F ew buildings carry the cultural and architectural significance of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família. Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece has spent well over a century under construction, and in June, Pope Leo XIV visited to commemorate the centenary of Gaudí’s death and officially inaugurate the Tower of Jesus Christ – the central spire that now stands at 172.5m. Capturing such a moment was never going to be a conventional outside broadcast. Catalonia’s national broadcaster 3Cat (TV3) deployed around 20 cameras from Sony’s Cinema Line, combining ten VENICE 2 systems, seven ILME-FR7 remotely operated cameras and three ILME-FX6 cameras. Powered by PhotoCine’s live OB truck, the production delivered broadcast-quality coverage from the landmark. Its soaring interiors, changing natural light and inaccessible camera positions demanded a technical yet creative approach. Paulí Subirà Claramunt, director of photography at 3Cat, says it saw the production as an opportunity to push creative and technical boundaries. “Catalonia’s national television broadcaster is always at the forefront of audio-visual technology so, on such a special occasion – the completion of a monument as iconic as the Sagrada Família – we had to rise to the challenge.”
As the Sagrada Família nears its historic completion, Sony’s Cinema Line helped elevate a global live broadcast into a cinematic spectacle Sony takes live cine to Sagrada
While 3Cat had experimented with broadcast cinematography workflows, introducing cinema cameras into a live production raised the stakes. “We produced the musical Mar i Cel in the broadcast cinematography format, gaining experience with the tools and workflows. The difference is that, with the Sagrada Família, the live broadcast adds an extra layer of complexity,” Subirà says. A whole ecosystem Sony’s Cinema Line system was selected because each camera fulfilled a distinct production role. The VENICE 2 handled the principal cinematic shots, while the ILME- FR7 remote pan-tilt-zoom cameras captured inaccessible viewpoints
without disrupting the ceremony. The compact ILME-FX6 units offered mobility for dynamic shots. Sony Cinema Line cameras fed into PhotoCine’s OB3 mobile unit, working alongside a Sony XVS production switcher and Sony PVM-X and BVM-HX reference monitors to deliver an international UHD-HDR HLG feed. Project manager and production technical manager Hector Sole- Bradshaw Beltran explains: “With its Cinema Line range, Sony is able to provide solutions for all the necessary segments of a project of this scale.” The VENICE 2 proved particularly valuable once daylight faded. “For the main cameras, the cinematic heritage of the VENICE and the 3200 ISO sensitivity of the VENICE 2’s sensor makes them the perfect choice for a night-time spectacle where light takes centre stage,” he says. For creative director Igor Cortadellas, light became the defining narrative device. “We found ourselves with a visual poem in which light is more than a technical resource: it is the soul of the story. It is not simply about capturing reality, but revealing the emotion within it.” For more on Sony’s cinematic live offering, visit its stand at IBC Hall 13 or go to pro.sony.eu
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