In 2019, Gravity Media was chosen to produce a new studio show for Indonesian broadcaster Mola who acquired the English Premier League rights for their territory.
Fast forward to 2022, the Gravity Media team at The Production Centre in London delivered the debut Eredivisie League Studio Show forMola. Gravity Media continues to produce their studio wrap-around programmes around a selection of live games throughout the Premier League and Eredivisie season.
Gravity Media provides the studio, gallery, and staff to produce the coverage for Mola, which will feature matches on both Saturdays and Sundays, and often feature consecutive games back-to-back.
Gravity Media installed a video wall which allows live feeds from different grounds to be displayed behind the studio guests with UHD quality and minimal bezel space showing, out studio can switch between programme backgrounds in a matter of seconds.
Football is in our DNA and to find out how we can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com
The Nanga Mai Awards ceremony celebrates and recognises Aboriginal students, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal teachers, other departmental staff, Aboriginal community members and schools that demonstrate excellence across a diversity of areas.
Since 2019 Gravity Media has proudly produced the Nanga Mai Awards for the Department of Education from the studios at the Production Centre in Sydney. It was hoped the Nanga Mai Awards would be held at the Opera House this year however, given COVID 19 restrictions, a video which could be livestreamed was produced in its place.
Each year, the Nanga Mai Awards are hosted by two exemplary students. For 2021, Tquile Donovan (Orara High School) took her place at the lectern in Studio B while Wesley Bamblett (Narrandera High School) was filmed on location in his home town of Narrandera by the Murrumbidgee River. They both introduce individual awards and tell a brief background of the exceptional award winners. Also included in the program is an Acknowledgement to Country by an extraordinary 7yr old Penelope Towney (Waniora Public School), a student vocal performance by Mariah Alone (Campbelltown Performing Arts High School) and a dance performance by two extremely talented indigenous performers Jahna Lugna (Karabar High School) and Alaynah Quinlin-Naylor (Sydney Secondary College, Balmain Campus). Finally some DoE executive staff pay tribute to the student award winners to instil pride and inspire other children to try their best.
Gravity Media supplied two studio facilities complete with studio production and control room crew. Studio A encompasses an incredible 9m LED wall, green screen and reflective black flooring. Our talented editors compiled background imagery to play in the LED wall for the Acknowledgement of Country, vocal performance and dance performance complete with animated designs inspired by an Aboriginal artwork by Wallula Munro.
Studio B utilised Gravity Media’s generic fab frames which are set to the Department of Education’s colour scheme and also black flooring was used here. Our pre-production and post-production services utilise our various edit suites and skilled editors to assemble the raw footage and various videos and photos supplied by the client. From the Aboriginal artwork, animated graphic elements were designed for the opener, lower third graphics, and backgrounds for interview and greenscreen shoots.
To find out how Gravity Media can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com
The Emirates FA Cup Third Round is one of the most popular weekends in the English football calendar.
And Gravity Media had a team of over 500 people working across the UK, in various roles, to cover the action. The Gravity Media Production and Content team was on hand to deliver world feeds from all 32 ties for The FA broadcast live on the BBC and ITV, as part of their brand new 3-year deal looking after the international production of the World’s most famous domestic club competition.
The ready-to-air programmes for rights holders were complete with specially produced content, graphics, and commentary. In addition, Gravity Media oversaw 19 live outside broadcasts up and down the country, which included the deployment of our own outside broadcast truck Pictor at Borehamwood vs AFC Wimbledon and Charlton v Norwich.
96 highlights packages and over 250 digital clips were produced in-house across the weekend at The Production Centre in Chiswick, west London for The FA to use on its social channels and digital platforms.
For more information on how we can help you with your next production, please email enquiries@gravitymedia.com
Gravity Media has just completed the Group Stages of a brand new three-year deal producing Matchnight Services for UEFA across their major club competitions – the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League.
The deal includes highlights programming, digital content, commentaries, and a live instant highlights show for all UEFA’s rights holding broadcasters.
It marks the continuation of a partnership that begun with the first season of UEFA Champions League football in 1992/93.
This new agreement brings with it a major increase in production services, on Thursday nights in particular where Gravity Media’s production centre plays host to more than 120 editorial and technical staff, including 32 commentators delivering world feed commentary to broadcasters around the world.
To accommodate the increased demands on these matchnights, Gravity Media’s London Production Centre has been re-designed to include a new and extended multi-functional suite, which houses the VT operation and monitoring obligations on match nights, as well as additional commentary booths and galleries.
