Virtual Production at the BBC: The Future of TV & Live Broadcasts

00:00:02: Hi,

00:00:03: this episode is going to be in English because our guest works at the BBC.

00:00:07: And that's why we're talking about the future of television and live broadcasts and how they can benefit from new virtual production methods.

00:00:15: As so often, it's modern game engines that make state-of-the-art XR TV studios possible.

00:00:21: For the first time, we had so many people on social media saying, how is the BBC affording?

00:00:27: a Japanese-style construction on top of a skyscraper in Tokyo, and we were actually getting

00:00:49: that.

00:00:50: Welcome back to New Realities, the podcast by WonnieNine and XR Beveria.

00:00:54: In this show, we explore new realities, projects, ideas, concepts and products in a virtual augmented and mixed reality, or in short, in extended reality.

00:01:03: My name is Wolfgang Kerler, I'm the editor-in-chief of WonnieNine, and in this episode, I'm talking to John Murphy from BBC Sport.

00:01:12: As design director he is responsible among many other things for how the major sports programs on television and of course on all other video platforms are presented.

00:01:22: From the weekly sports magazine to soccer world cups and the Olympics.

00:01:26: there is virtual production everywhere.

00:01:28: My impression is German television isn't quite there yet but you better listen to what John has to say yourself.

00:01:35: By the way, we recorded our conversation at the Mediantarger München Conference at the end of October, where John took part in a panel.

00:01:43: Enjoy.

00:01:46: John, welcome to Munich and welcome to New Realities.

00:01:49: Thank you very much.

00:01:52: It's great.

00:01:53: It's my first time here and I've really enjoyed it.

00:01:56: It came out of the blue a little bit to be invited.

00:01:59: But yeah, really enjoyed it.

00:02:00: I met a lot of interesting people and seen a lot of different technologies, what they're doing myself.

00:02:04: So it's been great.

00:02:05: Thank you.

00:02:06: Yeah, so we had Mediantarga mentioned, so excuse the noise, there's a lot of bus going on about the future of media.

00:02:11: We're going to talk about workshop production for TV, but before we do that, maybe you introduce yourself quickly or our first guest from the BBC, from BBC Sport, but BBC is a huge company, so maybe you can tell us a bit about what you're doing and what's your job at the BBC, and maybe how you came there.

00:02:28: Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:28: So my role is I'm design director, which really encompasses design and creative director really.

00:02:34: So when I started at the BBC, you know, fifteen years ago, my main job is to manage the brand, the visual brand of the BBC Sport.

00:02:45: And that obviously includes all the kind of the day to day, you know, graphics and design.

00:02:50: And obviously part of that also is the presentation or studios.

00:02:54: So before we started moving into the VR and XR, I was still in charge of how things looked on set, the physical set, how it all looked and how the brand looks on screen.

00:03:04: And now, obviously part of my role since the whole game and engine technologies come into broadcast, it's taken on a lot of my role now to do all the VR, XR, AR elements of the productions.

00:03:17: And that's pretty much my role now.

00:03:20: So we talk about virtual production in TV.

00:03:22: I think many of our listeners have already heard about virtual production, but in Germany, especially in TV, it's not so common yet.

00:03:29: So maybe you can explain to us where we are in virtual production today, what virtual production really means, what you can do with it.

00:03:35: Yeah, absolutely.

00:03:36: So I think there's a few different areas to it, just to highlight, is that we've got our own green screen studio in Media City, Manchester, which is an eighty four meter squared small studio.

00:03:49: We also utilize a green screen studio in Media City from Doc Town which is a studios based company because it's a bigger space and we utilize that for some of our other football programming.

00:04:01: And they are full green screen full virtual studios apart from the desk effectively.

00:04:07: And they obviously are there too.

00:04:09: One is our weekend football programming.

00:04:12: all comes from there because it's all studio based programming.

00:04:16: And then what we also do in our smaller spaces that we do, we present some of our bigger events.

00:04:24: Not the major, major, sort of the biggest events, but some of our major events.

00:04:27: We've done Winter Olympics, we've done, we've just done Women's Euros.

00:04:31: So what we were able to do there is we'll be able to create a space and a place where we can put the setting of wherever that event is without us actually having to travel there.

00:04:40: So that's our kind of core studio elements.

00:04:43: But then... What I would say is what we've also started doing now is utilizing LED technology for both mixed reality.

00:04:50: So for Berlin, Eurozone, and the Paris Olympics, we were on site, but we utilized LED and green screen to create a mixed reality setting.

00:05:00: So not just the real backdrops, but creating a three-sixty environment, which blends the two together.

00:05:06: And from a creative element, that is fantastic to be able to work with.

00:05:10: But we know that how times are evolving and production costs and sustainability for travel, we know that a lot more of our virtual production is going to become from our central hub in Manchester, moving forward.

00:05:21: So looking back over the last fifteen years, how would you describe the development that virtual production has taken?

00:05:28: Because as you said earlier, when you started, you were still pretty much involved with creating the physical setup of a studio.

00:05:36: Now, as you say, your main studio at Manchester is just a huge green studio, green screen studio with just a desk.

00:05:44: Yes.

00:05:45: No, really good question.

00:05:46: So I can start this by saying when we moved to, so BBC Sport moved from London to Media City, Manchester as part of a kind of a BBC spreading the kind of the BBC across the England.

00:05:59: When we moved there, so I'm talking now probably around twenty twelve, some twenty eleven, something like that.

00:06:06: We actually, our first studio, which was a physical studio for our major program match of the day for our Premier League highlights program.

