I n a Parisian restaurant on 3 March 2011, From its exciting start in 2014, FIA Formula E – the world’s first all-electric international single- seater championship – now has 12 teams and 24 drivers on the grid. Speaking from Formula E’s first official pre-season testing session in Madrid on 5 November, Aurora Media Worldwide’s Mike Scott and Westbury Gillett, executive producer and director for Formula E, discuss how they have seen the series grow since its inception. Aurora Media Worldwide has been the host broadcast production partner since the beginnings of the series. On how that original plan for the broadcast has evolved, Scott comments: “To begin with, we obviously had everybody on location. No one would even mention remote production. That didn’t exist at the time – so it was all very much on-site. I think we had a crew of about 45 people at the first race. “Year by year, as the championship grew, the TV production grew alongside it. So by the time we got to last year, there must have been about 100 people travelling, then we have a lot more people back at base. We managed to get to the point where remote technology could allow us to move into making it a split production.” the FIA president Jean Todt and Spanish businessman – now Formula E chairman – Alejandro Agag met for dinner. They jotted down an idea on the back of a napkin at that meal, which would see the first Formula E racing cars hit the track in the Beijing Olympic Park just three years later. That move to remote was one of the biggest steps in the broadcast’s evolution, Scott says. For Season 9 in 2023, Formula E took the host broadcast technical facilities of all its content in- house as a managed contract. The new set-up is based on a centralised remote production model with a small footprint on location, with around 50 previously on-site staff working from the UK at the Westworks Production Centre in London, established by EMG and Gravity Media, including staff responsible for tracking, graphics and audio. Additionally, connectivity for the broadcast is over public internet rather than dark fibre, facilitated by Tata Communications. This involves sending nearly 100 feeds back to Westworks over a 2GB internet connection, a concept initiated by As Formula E celebrates a decade of high-voltage action, FEED meets its founders to reflect on the journey and tech behind the production powerhouse it is today Words by Thea Morrigan
SPEEDING FOR SUCCESS António Félix da Costa in a Porsche 99X Electric Gen 3 car, racing for the Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team at the Berlin E-Prix
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