American Cinematographer - October 2021 - 60

A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME
CP Communications crew prep for a broadcast. The
company collaborated with Ligrani on the Megalodon.
" Each of the digital cine cameras we've tested
has had its strengths that make it a better
choice for some sports applications. "
" Overheating can be a problem with Alphas, especially at higher frame
rates, " he says. " Getting the batteries out of the camera helped. " He adds
that " a Sunbrella also helps when shooting in the sun for hours at a time. "
Expanding the Field
Larger cine cameras have also found their way onto the playing field.
CBS tested several in late 2020 during the NFL season. " We leaned on
[Sony's CineAlta] Venice [on a Steadicam] during the final games of the
2020 NFL season, and continued throughout the playoffs, " says Josh
Cohen, editorial consultant at CBS Sports, who credits Mike Arnold, lead
game director of the NFL on CBS Sports, for the effort.
Fan feedback was intense on social media, during and after the
a 2D world, and I get pretty jazzed any time we can make it look more
three-dimensional. "
Much as in the " Field of Dreams " game, where Megalodons played a
key role in making the ballfield-in-a-cornfield the star of the show, Fox
uses the setup to make the Cubs' Wrigley Field a lead character in each
ballgame's broadcast. " I'll use wide sweeping shots of the ballpark, often
including the thick ivy on the outfield walls and huge pillars behind
home plate, " he says. " I love to incorporate the huge manual scoreboard,
topped with a great old clock, with fans in the foreground. Sometimes
they're playing catch, or taking selfies, or lining up to get into the park,
but with Wrigley's classic scoreboard behind them. "
Fox also deploys the Megalodon specifically to weave fans into the
game broadcast. " We love shooting fans singing the national anthem,
during the 7th-inning stretch, eating and drinking in the food court and
in the stands, or talking to the players around the dugout, catching foul
balls, and all sorts of B-roll, " he says. " The strong RF signal enables us to
shoot anywhere in and around the stadium. Most of all, I love how easy
[the Megalodon] makes it to spotlight players by isolating them from
everything else, making them stars for at least a moment. "
Ligrani was at the forefront in recognizing the potential of the mirrorless
a7R IV for live sports broadcasts. " We had been using Alphas in a
limited capacity for NFL game coverage, but not live, " he says. " Shooters
had to keep running to the truck to download selected shots throughout
the game. That changed when we found a Belgian company that made
a compact, efficient RF transmitter which would easily fit into a small
backpack. "
Ligrani also solved other challenges, including a powering issue
and an overheating problem, by creating an external power supply utilizing
Anton-Bauer Gold Mount or V-Mount hot-swappable batteries.
60 / OCTOBER 2021
games. " Fans noticed the difference right away, flooding us with comments
like, 'It looked like a movie,' " says Arnold. " That spurred us on to
keep experimenting with these shallow-DOF cameras. "
In NFL games, cine cams have already filled key niches, such as highlighting
touchdown celebrations - which have become increasingly
showy and creative - as well as shots of players walking on and off the
field at halftime and after the game. Inevitably, the shallow DOF created
challenges in a fast-paced environment. Arnold explains, " Sometimes,
the shallow DOF was problematic in autofocus mode by keying on the
crowd in the background instead of the player in the foreground, if not
full frame, or by focusing on the wrong player in a scrum. "
Arnold notes that CBS didn't actually give the smaller Alpha package a
tryout until the biggest game of the season. " For the Super Bowl, we decided
to add a second cine camera package, a [Sony] Alpha IV on a Movi
gimbal rig, to complement our Venice/Steadicam package, " he says. " We
were quickly impressed with how well the Alpha's autofocus performed,
and with its great image quality. We had to run it through a color corrector,
but it helped [that it was] a Sony camera to start with, in terms of
color-matching it with the Venice and with our Sony broadcast cameras. "
CBS also deployed the Alpha package for pro golf tournaments and
major car races. " We replaced an ENG camera with the Alpha package on
a Movi for the PGA [Tour] and during the SRX [extreme auto] races. We
were also pleased with the performance of Canon's [EOS] C300 in the
races. Each of the digital cine cameras we've tested has had its strengths
that make it a better choice for some sports applications than another
model, and vice versa, " says Jason Cohen, vice president of remote technical
operations for CBS Sports.
After road-testing different models of cine cameras in several sports,
says Cohen, CBS still plans to keep its options open, going into the 2021'22
NFL season. " What we know for sure is that we are going to keep the
shallow DOF relevant in our top NFL game every week, " he says. " However,
we're still in the process of determining what's going to be the system
and which models we're using from week to week. It's still a fluid
conversation. "
For an extended version of this story, visit ascmag.com/articles/
whole-new-ballgame.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CP COMMUNICATIONS.
http://www.ascmag.com/articles/whole-new-ballgame http://www.ascmag.com/articles/whole-new-ballgame
American Cinematographer - October 2021

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