented exclusive of electricity costs, so productions are facing higher bills, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine inflaming the situation. “The prices we quoted [before the invasion] are obsolete now,” says Garden Studios chief executive and founder Thomas Hoegh. “That is hurting. We have to adopt a more variable pricing model. No one predicted a war.”

Dock 10 head of studios Andy Waters says one way studios can help broadcasters who are feeling the squeeze “is to maximise their studio time, for example, by helping record more shows per day”.

The introduction of virtual-set technology at Dock 10 gives clients the flexibility to build any set in any size studio. It can, for example, operate virtual set productions of Gran Turismo Championships, BBC Bitesize and Match Of The Day at the same time.

Stage Fifty will claim the world’s largest virtual production volume (30,000 sq ft) when it opens in Winnersh next year. “We see VP as a staple studio service,” says chief executive James Enright. “Filmmaking has always relied on scenic backdrops and VP is the modern version of this.”

Other studios are more reticent. DNEG and Dimension have booked two stages for VP exploration at RD Studios until June, but Hartog is reluctant to invest in a permanent facility until demand dictates.

Even Garden Studios, which is opening two new VP training stages and a third volume dedicated to R&D “with a significant partner” in the new year, “would not have a business but for short-form content”.

Hoegh says: “Music promo and commercials are more willing to take risks than film and TV. The interest in VP is extraordinary but when it comes to actual bookings, there is some latency.”

The prospect of studio capacity doubling by 2026 is real. Among dozens of projects is the £700m, 21-stage Sunset Studios complex in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, which is due to open in 2025.

The question is whether any of these will end up as white elephants. “Demand for drama may soon level out but since there are not as many TV studios, I think the demand for TV and sports facilities will continue steadily,” says Clark.

Hoegh, by contrast, says it is “damn obvious there will be over-capacity”.

“It will be a blood bath,” he says. “They are building the same facilities in Belgium, France and Scandinavia who will fall over each other with incentives.”

But, he adds: “The UK’s advantage is its people. We have a lot of people who know how to do this stuff. The UK will be resilient.”

 

Just Think About the Metaverse More Like a Media Channel

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The metaverse is already a media channel for brands. According to a new survey by TELUS International, around three-quarters of American consumers believe that brand interactions in the metaverse will one day replace those in the real world. In fact, 65% of respondents believe the metaverse will be considered mainstream in the next five years.

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Half of those polled said they would choose one brand over another if it offered a superior experience in the metaverse. Additionally, more than a quarter (27%) indicated they would pay a 5% premium for a product or service that was supported by a quality metaverse experience, and 22% would pay up to 10% more.

“Just as the internet and mobile apps revolutionized the way we interact with brands and consume information, goods and services, the metaverse offers brands exciting opportunities to interact with consumers in entirely new ways,” Michael Ringman, chief information officer at TELUS, shares.

“Digital 3D worlds open up a window of opportunity for brands — it offers them a space that’s accessible, allowing them to connect with consumers globally in unique and interactive ways, providing consumers with an enriched customer experience.”

The pressure is on for brands that choose to engage with consumers in virtual worlds. The survey indicated they expect interactions with brands in the metaverse to be more engaging (53%) and better customized to their interests (49%).

When asked what would encourage respondents to interact with brands in the metaverse, the top response was the ability to realistically try out or try on products and services (41%).

There is, however, a limit to what surveyed consumers feel comfortable doing and purchasing in the metaverse, even with these enhanced experiences. For example, only 35% would buy a house or rent an apartment in the real world through the metaverse. This is in stark contrast to survey respondents saying they would feel comfortable gaming (79%) or engaging with a brand’s customer service (68%) in the metaverse.

There are concerns too. For example, 60% said they believe it will be easier for individuals to get away with inappropriate behavior in the metaverse and just 45% think brands are prepared to moderate content in order to keep users safe. Most people don’t consider AI alone to be enough of a safeguard against malicious content.

“Like we’ve seen with digital environments that have come before it, the metaverse is unfortunately not going to be immune to users who abuse these spaces, putting brand reputation and their customers at risk,” Ringman says. “As brands begin to explore this new platform, content moderation must be incorporated during the initial planning phase to ensure users experience a safe and inclusive environment. This will mean employing a mix of AI and human moderators to ensure a timely, accurate and inclusive review of content and behaviors.”

The findings are based on a Pollfish survey conducted on October 17, 2022. It includes responses from 1,500 Americans who are familiar with the metaverse.