Nick Symes, Director of Technology for Gravity Media, oversaw the project, “With the expansion of the Europa Conference League and the increased required for fast turnaround production facilities and workflows, our new operational areas needed to offer a flexible suite of tools to enable our production teams to deliver the complex set of requirements for delivery of a bolstered UEFA matchnight operation. The new facility occupies a newly refitted room and is equipped with flexible monitoring positions, dedicated talkback all integrated into high specification technical furniture.”
Director of Production and Content for EMEA Frank Callaghan “We are delighted to continue our relationship with UEFA for a further three years. To be trusted with such a major contract is testament to our production and technical teams’ continued ability to deliver huge volumes of valuable content to a very high and consistent level”
This year, the third annual Daily Telegraph Bush Summit was held online for the first time on Friday 29th October in Sydney. The event brought together community leaders, farmers, industry bodies, and policy makers to discuss crucial economic, social and political issues for regional communities in NSW.
Hosted by The Daily Telegraph Editor, Ben English, the Bush Summit 2021 covered four key themes of irrigation, population, regeneration and disruption. The event included keynote addresses from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and featured an extensive guest list with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, State and Federal Opposition Leaders Chris Minns and Anthony Albanese, Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and NSW Farmer President James Jackson amongst other prominent business leaders in Australia.
Gravity Media facilitated the Bush Summit in our studio at the Production Centre in Sydney and provided a complete solution with studio floor and control room crew for the important 6-hour event, which was livestreamed to a national audience on The Daily Telegraph website.
The 9-metre LED wall in the studio provided a dynamic background with virtual guests from around Australia and abroad, joining a series of panel discussions about the importance of trade in regional communities, and the impact of the pandemic. The event culminated in the formation of a communique to the NSW state government, a list of actions that are vital to the improvement of living in the bush.
To find out how Gravity Media can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com.
London, UK, 17 November 2021 – Gravity Media, a globally active provider of complex live broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors, has invested in Module-R desks for a newly completed multi-suite at its Production Centre in Chiswick. The facility is an addition to the wide range of broadcast support resources that Gravity Media offers for coverage of major events such as live sport.
“Custom Consoles desks, particularly the Module-R series, were the natural choice for this project,” says Nick Symes, Gravity Media’s EMEA Director of Technology. “They have given very good service over the years and their excellent ergonomics make them popular with our operators. Their inherent modularity allows us to specify the technical features, dimensions and colour scheme we need without incurring the potentially huge cost of bespoke furniture. We also appreciate the after-sales support Custom Consoles provides if desks need maintenance or reconfiguration.
“The new suite cut its teeth during a busy week of European club football beginning with the UEFA Champions League and culminating in a bumper Thursday with 32 UEFA Europa League matches coming into the facility. All matches were voiced for live and highlights programming, as well as edits made for digital platforms, before being delivered to rights-holding broadcasters around the world.”
The project includes eight rectangular Module-R Lite desks. Designed specifically for use with latest-generation equipment, these have a space-efficient 950 mm front-to-back depth compared with the 1,200 mm of standard Module-R desks. Each multi-suite desk comprises five in-line bays and is configured for use by several operators and producers. A 3U equipment storage pod with a 45 degree sloping front panel is integrated at the desktop rear above each bay. Four monitors are attached to the rear of the desk via support arms.
Largest of the desks are two 4.2 metre wide 8-bay rectangular match-control units for use by a four-strong team. Each of the eight positions is fitted with a 3U equipment pod to the rear of the worktop, plus an operator-specific computer monitor display. These desks are housed an in adjacent suite and face towards two 3.4 metre wide MediaWall frames, each allowing user-configurable mounting of video display screens and monitor loudspeakers.
All 10 desks have graphite-finished Marmoleum worktop surfaces with black PVC edging, grey CDF side panels and extruded aluminium legs with silver anodised floor skids.
Custom Consoles’ Module-R is designed to offer a high level of choice in terms of desk size, configuration and facilities. Unlike one-piece control room furniture, Module-R desks can be expanded or reconfigured at any time during their working life. Auxiliary pods of various sizes for broadcast industry standard 19 inch rack-mounting equipment can be specified at the time of installation or added later. Individual elements such as desktops can be replaced easily if required for operational or aesthetic reasons.
Customers can select from a wide range of options including single, double or triple width base units, 15, 30, 45 or 90 degree angled corner units or curved desk sections to follow any radius. Control panels of practically any size and depth can be embedded into the desktop at any time. Space is provided for equipment, with easy front and rear access via removable front and rear cover panels. Power and signal cable routing is fully integrated within every Module-R desk via transverse ducts across each frame and vertical ducts through the supporting legs.
Module-R is fully IT-friendly. Brush-strip-protected slots running the entire width of each desktop allow easy connection of cables to and from IT accessories such as computer keyboards and tracking tools. Predrilled monitor mounts are included as standard along the rear of every Module-R frame so that customers can add, remove or relocate monitors to match changes in operating procedure during the desk’s lifetime. The inherent modularity of Module-R desks makes relocation relatively easy if or when a control suite is relocated.
