Triller Fight Club PPV Brings Cinema-Style Tools Into the Sports-Production Ring The goal was to blur the line between live sports and entertainment By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Monday, April 19, 2021 - 3:49 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Live sports broadcasts have seen an influx of cinematic cameras in recent months - from CBS Sports' use of the Sony Venice for its NFL and Masters coverage to Fox Sports' extensive deployment of its Megalodon system to Turner Sports' use of the Canon EOS C500 Mark II camera at the NBA All-Star Game. But, on Saturday night, Triller Fight Club took it to the next level with an end-to-end cinema-style live production featuring a whopping 18 Sony PMW-F55 CineAlta 4K cinema cameras.
Triller worked with Echo Entertainment to create a cinematic-style live broadcast.
The four-hour boxing/entertainment PPV event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta was headlined by a fight featuring YouTube-star-turned-boxer Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren and offered a star-studded list of musical performances by Justin Bieber, The Black Keys, and others. The PPV, which reportedly generated 1.5 million PPV buys on Saturday night, aimed to blur the line between live sports and entertainment with a heavy infusion of cinema-style production.
Triller is trying to create a totally different environment for sports and entertainment content. It's not just about boxing or just about the music acts; it's about creating something totally new, said Triller Coordinating Producer, Special Events, Paul Cambria prior to Saturday's fight. With that in mind, we're trying to create a true cinema feel for this event with different cameras, different lenses, and huge sets. We're looking to take your cookie-cutter boxing event and flip it upside down to make it different and more appealing for the younger viewing audience that Triller [appeals to].
Going Cinematic: Cine-Style Cameras, Lenses for Live Sports Triller Fight Club featured live musical performances throughout the night, including this one by Doja Cat.
Triller, the music-based social-media network behind the Fight Club series, enlisted Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Bert Marcus to bring a cinematic style not seen before in sports television. In addition, Echo Entertainment was brought in as the official production partner for the event, and TVG (The Visionary Group) was tapped to design and build the sprawling sets inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
You are certainly seeing [cinematic cameras] a lot more these days on live sports on things like the Super Bowl and the Masters, said Cambria, but it's really just one or two cameras. Our goal, driven by [Marcus], is to have every camera look that way. We're trying to create the look and feel of a film throughout the whole show as much as we can, which is really different than any other live sports show right now.
A total of 18 Sony F-55 cameras were deployed for the cine-style Triller Fight Club production.
Immediately after beginning work on the project, Echo Entertainment hired Rick Siegel as director of photography and Tom Kenny as lighting director. They worked with Echo to evaluate the tools it would need its arsenal to pull off a live, cinematic production like the one Triller was envisioning.
We knew we wanted the cinematic look, so we would need a full-frame sensor to achieve that, say Echo Entertainment Technical Manager Pierce Williams. We looked at a few options, including the Sony Venice, the ARRI Alexa, and the Sony 55. We ended up going with the Sony F-55 because we felt it was the most proven in a live environment. We have 18 of them here, and we've been really happy with them.
Dome Productions' Atlantic mobile unit served as home to all music-performance productions.
As for glass, Echo selected a wide range of Fujinon Cabrio cine-zoom lenses, including the ZK25-300mm T3.5-3.85, XK20-120mm T3.5, ZK85-300mm T2.9-4.0, and ZK19-90mm T2.9.
It all came down to finding that film-like look, and we felt like the [Fujinon] lenses capture that, says Pierce, noting that lighting played an even more integral role than usual, given the unique demands created by a cinema-style live sports show.
Lighting is a huge part for this show because we're not shading cameras as much in the traditional sense; we're not going to open and close iris constantly, he says. Instead, our LD is going to adjust the look through lighting so we can have that raw, gritty look, for both the boxing and the music.
Production Complement: Inside the Compound, in the Ring, On-Stage Three BSI POV cams were deployed, including one on the ref seen here.
Echo and Triller partnered with Dome Productions on the production compound in Atlanta. Dome's Atlantic mobile unit served as production home for the music/entertainment segments, while Thunder handled fight coverage. In addition, a pair of Dome's flex units, Unite and B200, were on hand to house a variety of workstations necessary to socially distance the 173-person broadcast crew under the onsite safety protocols (which also included rigorous testing and specific zones for different departments).