 

RIP The Golden Age of Streaming 2013-2023

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Streaming has hit an economic reality check and with it the rule of engagement are changing. Rather than attracting a base of paid subscribers, the next phase in streaming is about reaching a wider audience to secure eyeballs for ads – and that means more mass market risk-averse programming and far less experimental and niche content. Is the golden age of streaming over?

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Paris Marx thinks so.

“After promising to upend the entrenched players, streaming services are starting to feel a lot like cable: surfing through tens or hundreds of channels only to declare, ‘There's nothing on!’ says the tech writer and host of the Tech Won't Save Us Podcast, in his article for Business Insider.

Alex Cranz at The Verge thinks so too. “For the last half-decade, we’ve enjoyed a golden age in entertainment. But over the last few months, we’ve seen a reorientation of how these services do business, and it’s clear that this glut of content we’ve enjoyed, for the mere cost of a monthly subscription, is about to end. Some of us are going to keenly feel the pain of that more than others.”

The trajectory goes something like this. Shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, Man Men and The Sopranos were the apex of the Golden Age of TV drama which media archaeologists chart between 1999 to 2010.

Enter House of Cards in 2013 which showed that Netflix could play major league broadcasters and Hollywood at their own game. Followed by Orange Is The New Black. And Sense8. And GLOW. And Squid Game.

“Netflix made an explicit choice to invest in content from women, queer people, people of color, and non-Americans, bucking the homogeneity of creators elsewhere in the industry,” says Marx.

Other streamers piled in and everyone upped their game. “It was a blast,” says Kranz. “It was another golden age. Netflix started pouring money into Hollywood in an effort to build a cache of big hits so it could compete with the likes of Disney…. they were also willing to experiment in a way that was uncommon before the streaming wars.”

Now it’s all gone sour. Netflix has cancelled queer shows like Warrior Nun, HBO has benched Westworld after four seasons alongside the Joss Whedon directed The Nevers. There won’t be a second season of Minx, on HBO Max at least, and HBO parent made the most high profile axing of $100m blockbuster Batgirl despite it being finished. The cost to market it proved too high for Warner Bros. Discovery which is prioritizing cost saving to save its $40bn+ mega-merger.

Why?

It’s the economics stupid. Streamers have realized that no matter how many millions they pour into originals they are still leaking subscribers. Competition and the effects of recession are squeezing both the total pot and the share of viewing for each service.

The pandemic may have seen huge audiences flock to streaming platforms but the same existential market force brought home to studios quite how important the windowing release strategy was to long term revenue.

“There's been a general acknowledgement that the streaming model simply isn't delivering the same returns as the old model, in which a film or television show had many opportunities for additional rights sales and releases,” says Marx.

Another reason could be, as Krantz points out that, the price of keeping shows in perpetuity on a streaming service – which meant continuing to pay royalties was no longer stacking up.

Next year, the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, and the Screen Actors Guild will all negotiate new contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and streaming residuals are going to be a major point of discussion.

As studios pulled licensed properties such as The Big Bang Theory and The Office back off Netflix fill out their own streaming services, Netflix has sought to fill the gap itself, funding shows like reality cooking show Iron Chef and dating shows like Love Is Blind.

According to documents shared with Insider by talent agencies earlier this year, Netflix is on the lookout for ‘big, broad stories that can be told on a budget.’

“Sure, the streamer is still pouring billions of dollars into content, but it's not overwhelmingly targeted at expensive, groundbreaking ideas like in the past,” says Marx.

The launch of advertising supported services have only doubled down on this content strategy. Instead of investing in the highest quality, streamers have refocused on quantity to ensure there’s always something new in the library.

“As a result, streamers are retreating from any sort of creative risk in favor of humdrum, lowest-common-denominator shows. And now the ‘disrupted’ film and TV industry is starting to look the same as what it was trying to disrupt.”

As it stands today, viewers won’t be complaining. If anything, there is too much great quality binge-worthy content to digest from features like Glass Onion on Netflix, also home to 1899 and Wednesday, and hip-smart HBO series like Succession and White Lotus or more seasons of House of the Dragon to look forward to LOTR: The Rings of Power, not so much)

The worry will be in six months to a year from now when these will be the exception not the rule.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Provider Priorities Are Cost Control and Live Streaming at Scale

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It’s impossible to deny that the supercharged trajectory the video streaming industry experienced during the pandemic has begun to shift due to a challenging economic climate.

