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ROUND TABLE
NEAL ROMANEK: How can remote production help smaller companies or niche broadcasters?
ROBERT ERICKSON: Here’s an amazing example. There is this ridiculous drinking game in North America called cornhole, where people throw sandbags at a wooden platform with a hole in it. During the first lockdowns, cornhole got big ratings numbers throughout North America. The part I thought was really cool was that it was a completely automated production, with AI literally choosing the camera shots, and an audio guy at a board riding the levels. The fact they were using remote production and some cool new tools allowed them to take something as mental as cornhole, and make money from it. And people watched it! That’s the incredible part – granted they started watching it less once football and other sports started coming back. It was a really cool use of going down scale and trying new technologies.
STEVEN DARGHAM: Remote production allows tier-two sports to do more for less. Producing a small event, with one or two cameras controlled using artificial intelligence and remote production, you can actually put a high-quality show on air. The surprises CEOs and CTOs are getting is that they don’t necessarily have to pay more. That’s where the difference comes. It’s a game-changer – not just for major events, but tier-two ones as well. You don’t require people to manage cameras. You can control a football match these days using artificial intelligence, without anyone driving to the stadium. CLAIRE WILKIE: It’s exciting to talk about doing production in circumstances we can’t control – for long-distance cycle racing, motor sport, ultramarathons, not just your top-tier sports. In 2019,
UCI para-cycling came to Yorkshire in the UK. For the first time, thanks
to remote production, it was streamed and broadcast live, using 4G networks. My team ran the remote
production. We covered six races in one day, before the rest of the UCI cycling coverage. That is what really excites me: offering exposure to sports that usually can’t afford that level of coverage and storytelling.
AI have A dream: Production crews will sit back as AI controls cameras
FEED:XTREME MAY/JUNE 2022
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