As the 2021 NFL season kicks off, Fox Sports is focusing on new remote workflows, expanding super slo-mo coverage, and helping fans at home feel the full energy of the stadium.

Enhancing Fan Experience Through Audio Innovation

“We’re focused on making sure fans in the stands can be heard clearly at home,” says Kevin Callahan, Fox Sports VP of Field Operations and Engineering. “We really want to make sure that viewers at home are feeling that that energy in the stands so we’re doing everything we can do to help our mixers with things like additional microphones and possibly even doing crowd submixes.”

Top Crews and Mobile Units for NFL Coverage

Game Creek facilities will again handle top duties: Encore will cover Thursday Night Football, Glory will take the A game on Sunday, and Bravo will handle the B game. Mobile TV Group’s 46FLEX and 46B will cover the C games. NEP’s Supershooter 32 will support the fourth and fifth crews, and Supershooter 29 will produce the sixth game.

“Supershooter 32 just received a bunch of upgrades this year with a new audio console and some camera upgrades and things that we were really looking forward to,” says Callahan. “Supershooter 29 was also recently refurbished and as a result it’s getting some nice little upgrade like six times super mo cameras. All of our shows for the top six games will now have at least four super mos.”

Expanding Super Slo-Mo Capabilities

That rise in the number of super slo-mo cameras is the biggest improvement on the production side, especially for the TNF package and the Sunday A game.

“Every camera on the field will be a high frame-rate camera,” says Callahan. “Even the SteadiCam is going to be a high frame rate RF camera on those shows.”

Also look for the A, B, and C games to be native 1080p SDR, a move that Callahan says means a better image for viewers at home.

“It positions us for the future as we can start to build out our libraries in 1080p,” he says.

Next-Gen Line to Gain and Camera Tech

One game each Sunday will also feature what Fox calls “Line to Gain 2.0” which is the pylon cam that is on the line of scrimmage.

“We are working with C360 and 3G Wireless on that and it is a 4K pylon camera with pan and zoom and is the next generation of the technology,” he says. “It will be used on whatever is the biggest game of the weekend along with a SteadiCam.”

Megaladon Cameras Add Cinematic Depth

Megaladon shallow-depth-of-field cameras have been one of the big pushes in 2021 and that will continue through the NFL season. There will be a dedicated operator and RF kit for all the big games like the TNF package and Sunday A games and also look for it to pop up on some of the doubleheader weekends.

“We’re making it available to every crew to be used for ENG work and bus arrivals and we’re really proud of the work Jarrod Ligrani, one of our technical directors, did in terms of really pushing us forward with it and developing it last year,” says Callahan. “It’s not anything that’s that particularly difficult and another bonus is it’s something that is relatively inexpensive. But Jarrod and Director Brian Lilley really made it shine on the national stage.”

Only hands-on experience can develop the skills needed to operate a Megaladon camera, which is why every crew has access to one. By not using it as a live element for every show, teams can ensure they capture shots accurately and in focus.

“Auto focus works really well if you have an operator that knows when they need to regain control of focus and move back and forth,” says Callahan. “You get much better results that way and I would point to things like our NASCAR or boxing coverage and even the MLS All-Star game where we had an operator changing camera focus during interviews. And during MLS All-Star there was an entire replay sequence for a corner kick goal where the operator was behind the player taking the kick, show the ball go into the box and the goal score, and then then the team ran right to the corner where the operator was. That was a fantastic shot.”

Remote Workflows and the Vault

Over the past 18 months Fox Sports at-home efforts have focused on its Vault production facility in Los Angeles and there won’t be any big changes from last year.

“We are using the Vault as a testing ground for a couple of different projects with various vendors so that instead of flying them out to a game for a test we can get instant feedback here,” says Callahan. “That will allow us to make changes in real time.”

CMSI Powers Remote Editing for NFL 2021

Callahan says Fox will also use CMSI again this year to enable remote edit workflows. An editor on TNF and a game each Sunday will working remotely with content from the mobile units.

“We’re deploying new file transfer kits this year with OpenDrives Ultimate high availability system with full NVMe,” says Callahan. “The new system allows for much faster read/write speeds, and over all faster transfers. This will be well received in the trucks as they are much shallower and take up less rack space than our previous iterations.”

New Remote Workflow Models for Live Broadcasts

In terms of new remote workflows, one of the big changes for NFL coverage is the First and Ten line operators for the fourth, fifth, and sixth crews will be located in Tempe, AZ.

“The downstream boxes will be on the truck, but the operator will be in Tempe using the same workstations we use for our college games,” says Callahan. “They will remote into the truck and that allows us to record the line in the truck and simplify workflows coming back for distribution as it will come in with the line already on it.”

One challenge this year will be simply keeping track of what will most likely be an ever-evolving series of COVID-19 safety protocols.

“It’s actually more challenging this year as the guidelines are a bouncing ball from week to week,” says Callahan. “That was true last year but last year everyone at the stadiums were on the same page. For this year there may be 20 different solutions across 30 different stadiums.”

Source : Sports Video Group