Consumers and businesses are beginning to tighten their belts, so it’s not surprising that video developers cited controlling costs as their biggest challenge this year, replacing live low latency. It indicates that innovations will slow as the industry seeks to minimize operational costs.

That’s according to the latest annual Video Developer Report from compression technology specialist Bitmovin. This is a global survey of OTT streamers and online video player developers/users.

On the innovation side, the report found that a majority of video developers are betting on live streaming as the biggest opportunities for the industry, with live streaming at scale

Last year, low latency topped the list. Multiple data points now indicate low latency issues can be solved using CMAF-LL (with DASH-LL and LL-HLS) — technologies that Bitmovin suggests are in prime position for scalable future adoption.

However, low latency remains in second place. It is safe to assume that live streaming and low-latency are closely linked to each other. Less than three seconds is the most popular latency expectation. Last year the report indicated that 2-5 seconds was a more achievable range for scalable streaming than <1s, however, there’s a broader spread across the >5 seconds latencies, perhaps showing that participants are taking a more granular look at the latencies they can expect and what’s necessary for the viewer experience they want to provide.

Demand for low latency may be driving some experimentation with WebRTC — a protocol commonly used for video conferencing. The increase in this year’s report may be showing more diversity in the type of services that are responding to the report and those are becoming broader than OTT streaming (i.e., what Bitmovin calls “new media” companies).

The importance and use of the codec standards H.265/HEVC and AV1 continues to grow with planned adoption in the next 12-24 months having doubled year-over-year. It appears that the patent pool issues around HEVC have worn off, leading to broad adoption of the codec a decade after it was finalized.

Cost continues to be a major challenge faced by streaming service providers. Per Bitmovin, this further highlights the importance of adopting new codecs like HEVC and AV1 and advanced techniques like per-title encoding that can reduce overall costs, including lowering CDN costs.

More than a third of respondents to the survey are already using content-aware or per-title encoding, with an additional one-third planning to deploy these in the next year.

When it comes to opportunities afforded by technology, “enhanced color” is cited as the second-biggest opportunity for the industry, speaking to consumer demand for high-quality images. Advertising has shot up to fourth place, reflecting the growth of ad-supported business models.

Ad insertion is also cited as third-biggest challenge facing the industry. This is no surprise with the increase in CTV/OTT viewing and ad-supported services scaling rapidly.

The growing number of data sources allows for more robust performance measurement than ever before. This year, there’s a shift with buffering rates now as the most important performance metric in comparison to last year when delivered bitrate was at the top.

 

Immersive entertainment goes one step beyond

 AV Magazine

Immersive experience venues from the Illuminarium to Cosm Hollywood Park are changing the face of live events, but the Madison Square Garden Sphere promises to top the lot with a whole new entertainment medium.

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The $1.9 billion building is set to become the largest spherical structure in the world when it opens in the second half of 2023 at The Venetian, Las Vegas. The multi-use 20,000 seat venue will house a 160,000 sq ft display plane that wraps up, over and around the audience, while the exosphere will be coated with a 580,000 sq ft display, both of which are programmable. With over 170 million pixels it will be the highest resolution LED screen in the world at 16K x 16K.

“This is being driven by James’ (Dolan, Executive Chairman and CEO of MSG) vision to achieve the ultimate in immersive experience,” says Andrew Shulkind, senior vice-president, capture and innovation at MSG Entertainment. “This is not just about having a bigger screen or the sharpest resolution, though it is that. It is about marshalling every cutting edge technology to create an entirely new platform for immersive entertainment.”

That required developing a set of content creation tools and production workflow for this unique presentation format which will be retained inhouse and put at the disposal of artists, creatives and performers. The 16K output resolution is essentially made by combining a number of different video feeds together.

“At 16K x 16K the screen is higher resolution than any single camera can capture,” Shulkind says. “We’re using camera arrays and applying techniques like tiling, uprezzing and stitching to deliver full resolution and colour fidelity to the canvas.”

Hyper-lapse (moving time-lapse) arrays required a custom built motion control rig to shoot repeatable frame accurate moves.
All this kit is taken to location (a forest, a race track, a canyon) and mounted on technocranes or helicopters, strapped to an arm on a boat or on a Six Flags rollercoaster meaning a key design consideration is to keep it as lightweight as possible.

“The 180-degree field of view and resolution is so unforgiving the final image has to be seamless,” he says. “There’s no tolerance for artefacts or faulty stitching.”

