10 May 2013. A brief conversation with Andrea Cavalli, Mediaset Executive Producer “engines area”
"Whether it is for the Superbike and Motomondiale World Championship, the shooting production vehicles may change but the work itself does not change. In fact we at Mediaset, on the occasion of the 2 wheel motor races, are always there with mobile ob-vans to make the necessary integrations and customizations."
So says Andrea Cavalli Mediaset Executive Producer “engines area” that goes on: "The basic idea is to give our audience something more than the original program which is implemented by the host broadcaster, in this case Dorna Sports."
The additions for the Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset for all competitions involving the two wheels, MotoGP and Superbike championships, consist in inserting “proprietary” images in-between those made by the official Host Broadcaster.
This is carried thanks to two cameras working exclusively for Mediaset, that operate with a radio-RF link, followed by two journalists who are moving in the box area to collect all the information that the international signal can not afford to offer because it is already following the race. Everything happens live, including interviews.
Cavalli points out: "So often we talk about the work on the bikes, with interviews with the crew chief, rather than a chief mechanic who reveals why he made a particular setting."
The two journalists are assigned the technical comments and their interaction takes place on all hours live from beginning to end of the event and also during the final in depth analysis collected in tv program "Fuori Giri".
Cavalli continued: "The search for the images thus focuses on the details and certainly those events, on bikes, the change of tires, fill-ups, oil changes, the banter between driver and crew chief, with shorter interviews to pilots in the intervals between testing rides."
The same cameras are also used for the pre-race on the grid behind the race itself.
Cavalli points out, "We're going to catch the final adjustments that were made to grasp the latest sensations, we describe the faces of the drivers to see if they are stressed: in short, everything that happens in the moments before the pre-ride and the race."
All that the viewer sees aired on the circuit is created by an OB mobile unit that deals with the production, including signature tunes, the "luminose" (advertising inserts graphic overlays) and the infomercial, given that the broadcast from the circuit is to be a finished product.
Cavalli continued: "So in addition to the integration of the two cameras, the mobile unit in turn deals with the contributions of all the above, EVS systems are used to perform the replay, to pack the highlights, and more; especially in the Superbike, are available also feeds distributed by the host broadcaster made by some other cameras-isolated-on-track while not committed to shoot the race itself. Often these cameras offer us typical images referred as "beauty" that describe the environment and the situation."
In addition to this, again for the integrations are also used the incoming images from a fixed camera especially located in the cab of journalistic comment, which often revolve many guests.
Then the integrations are not constituted only by the 2 RF cameras but also by replay and slowmo inserts, plus the whole contribution of stings, tunes, id logos and graphics plus the isolated cameras on the circuit. In practice, starting from the "basic" product distributed by the host to all international broadcasters, Mediaset is able to enrich his feed with 4/5 other contributions.
The whole direction and control room on the circuit is connected to the operations center, the central video management of Mediaset in Cologno Monzese, at the outskirts of Milan, via a satellite uplink. There feeds are then routed to the emissions of competence, as Cavalli states: "around 70% of the hours of programming airs on channel Italia2 and 100% is broadcast in simulcast on Italia 1.
Cologno receives also the video signal generated by the host broadcaster used as a backup, paired with the audio lines to our journalistic comment, to be used in case of problems. In any emergency, this signal allows us to never interrupt and audio commentary is always available too.
On board the ob-van, a graphic computer allows to achieve the necessary inserts, captions and graphics overlays and all the rest. A Final Cut editing is used for packing up stories on site.”