Ergonomic design is key to any control room environment; Module-R has been tested by the Furniture Industry Research Association to ensure it is fully compliant in terms of ergonomics and structural integrity.
Matchday 2 for UEFA and the Gravity Media team at The Production Centre in London were involved in a busy week of European club football beginning with the UEFA Champions League, and culminating in a bumper Thursday, with 32 UEFA Europa League matches coming into the building. All matches were packaged up for live and highlights programming, as well as being re-edited for digital platforms, before being delivered to rights holding broadcasters around the World.
Our flexible Production Centre in London offers full live production, whether on-site or as part of a hybrid remote configuration. It’s ideal for fast turnaround rolling highlights edit for broadcast or digital, live streams, in-match clips for social and digital, as well as crafted highlights, along with features and traditional post-production.
The Production Centre in London has been robustly designed for the delivery of live sport, however, it is equally capable of providing broadcast facilities for live events and other fast turnaround programming genres.
Football is in our DNA and to find out how we can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com
The Cash Converters Supercars E Series has wrapped for 2021!
After an incredibly successful season last year, the series came back in 2021, bigger than ever before.
Hosted by Supercars Hall of Fame inductee, Neil Crompton, The Cash Converters Supercars E Series took place over six weeks filming at both PCS (Production Centre Sydney) and PCM (Production Centre Melbourne) to service all the needs for the Eseries broadcast. Regular Eseries commentators Chad Neylon and Johnathon Simon also joined to call the qualifying sessions and races from our studio in Melbourne.
While most sports suffered throughout 2020, the Supercars Eseries was able to thrive under the lockdown environment, with racers able to participate from their homes via video conferencing. The series made headlines around the globe, with elite drivers joining the series from F1 to NASCAR.
The 2021 series offered fans a brand-new framework with a mix of main game Supercars drivers and pro gamers, competing for a top prize of more than $20,000 AUD. The competition was broadcast live in prime-time television, along with a range of digital platforms – Fox Sports 506, Kayo, 7Plus, as well as streamed on Supercars’ Twitch, Facebook and YouTube channels.
To find out how we can help with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com
The display wall has already been deployed for this summer’s games and Supercars E Series
Sydney, Australia, 29 September 2021 – Gravity Media – the leading provider of complex live broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors – continues to develop its new broadcast technology offering with the installation of the only broadcast studio 1.2mm pixel pitch display LED wall in Australia at its Production Centre in Sydney (PCS).
The new LED wall installation enhances Gravity Media’s already impressive technology offering, both as a rental and facilities provider, which is used by clients and partners across the world. The investment into the wall follows an increasing popularity in LED video wall technology due to the clear and seamless images it delivers on camera. The versatility of the wall means that content looks great from any angle as it provides the ability to scale images or videos to any shape or size.
Gravity Media’s new LED wall stands at a massive 10 (w) x 2.5 (h) metres, with a resolution of 6400 x 1920, and provides a vibrant, high-definition backdrop perfect for sharing information and entertaining in unique and innovative ways.
The LED wall has already proven popular among clients including Seven Network and Supercars. In the lead up to this summer’s games, Seven Network approached Gravity Media, seeking out the best possible screens in the market to deliver one of the world’s most iconic events. Gravity Media was able to deliver the most elite product for the broadcast with the new 1.2mm pixel pitch display.
Supercars used the PCS and the incredible versatility of the LED wall for their Cash Converters Supercars E Series. The PCS acted as a production’s main hub with the LED wall installed in a dedicated studio, using it to display various feeds managed from the control room. Camera feeds of two commentators were sent from Gravity Media’s PCM (Production Centre in Melbourne) via fibre to the Sydney facility and played out on the LED wall the programme’s host could easily interact with their colleagues.
For more information on Gravity Media’s Production Centres, visit staging.gravitymedia.kastage.co.uk.
The Olympic Games have always been, by far, the most complicated sporting event to broadcast.
Gravity Media’s challenge to facilitate the Seven Network’s coverage had to consider the increased diversity and volume of events run concurrently over little more than a fortnight, each requiring specialised production, channeled through a labyrinth of media platforms.
Then, when you throw in the layers of preparation required for the uncertainty of an international pandemic and Tokyo 2021, it makes the challenge that much more incredible.
Gravity Media partnered with Seven to organise the network of communications, using a combination of leased and itinerant services between all our locations across four countries, from RBC & BCM in Melbourne, IBC in Tokyo, The Production Centre in Sydney (PCS) and facilities in London. All sites were able to talk to each other using more than 136 talkback panels and 780 ports.