The display is tilted at 55 degrees and the seats recline 12.5 degrees so the primary viewing is straight ahead, but the screen is so vast framing must account for many different perspectives. “Even if most people are looking at one part of the canvas for most of the time it is the periphery of their vision that provides so much more information.”

Testing, testing

Testing has been taking place at MSG Sphere Studios in Burbank, which is a quarter-scale prototype of the Las Vegas Sphere.

“One critical thing we’ve been exploring is the relation of the lens we use in the field to the field of view in the screen that audiences see. Field of view is more pertinent than focal length. We have been doing a lot of experimentation to see what works best to achieve specific psychological effects. In some cases, the best field of view for wide landscapes is a 165 degree lens, but some people and faces are better at 120 degrees. There have been many surprises and there are no hard rules yet.”

“Also, in a concert venue the best seats are up close but here the closest permanent seat to the screen is 160 ft away. That doesn’t mean we don’t seat the floor, but we want every seat in the house to be the best seat in the house.”

At the outset, Sphere attractions will be less CG and fantasy and deliberately grounded in what feels natural – epic landscapes, for example. It has even signed with NASA to send a MSG Sphere camera system to the ISS and record the Earth from space.

Esports and boxing could be staged and the venue is timed to open ahead of the Las Vegas F1 GP which has a track that surrounds the Sphere. During the race F1 will take over the exosphere display for race-related content.

“These are the kind of creative opportunities we give to partners,” Shulkind says. “We present them with the technology and learnings we developed inhouse and ask them how to make the best content for the Sphere.”

 

3D spatial audio

Developed in partnership with Berlin-based Holoplot, Sphere will house a custom spatial audio system – Sphere Immersive Sound – using 1,600 permanently installed speaker panels each composed of approximately 100 individual speakers, resulting in over 160,000 channels of audio.

These speaker panels sit behind the LED media plane, which is acoustically transparent for “concert grade” audio – a feat of audio engineering that has been extensively modelled and tested.

“A sphere is probably the worse choice for a concert venue in terms of acoustics since you’ve got to figure out a technology that directs the energy on to the audience and away from the spherical structure to avoid echoes and reflections,” says Stuart Elby, MSG’s senior vice-president, Advanced Engineering. “We knew we were going to use beamforming to provide the optimal sound mix for every audience member, no matter where they’re seated. But we also wanted to section the seats down to very small groups to be able to programme the experience of sitting there differently.”

Wave field synthesis

Research led them to Holoplot, a startup which in 2017 was using wave field synthesis to improve speech intelligibility at train stations.

“They had that nucleus of understanding in the algorithm of how they could do this. Our collaboration started with that seed and we expanded it into large scale concert grade audio.”

For example, an audience member could hear a whisper that sounds like someone is talking directly in their ear. Guests sitting in different sections can hear different sounds (languages, instruments) – expanding the possibilities for customised audience experiences.

“A lot of the work we’re doing is creating a guide for what works and what to avoid for when artists and engineers programme this space,” says Elby.

The seats include haptic devices which allow artists to direct frequencies ranging from ultra-low rumbles to pitches of 500Hz directly to individual seats, creating an additional layer of immersion beyond the audio and video.

A proprietary wind system has been devised to enhance the illusion of being in the natural world. It can be adjusted from an idle breeze “that you’d hardly notice” to gale force winds.

“We’ve quite a bit of IP around real wind effects,” says Elby. “The same system is used to disperse scent. We’ve tested it at scale to ensure the scent gets to the distances we need.

“We’re not trying to totally overload your senses like a five minute theme park ride. We wanted more of a range than your traditional butt shaker.”

Driving content management and video playback – including video processing of interior and exterior displays – is technology from 7thSense in a continuation of a decade long partnership with MSG. It has built a metadata pipe from production to screen to automate the workflow.

“We’ve spent a long time working to develop a very reliable, very high performance, super high bandwidth network storage solution,” explains Rich Brown, CTO, 7thSense. “The magnitude of pixels needing to be rendered efficiently is extremely challenging. This is the biggest, highest spec display we’ve undertaken and we’ve made a huge step toward the future with networked driven architecture.”

Playback and data management

The chief components from 7thSense are banks of Delta media servers, its FPGA-based pixel processor, Juggler that plays back live and recorded camera feeds at low latency and a new Generative product that integrates games engines into the live workflow. The whole network at Sphere is driven by ST 2110 – the broadcast industry ‘standard’ for streaming media around a facility.