Of the 28 cameras deployed for the Triller Fight Club production, 18 were PMW-F55 4K Super 35mm single-sensor cameras. Each camera was outfitted with a CA-4000 4K fiber-transmission camera-system adaptor back, and the signal ran through a BPU-4000 baseband processor before arriving in the camera-control unit (CCU) in the trucks onsite.
Making a show of this size work with that many [F-55's] is definitely a challenge, says Williams. We have a stack of all those BPUs outside the truck because the racks inside are already full. All the cameras are going through the BPUs outside the truck before they can hit the CCUs. One great thing is that all the cameras are goin
Most recent headlines
17/02/2025
TVBEurope talks to the team who brought a piece of broadcasting history back to life on BBC Wales last night
By Jenny Priestley
Published: February 14, 2025 ...
17/02/2025
Eligible studios will receive the relief directly from their local authorities, with no need to submit a claim
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: February 17, 20...
17/02/2025
As DEI initiatives come under pressure in the USA, supporters of Rise, which promotes diversity in the media and entertainment sector, discuss the continuing im...
17/02/2025
EIB Global loan will partially fund SES's continued O3b mPOWER medium earth orbit (MEO) fleet expansion enabling additional capacity worldwide. O3b mPOWER s...
15/02/2025
At Nielsen, Business Resource Groups (BRGs) play a critical role in nurturing a ...
15/02/2025
Innovation to empower creativity: Explore the latest in Lightroom
Rob Christensen February 15, 2025
0 Comments
Whether you want to remove distracting ...
15/02/2025
Wisycom, a worldwide leader in RF technology and provider of wireless solutions, announces a new distribution agreement with EQUAPHON. An Argentinian profession...
15/02/2025
DPA Microphones, the leading manufacturer of high-quality microphone solutions, is pleased to welcome Nicholas Nick Mariano and Vincent Vince Divine to the ...
15/02/2025
Tuxera, a leading provider of quality-assured file systems and networking solutions, will showcase how Tuxera Fusion SMB enables unprecedented performance for m...
15/02/2025
Bitmovin's latest Video Developer Report indicates an increasing role of AI, the slow adoption of next-generation codecs, and continuing challenges when it ...
15/02/2025
When Michelin Enterprises set out to promote its prestigious Hotel Guide in the new Sleepless in the Kitchen , campaign, veteran German/Slovenian gaffer Robert...
15/02/2025
Formula E, the world's first all-electric racing series, revolutionizing motorsport with cutting-edge technology and a commitment to sustainability has sele...
15/02/2025
Agile Content, a global leader in TV and video technology solutions, announces its rebranding to AgileTV.
The transition to AgileTV stems from a commitment to ...
15/02/2025
Hiltron Communications will promote the latest additions to its range of satellite communication products, systems and supporting services at GovSatCom 2025. Th...
15/02/2025
Following the success of the original Airglow Booklight, DoPchoice debuts a new addition to their inflatable line the Float. This lightweight, inflatable, round...
15/02/2025
LAS VEGAS Marshall Electronics has announced that it will debut its newest camera controller, the RCP Plus, at the 2025 NAB Show at Booth N2649 between April 5 ...
15/02/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has named Blake Sebo as the next general manager of KTUU and KYES, Gray's NBC and CBS affiliates in Anchorage, Alaska....
15/02/2025
KOKKEDAL, Denmark DPA Microphones will feature its new CORE+ technology for distortion-free microphone sound at the 2025 NAB Show, April 5-9, in Las Vegas....
15/02/2025
SWANSEA, U.K. QuickLink will launch StudioPro-NDI and StudioPro-3, two new models of its QuickLine StudioPro video production platform, at the 2025 NAB Show, Ap...
15/02/2025
Live From 2025 NBA All-Star Game Weekend: After 25 Years, Turner Sports All-In F...
15/02/2025
NASCAR Driver Cam on Max Embraces Cloud-Based Workflow for 2025 Season Chris Brown of WBD Sports says Mobii will play key part in delivering signals from the tr...
14/02/2025
Last month, we officially launched the Spotify Partner Program, a powerful new m...
