camera can move freely anywhere inside a frozen frame of action.
chief technical officer at NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics. “We’re taking a whole bunch of finicky kit halfway round the world, setting it up in a hurry and getting 1200 freelancers – who arrive just a week before the Games – up to speed on how to operate it. Then run it at peak performance on the night of the opening ceremony, and for the 16-day marathon after that. I tell our staff, ‘Lots of stuff is going to go wrong. Work the problem, don’t look back. Fix it and get back on the air.’” For Discovery, the Summer Games is a huge deal, too. It wants to drive subscribers to the Discovery+ app, which launched in January. It’s doing so by having wraparound coverage across Europe – and a giant, multistorey virtual set it calls ‘the Cube.’ Of course, the set is only giant because it is virtual – built in Unreal Engine – but it affords tremendous presentational possibility. The real physical set is actually a relatively small, unremarkable-looking green screen space at Stockley Park, rendered into interactive 3D and based on an initial physical design by White Light. “Remote production is an essential part of sports broadcast. Technology like the Cube allows us to bring the action back from anywhere,” says Scott Young, senior vice-president of content and production at Discovery Sports. “We want to push the tech to the limits. That means advancing the flexibility of the set-up, the interactive nature of the virtual graphics, and the design of the environment. We work with suppliers from the gaming world who can develop at the same pace we can think.”
REMOTE PRESENTATION The biggest impact of the pandemic fell on broadcasters rather than OBS. The continuing uncertainties around travel and growing Japanese concern over allowing potential infection into the country has curtailed efforts to present live from Tokyo. That’s not to say that no presentations are happening locally. Far from it. The Olympics property is way too valuable to NBC, which paid $4.4bn for the rights to cover the Games in the US through 2020 – and another $7.75bn for rights between 2021 and 2032. It is remote producing the presentation of sports like diving, golf and tennis back in the US, but still producing coverage of American favourites like gymnastics and athletics. “It’s not like we all work together every day,” explains David Mazza, senior vice-president and
REMOTE PRODUCTION IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF SPORTS BROADCAST. IT ALLOWS US TO BRING BACK THE ACTION FROMANYWHERE
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