“We’re streaming multi-layer 12-bit, 60fps uncompressed media,” says Brown. “From day one that was a requirement. Every single pixel has to be represented correctly. We also need to add broadcast trucks and live camera feeds and mix it all live so we wanted to stick with one standard.”

Screen control and synchronisation with audio and haptics are triggered by a bespoke show control system that sits above 7thSense – another part of MSG’s unique configuration.

Making a spherical screen of such size and target resolution was a major engineering hurdle for MSG and Montreal-based LED fabricator, Saco.

Explains Alex Luthwaite, MSG’s vice-president, Show Systems Technology: “Traditionally your pixel pitch is an X/Y spacing in a grid arrangement (eg 4mm x 4mm) but you can’t do that with a compound curve surface. You pick either X or Y as a fixed aspect and adjust the other. You essentially have to lose diodes on one axis to make a curved screen.”

Consequently, the Sphere’s pixel pitch is 9.4mm but this fluctuates 10 per cent across the surface to ensure image resolve whilst dropping pixels. The plane is divided into facets, the biggest of which is 15 sq ft. Each facet is itself composed of different tile and panel types.

“When you cover a spherical structure in LED you’ve got to be careful you don’t get colour shift as you move from one side to the other. This is heightened by the sheer scale and shape of the structure. We didn’t want to look at the bottom and see one colour and the top to find another.”

All hidden behind the screen

In order to avoid visual occlusion all rigging, speakers and lights, LED components such as chips, IC drives and power supplies are hidden behind the screen. The hardware also had to be positioned to avoid interfering with audio waves passing through to ensure at least a 50 per cent acoustically transparent screen.

“The screen is very bare. We’ve stripped every single piece of unessential hardware and plastic off the screen. The less material, the less it resonates and less occlusion which is detrimental to audio performance. We studied this in anechoic chambers, sound booths and scale tests.”

If the interior is somewhat more of a traditional LED screen, the exterior presented new challenges, not least to be heat and UV resistant. It’s composed of 1.4 million 80mm ‘pucks’ (or single pixel) that each contain 48 diodes.

The team faced similar challenges in terms of the pixel pitch except this time on a convex surface so that the pixels don’t appear wider at the equator than they are at the poles. The solution was to arrange the diodes in each puck in a clock-like fashion and in rings to scatter the light.

“The building has a helical metal surface which we had to be sympathetic to. We made mega panels, trapezoid in shape, to triangulate the exterior, interlacing the pixels with a 225 mm offset spacing. This increases your perceived resolution. The image resolve happens closer because of it.

“Certain elements have been done on other projects but never to this scale or complexity, and never all in one place,” he adds. “With such a large exterior, that it is even visible under flight paths, we want no single point of failure. We have to make sure there are redundant data paths all over the surface.

“Immersive is a bit of buzz but I don’t think anyone will do it to this degree of detail and scale. It might be cool to put VR goggles on but you are isolated from everyone else. This is a shared experience.”

 

Casino Tampere bets on immersive AV

AV Magazine

Finland has a different approach to gambling because a state-owned company, Veikkaus, owns a monopoly on the gambling business from national lottery to online sports bets and casino poker.

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It is in the state’s interest to encourage ‘responsible’ gambling and so everything from the location to the design to the integral AV of the country’s newest casino is focused on providing an attractive venue for adult gamblers, as well as an experiential destination for those totally uninterested in placing a bet.

Squaring that circle began with a tender in 2019 followed by an extensive planning process. Local digital signage specialist, Craneworks Oy won the project’s central systems integration contract.

“The ambition was to design a new kind of casino with a Scandinavian twist,” explains Craneworks’ managing director, Sami Käyhkö. “We had to make this a destination for gamers and also a complete sensory experience for people who don’t want to play.”

Casino Tampere in the heart of Finland’s second city, Tampere is the first new casino to be built in the country for thirty years. The conceptual, architectural and interior designs were delivered by a consortium comprising MUUAN and Amerikka, while Craneworks and its sister company, Doohlabs are responsible for the AV and media services.

“We all sat down together and thought about how we would build it,” says Käyhkö. “In most cases when we join a project everything is already done and we’re asked to put in speakers and screens but in this case we were part of the process with the architects giving our input into how to integrate technology in ceilings and walls.”