14/02/2025
From an island off the coast of Lutruwita to the global stage in France SBS & ...
14/02/2025
The future of electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) land systems is evolving so that ...
14/02/2025
Here are 5 reasons why you should attend ISE 2025
Discover more about Calrec: Learn more about Calrec's legacy of innovation in broadcast audio solutions ...
14/02/2025
World Radio Day: On the same wavelength
By Graham Murray, International Sales Manager at Calrec
To mark World Radio Day, Calrec's International Sales Ma...
14/02/2025
DALLAS and TYSONS, Va. Tegna has concluded a broadcast rights agreement that makes Tegna's KFAA in Dallas the exclusive local television partner of the Dall...
14/02/2025
Amazon's Prime Video has released a new app for Apple TV that the streamer said delivers an improved streaming experiences with faster scrolling, improved s...
14/02/2025
CLEVELAND Telos Alliance announced a software update for its Axia Quasar XR and SR line of audio-over-IP (AoIP) mixing consoles and will show the offering at th...
14/02/2025
Puget Systems Returns to HPA Tech Retreat 2025 with New Analysis Tools for Puge...
14/02/2025
Glass Animals: Tour of Earth Uses Blackmagic Live Production Workflow
Brie Clayton February 14, 2025
0 Comments
80six deploys Blackmagic URSA Broadcas...
14/02/2025
A dispute between Paramount and Youtube TV that would have pulled CBS stations and Paramount's cable channels from the streaming service has been temporaril...
14/02/2025
Colourist Deidre (Dee) McClelland details how she helped shape the distinct look and feel of whimsical Oscar-nominated stop-motion film, Memoir of a Snail
By C...
14/02/2025
BitFire said it intends to introduce forward-looking services that simplify the launch of live production workflows, and enhance real-time collaboration
By Jen...
14/02/2025
The claim by the liquidators is the latest twist in the ongoing saga of the companys collapse at the end of 2021
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: February 14, ...
14/02/2025
A carriage dispute between YouTube TV and Paramount could come to a head today (Feb. 13), with the virtual pay TV provider threatening to pull all of the progra...
14/02/2025
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. LG Electronics USA has opened a new in-house, state-of-the-art virtual production studio at its 360,000-square-foot North American headqu...
14/02/2025
NEW YORK In a bid to help local broadcasters find new ways of monetizing their content, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and TVB have relea...
14/02/2025
WASHINGTON Three Democratic U.S. Senators have sent a stern letter blasting FCC Chair Brendan Carr for the weaponization of the agency for attacking broadcast...
14/02/2025
Years after launching the streaming service Apple TV+ in November of 2019, Apple has finally released a version of its steaming app for Android devices....
14/02/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. Red Digital Cinema will make its V-RAPTOR [X] and KOMODO-X camera systems available with Nikon's premier Z Mount, providing filmmaker...
14/02/2025
DAYTONA, Fla. The Fox Sports production of this year's Daytona 500 will see the addition of a few new tech elements and the continued unfolding of the broad...
14/02/2025
Watch Bryson Battles Blind Audition on The Voice Get a Four-Chair Turn Michael Bubl said the Boston Conservatory at Berklee musical theater senior might have...
14/02/2025
2025 Daytona 500: FOX Sports Looks To Ride Super Bowl LIX Momentum Into NASCAR S...
14/02/2025
14 Feb 2025
VEON's Kyivstar and the Come Back Alive Foundation Raise USD 2....
14/02/2025
Max Renews THE PITT, Starring Noah Wyle, For A Second Season
Max
Warner Bros. Television Group
The Pitt
New Episodes Of The Medical Drama From John...
14/02/2025
This year, Technicolor proudly celebrates 110 years of shaping the magic of cinema pioneering color, visual effects, and innovation that bring unforgettable l...
14/02/2025
NBA All-Star: More Games, More Teams, More Music, More Sound From the Court Turner Sports' team will deploy familiar tech to capture all the audio By Dan D...
14/02/2025
LIV Golf Continues To Innovate With Drones, Data-Driven Graphics, and All-Access...
Triller Fight Club PPV Brings Cinema-Style Tools Into the Sports-Production Ring The goal was to blur the line between live sports and entertainment By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