330 staff worked 75,000 hours across four production locations, each operating under strict compliance. But the broader situation of multiple state policies towards COVID-19, and the fluid situation in Tokyo itself, had the entire project on a knife edge, needing to pivot whichever way the outbreak turned, in Tokyo or Australia.
More than 600 hours of live coverage across two FTA HD Broadcast channels, and 13,000 hours of 7Plus HD Digital and VOD content were delivered flawlessly under these extraordinary conditions, using three studios with live hostings across two states. A three-hour highlights package was edited and played out simultaneously following 16 hours of live coverage daily. IBC Production based in Tokyo added to the Sydney and Melbourne control rooms and a DR control room. The flexibility that had to be built into this system was a credit to everyone involved in months of planning. Multiple options and back-ups had to be built into an already complicated system.
Logistically, the same flexibility had to be applied. 25,000 meals had to be served over 21 days – all under COVID protocols, with little warning as to which centre the production might have to rely on if government policy changed.
Our team of project and production managers had to provide multiple versions of floor plans and prepare for ever-changing guidelines for staff location and service capability.
In Tokyo, this required a web of connectivity to ensure a seamless blend of host and rights-holders broadcasting to provide for all those platforms. More than 90 SDI fibre feeds. Five connected venues integrating mixed zones, hosting positions, and ISO cameras.
If that’s not impressive enough, more than 80 incoming circuits and 20 outgoing video circuits at the RBC enabled OBS IP feeds, IBC/PCS and BCM SDI feeds. There were two MDS Satellite Downlinks for international signal backup and content delivery. Four Craft Edits and three Fast Edits at RBC with remote edit access at PCS, along with two Fast Edits at PCS and three Fast Digital Edits. There were four Off Tube Booths at RBC and two OTB’s at PCS with an additional VO Booth.
The stakes were high, as any breakdown in this vast network of interactivity – whether COVID-induced or technical – could compromise the integrity of the production. However, through all the up’s and downs, Gravity Media was able to deliver a flawless event, which in turn gained Seven the highest ratings and streaming numbers ever for an Olympic Games.
This amazing achievement during such unpredictable times is a credit to all the teams across Gravity Media and the Seven Network.
To find out how Gravity Media can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com.
For the massive puzzle that was the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, one component that Gravity Media provided was commentary for the Seven Network coverage.
This apparent simple connection through cables, signals, and technical equipment via Gravity Media’s studios and control rooms takes months of planning to ensure this link is not obstructed by the restrictions of time, distance, or the global pandemic.
In addition to months of setting up this technical network, Gravity Media used rehearsals and consultation to fine tune the commentary studio schedules and positions in the days leading up to the first event. Each team has their own requirements for space, vision, and data to suit their own ways of working.
To cover any situation arising from the ever-changing regulations regarding COVID-19 restrictions, commentary was provided from three primary sources: Tokyo, Melbourne, and Sydney.
However, there were even more variations due to travel restrictions. For example, cycling commentator Phil Liggett who worked from The Production Centre in Chiswick in the UK was seamlessly integrated into RBC (Remote Broadcast Centre) Off–Tube Booth’s in Melbourne, Australia.
Liggett was able to watch live feeds of the track from Tokyo, along with his co-commentators, Scott McGrory and Anna Mears who were also watching the live feeds in Melbourne. With the ability to watch the same feeds and communicate with each other from separate locations, their commentary was delivered together live on the Seven Network channel. To the viewers’ ears, they may as well have been seated side by side on location.
All throughout the games, links between Melbourne, Sydney, and Tokyo were pushing audio and vision back and forth between studio hosts, venue hosts and commentators, all operating simultaneously.
The amazing minds behind the technical expertise to set up these intricate facilities, along with the incredible management of commentary schedules across multiple locations with ever-changing event timetables is just another reason why Gravity Media is at the forefront of major broadcast solutions.
To find out how Gravity Media can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com.
This week saw the return of the UEFA Champions League and Europa League competitions to The Production Centre in London.
The Gravity Media team at The Production Centre in London was on hand to deliver highlights shows, digital clips and commentaries over three busy nights. On the evening of Thursday 16 September alone, the Gravity Media team delivered content from 32 matches for various platforms and broadcasters from our brand new state of the art VT area.
Our flexible Production Centre in Chiswick, West London offers full live production, whether on-site or as part of a hybrid remote configuration. Ideal for fast turnaround rolling highlights edit for broadcast or digital, live streams, in-match clips for social and digital, as well as crafted highlights, along with features and traditional post-production.
The Production Centre in London has been robustly designed for the delivery of live sport, however, it is equally capable of providing broadcast facilities for live events and other fast turnaround programming genres.
Football is in our DNA and to find out how we can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com