Casino Tampere connects to the existing 15,000-seat Nokia Arena complex which is home to two major professional Finnish ice hockey teams and regular hosts of IIHF World Championship and NHL Global Series games. As such the Casino has to work in conjunction with Arena events and be an inclusive part of the complex’ leisure experience.

Virta – the Finnish aesthetic

The design aesthetic is based on the Finnish concept of Virta, meaning ‘flow’ or ‘stream’, and described as “a green and inviting space that meanders its way through the casino”. It is intended to evoke a lush, inviting space for relaxation and socialising as well as gaming.

Consequently, the interior of the casino is a thoughtful combination of wood finish, smart lighting and digital surfaces. The wood panelling incorporates digital screens that are used to display a wide range of continually updated content.

Craneworks selected over 100 Samsung LED screens, which it also remote manages (using Samsung’s RM system). Some are in portrait mode, others are curved, and all are programmed to run ambient, animated content designed by Bob the Robot and Veli Creative Oy. This reflects the four seasons, rotating a season every hour, in a style Käyhkö describes as “Scandi meets nature with a Game of Thrones’ style magic.”

Any screen can also be programmed for signage, such as identifying players at a poker game, or for playing back sports. This includes live audio and video feeds of concert performances and ice hockey games being played next door. For instance, when a goal is scored, it triggers a ‘goal show’ across the casino’s AV system so that gamers are kept up to speed with progress from the hockey rink. Such a facility also aids the sportsbook.

LED signage boosts the venue’s sustainability credentials: “The specifications were clear there was to be no paper in the facility at all. All information publishing is done to screen.”

Doohlabs’ Digital Signage CMS manages the daily content upload, scheduling and displaying of stills, video, sound and template (HTML5) content in loops. This is managed by Veikkaus mostly from its HQ in Helsinki, with some local content also handled by Tampere Casino staff. Displays can also be changed depending on demographics: more women in the casino might mean content displaying champagne bubbles; an ice hockey game drawing a male crowd might expect to see beer and food signage.

Premium audio is an integral part of the experience and includes six separate 12.1 surround sound zones in distinct gaming areas, each with their own dedicated theme and bespoke interior aesthetic. One of them, called Kima, is dedicated to single-player gaming. The lighting here glimmers and reflects. The dimly lit Louhos area is designed for more sustained activity that calls for greater focus and careful judgement. Mystiikka and Loiste are described as bringing an abundance of Arctic colour that lights up the casino’s interior and exterior alike, while Kuohu and Ukonkivi are both dedicated to showcasing the latest in gaming.

There are also several stereo sound areas in various gaming rooms, lounges, the check-in area and even the rest rooms. The stereo setups are mostly used for background music and announcements. In total, over one hundred Genelec 4420 Smart IP loudspeakers supported by thirteen 7050 subwoofers deliver the audio experience throughout the casino.

“From a sound quality and durability point of view, you can’t ask for more – Genelec stands for quality and we’re pleased to use a Finnish brand,” says Käyhkö. “The other major bonus points were full remote control – our HQ is in Helsinki about 150 km from the casino, so you don’t want to have to drive there just to adjust one speaker – and easy on-the-fly configuration.”

Scenting a season

Arguably the most innovative aspect of the project is the inclusion of scent. Not just one scent either but a series of different smells programmed in different areas from 30 scent cannisters. This was done in collaboration with sensory marketing expert, Sevende Aromas.

“The aim was to design scents that harmonised with specific soundscapes and imagery to create a total ambience for the changing of the seasons,” says Käyhkö.

Eight cannisters are used in the Virta space, two more in the restrooms (different for men and women) another at the casino entrance and others throughout the building.

Guests can even buy a small bottle to take home. Käyhkö reports that this is quite a success. There are also bespoke scents for occasions like Halloween and Christmas. “This was a new thing for us and it was not easy. You have to feed the scent through the aircon system and that means knowing how that is installed.

In fact, doing this after the fact would have been impossible.

“The same goes for attaching the subwoofers to the ceiling. If we’d not planned the space for each of them in advance there would be no space. It was essential that we planned with the architects.”

All the AV, including programming of screens, all casino lighting and scent distribution systems are built on an IP network and are controlled via a Crestron AV matrix accessed by three touchscreens. Craneworks added Matrox Mura MPX cards as a scaler to the video system. This everyday tool is for Casino personnel but can also be remote managed via Crestron XIO cloud off-premises.

