NAC’s UK business partner for applications involving entertainment
and broadcasting, ARRI Media, sent their Digital High Speed Manager
Andy Hayford to Beijing in April with a single camera for a test
shoot of a marathon. “We filmed a real race, but for us it was
primarily a practical, logistical and communications rehearsal to
see if various things would work, including having a high-speed
camera on a vehicle,” explains Hayford. “The Hi-Motion was on a gyro-
head mounted on a car and was one of up to seven separate cameras –
some on motorbikes and helicopters – that were all transmitting
digital HD to antennas on the camera car. In the front footwell was
a camera operator who operated the two gyro-heads on the car. In the
back was the Hi-Motion technician and a director with a small vision
mixer who was cutting between all those different feeds. No-one’s
done it quite like that before, but it worked really well.”
The client, BOB (Beijing Olympic Broadcasting), was ecstatic with
the results of the test run and confirmed their booking of seven Hi-
Motion cameras for the games. The cameras were scheduled for use in
the marathon, the triathlon, cycle road racing, indoor velodrome
cycle racing, mountain biking, fencing, table tennis, athletic field
events, badminton and gymnastics. According to Hayford, “ For a lot
of those events audiences will not have previously seen footage any
slower than the 3x slow-motion typical of sports coverage.”
The Hi-Motion (from NAC and distributed by ARRI Media) is capable of
recording true 1920x1080 HD images at up to 300fps. The Hi-Motion
is gaining popularity with sports broadcasters for the incredibly
detailed slow-motion images it delivers. The cameras can be
seamlessly integrated with standard outside broadcast (OB) systems
and are frequently used for technical analysis during live action
and breaks in action, as well as for dramatic highlight montages. Hi-
Motion cameras continuously record a 22-second loop to an integrated
RAM recorder while simultaneously providing a live feed. As soon as
that live feed is cut by an operator, the preceding 22 seconds of
footage are available for instant replay, slowed down by a factor of
6x or 12x.
For photos, click here: /NAC_%20Beijing_Olympics.html