“The customer can change the volume in any sound zone – or even the volume of an individual speaker – via the touchscreen as well as route different sources to different zones,” explains Käyhkö. “For example, in certain sports areas, the nearest IP speakers are normally part of the Virta 12.1 soundscape, but if a customer wants to see and hear the match at levels greater than the screen will allow, we can mix the sport sound to the nearest loudspeakers.”

Smoke machines

Smoke machines pump atmospheres into the social gaming room (Ukonkivi), centrepiece of which is a 4 x 98in screens curved videowall. Gamers here can play against each other and team up and see their gameplay on the giant screens. Winners are celebrated with smoke, lighting and content displays.

On top of the CMS, Doohlabs has built an ‘experience management system’ tailor made for Casino Tampere. This handles video, surround sound, lights, smoke and scents and schedules these in sync with external triggers and data.

The casino is home to two bars, operated by Noho Partners, each with their own identity. In the middle of the Virta space, there is the Casino Emerald Lounge serving Scandi-inspired tapas dishes and a wide range of cocktails and mocktails. Suisto by the casino entrance is home to Casino Taproom, a brewery restaurant where visitors can watch sports while enjoying the constantly changing beer menu.

The one idea that didn’t make it in the final project was an XR activation. “We had lots of ideas for AR or VR such as visitors using their own cell phone to search and find golden nuggets hidden in different places for which they could win a gift. The budget wasn’t quite there to do this.”

Ari Tuuli, project manager for casino operator, Veikkaus, is proud of what has been achieved. “Casino Tampere is an experience,” he declares. “There is no other casino in the world like it. We have created an environment that engages all the senses, with specially developed soundscapes, video content and scent design that evoke the different seasons, so that we are in sync with the natural world.”

Responsible gaming

Casino Tampere – like its sister casino in Helsinki – is also an advocate of responsible gaming, holding the European Casino Association Responsible Gambling

Framework certificate. This includes mechanisms to enable players to self-regulate as well as mandatory loss limits on slot machines. All gamblers in Finland will have the Veikkaus app, even just to play lotto.

From the very first visit, gamers become part of the ‘Know Your Game’ customer programme which provides each gamer with their own personal Casino ID card. This card enables players to authenticate themselves at the tables and slot machines, making it one of the first European casinos to adopt this approach.

All Veikkaus’s profits are used exclusively for the benefit of Finnish society, funding culture, education, sports, science, youth initiatives and more.

A commitment to social responsibility and sustainability informs every aspect of the design. This is reflected in the use of sustainable, locally produced materials, energy efficient LEDs and smart water consumption. The casino and Nokia Arena have both been awarded LEED Gold certification.

The project opened in December 2021. Veikkaus and Craneworks are now turning their attention to upgrade the ten-year-old Helsinki casino beginning with a refreshed videowall in place before start of the Qatar World Cup.”

 

 

Polly Morgan’s Cinematic Journey: Behind the scenes of The Woman King

HPA

“Who doesn’t love an historical epic?” says Polly Morgan, BSC, ASC. “Especially one wrapped up in so much action and drama and heart and in an environment we know so little about.”

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Who doesn’t love an historical epic indeed. Modern classics Gladiator and Braveheart laid the template for action drama where the audience roots for the heroic underdog against an imperial oppressor.

The Woman King does this and a whole lot more. It’s a slice of our past that until recently would have been confined to the history books and, if retold by Hollywood at all, handed to the only gender it believed could handle action spectacle.

Instead, Sony Pictures’ historical epic about female warriors living and warring in the west African kingdom of Dahomey in the early 19th century is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Old Guard) and filmed with her handpicked team of mostly female heads of departments.

Morgan was in Louisiana shooting the Netflix drama Where the Crawdads Sing when Prince-Bythewood invited her to join the team. She put together a pitch deck of color, light and camera references drawing on the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish painters for inspiration.  She used travel photography out of Africa to help convey atmospheric elements like smoke, flame and water and discussed the options with her director.

“Shooting on Arri Alexa 65 we wanted to light the movie with firelight and ambient daylight, to draw people into the environment in a way that Braveheart and Gladiator did,” she says. “It had to be visceral and textural with a painterly quality, not sharp, glossy and digital. For me, looking at those masters of art evoked the kind of filmic feeling we were after.”

On location in South Africa

They shot principally in and around Cape Town, supplemented by scenes in KwaZulu-Natal in the north of South Africa. This region is dry, especially in the summer, at odds with the tropical and lush climate of Western Africa. With production designer Akin McKenzie Morgan worked hard to ensure that both locales would be a fine substitute for Benin (formerly Dahomey).

“In Cape Town this meant masking everything that said ‘South African’, making sure each frame leant into the fact that it wasn’t dry or too dusty, that we gave it a tropical feel. Shooting exteriors are always a challenge in trying to match colors and control the light in a changing environment.”

The remarkable vistas of KwaZulu-Natal helped contextualise the movie but put the production in a remote location that required taking all crew, generators and equipment. The film’s opening night-time battle is shot here and showcases the athleticism of the actors who had intensively trained to perform many of the stunts themselves.

“We conceived this action sequence in longer takes to be able to move from one performer to another, so the camera had to move 360 degrees,” Morgan explains. “As the camera does this dance with the action I had to do the same with lighting by dimming lights up and down with the movement so that nothing became flat or over lit. I had to make sure I had enough depth in the negative so I could see everything I needed to see in front of camera. It took a lot of rehearsal to get right.”

Another challenge was to light the many night scenes for a period when there were no electric light sources.  “I wanted to make sure I really exposed the faces of our Black actors well. I don’t want to over light or flat light them or take away the mood. I wanted to lean into the contrast, between the daylight and the fire or the moonlight and fire, and to do it in a way that retains darkness and shape.”

Lighting for skin tonalities

With a majority Black cast, Morgan was conscious of making sure every actor was given due attention to the way they were lit. “Historically some [filmmakers] haven’t done the best job in lighting properly for dark skin,” she says. “In our movie you have super rich dark skin such as Sheila Atim ranging to lighter dark skin like Thuso Mbedu’s. For me it was about figuring out how to capture these tonalities in a way that would highlight the beauty of Black skin.”

She was intrigued to discover ongoing research on the issue being made by Cape Town based company Digital Melanin. From them she learned that photography has been technologically biased toward Caucasian skins.

“From a light meter to a camera sensor every exposure tool is based on 18% middle grey,” she explains. This harks back to a decades’ old photographic tool used by American masters like Ansel Adams for exposing landscape prints. “Eighteen per cent grey is matched with lighter skin tones so when you are exposing everything is related to Caucasian skin. The aim of Digital Melanin is to help cinematographers everywhere to light dark skin with accurate tonality. It’s not one size fits all.”

Ideally, this approach encompasses a production-wide embrace of wanting to see people correctly on screen. Make-up artists, for example, have a role to play in learning about the best application for different skin tones. Other notable cinematographers like Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC are making vocal and visual statements about this approach to tonality.

“It is important for everybody to have this conversation and not be shy of shooting Black skin or nervous about broaching this topic,” Morgan urges. “Filmmaking is blossoming in its diversity and that adds to the richness of the stories we are telling.”

Diversity and richness

The Woman King also makes a powerful statement about the role of women behind the camera.  For Morgan, who began her career over twenty years ago, it’s a sign of significant change but also of progress yet to come.

“When I started out, I desperately wanted to be a DOP and there were very few women I could see who represented that career choice and showed me that that could happen,” she says. “Not only that, but the few women I did see also didn’t have kids. They didn’t have that balance of work and family life. It was such a male dominated industry. Sometimes I forget how far we’ve come, and also how much farther we’ve got to go.”

Morgan, who was born and grew up in the UK and studied film at AFI in L.A., worked her way up from a PA and camera assistant to lensing major shows like Lucy in the Sky and A Quiet Place Part II. For most of her career she has been the only woman on a set. Even now, when she starts a new movie the lead actor – male or female – will often confide in her ‘You’re the first female DP I’ve ever worked with.’

“I know every single female cinematographer working and I am contacted frequently by a new wave of female cinematographers, so at times I think there’s a lot of us doing it, but actually the numbers are still small,” Morgan says. “To do a movie like this where young woman can see women on screen being celebrated and empowered is important. We depict physically powerful women that are not only action figures but who are also dealing with themes that women deal with in their lives – pregnancy, sisterhood, mothers and daughters, rape and abortion, the sale of human life.

“We’ve had a lot of feedback from young Black women saying that The Woman King is inspiring to them because they’ve never been seen in this way before. It’s very powerful to have made this movie which I hope will inspire many more women to move forward in their careers and in their lives.”

There’s work to be done. Morgan reports that camera departments now are generally more gender balanced, although electricians and grips tend to be male preserves. “The tide is slowly changing,” she says. “Some women are getting into gaffing and gripping, which is exciting. Women are seeing that there are career choices here for everybody.”