00:06:15: That was a physical studio, but we brought in for the first time AR, which was a kind of a, it was just AR blend, obviously, to be positioned within real space.

00:06:26: Now, at the time, it wasn't game and engine, anything like that.

00:06:29: It was through Vizalti, which is a broadcast graphics solution.

00:06:35: We had... The tracking was not great.

00:06:39: And we had a lot of headaches with tracking to the point where we had director saying, I don't even want to do this anymore.

00:06:46: It's just causing too much trouble, bouncing graphics and all of this.

00:06:50: We got it to a stable set, but that was our start.

00:06:54: And I'll be honest, I never had any thought about going into a full virtual studio at that stage.

00:06:59: And we all know that virtual studios have been around for a long time.

00:07:03: you know, nineteen seventies and people were doing, they didn't look very good looking at them now, but it was being utilised.

00:07:10: But we never thought that and it was only at in two thousand and seventeen, just before the Russia World Cup we had, we did a studio in Moscow for the Russia World Cup, which was a kind of, again, a mixed reality studio, but it wasn't, it was just kind of, again, a blend of real and virtual.

00:07:33: But it was at that point when I was looking into that is that I went to the IBC show in Amsterdam.

00:07:39: And we saw Game and Engine technology being utilised in broadcast for the first time.

00:07:44: And we saw the software keying and actually how good the keying was against green.

00:07:47: We'd never seen that before.

00:07:49: And it was at that point that I thought this actually could be viable for us to move into.

00:07:54: So that was around twenty, seventeen, twenty eighteen.

00:07:57: And then what we did was that we then We then started to develop our partner studio Doc Ten.

00:08:03: We worked with them to create our match of the day student and turn that from a physical set and just AR into a green screen studio.

00:08:10: And what we were able to do there also was that we were able to move from a much larger space to a slightly smaller space, which obviously reduced costs because we were going into green screen and we were able to make it.

00:08:22: bigger as we wanted anyway.

00:08:24: so that that was our move into this space around twenty eighteen.

00:08:27: and it was and as I say it was a game and engine and it was the it was the quality of it was the first thing was really the quality of the keying and then the photorealism.

00:08:35: obviously graphics comes after that but the keying is such a such a big thing and also the lighting the virtual lighting and everything.

00:08:42: so so that was that's what turned that what changed everything for us really.

00:08:47: So you can say that the improvements of game engines that were made for games obviously also create a totally new possibilities for TV productions?

00:08:57: Absolutely, a hundred percent.

00:08:58: Yes, as I say, I don't think, you know, we could have done virtual studios, but it was only when we saw what the new software key is within the products, because obviously what you have is you have the game engine, which is doing your full.

00:09:13: you know, your full kind of studio look and lighting and everything else.

00:09:17: But what you have is not all the time, but what you also have is as kind of, I would say, a more traditional graphics technology supplies that sits in the middle and they will obviously either provide a software gear or they will provide the kind of the operation, the data integration and all that into Unreal Engine.

00:09:34: And it was, as I say, it was that realism, true.

00:09:37: And the thing is, I always say to people that we don't, you know, when we create these studios to almost pretend we're in somewhere else.

00:09:45: I'm never, or we're not saying that we are there, but what you're doing is you're giving a real polish to something that people might think that we're there, they might think that we're not.

00:09:58: But I think when you can get that conversation happening outside of the space, when people are watching and thinking, actually, are they in Tokyo or the Bixby did it all from Manchester?

00:10:08: For the first time, we had so many people on social media.

00:10:11: saying how is the BBC affording a Japanese style construction on top of a skyscraper in Tokyo?

00:10:18: and we were actually getting that.

00:10:19: and that's when it develops that kind of conversation that people and you know.

00:10:23: and then we do.

00:10:24: we do videos to show people then how it's done and we put it out there because we're not trying to pretend but it's just it's creating that conversation.

00:10:32: at least me to my next question.

00:10:33: maybe you can describe a bit what how you're using the virtual studio also AR elements nowadays in your productions like just some examples what you what people see there and and how the overall impression is because I think people that haven't seen it yet don't don't realize how huge your virtual sets actually are.

00:10:53: Yes, yeah, no, absolutely.

00:10:55: I think that's the big thing.

00:10:55: I think I think it's got to be a. you know, we can all be we can all be really creative in this world and we can develop.

00:11:01: you know, whatever we want to.

00:11:03: but the end of the day it's got to have it's got to have a benefit to the editorial.

00:11:07: you know the editorials the most important of that program and what the what the story is about what the events about and utilizing AR whether it's data-driven AR or or or just kind of you know image-based AR around kind of whether it's football analysis the talent being able to.

00:11:23: kind of you know do analysis in the studio.

00:11:27: you know utilizing whether it's their fingers on a on a screen or or iPad and it's being done out.

00:11:33: it helps bring that kind of the engagement from the viewer into that studio, if that makes sense, and into what they're talking about.

00:11:40: So, you know, look, AR is... I wouldn't say that, you know, you wouldn't use AR for everything.

00:11:46: You know, there's still absolutely times and places where you just have to use your standard on-screen graphics, you know, which are really important.

00:11:54: That's still part of the whole thing.

00:11:56: But it's when a conversation has taken place in the studio and you don't want a camera to go off that conversation.

00:12:03: and you can actually use the stats and the graphics as they are, as they're talking and keeping the camera on shot of the talent talking.

00:12:11: That makes a huge difference and it goes down really well with the editorial.

00:12:14: You're guiding the sets, like the scenery, what scenarios have you already built and why did you decide to go along that way?

00:12:23: As I said before, if we're doing a big event and we're doing it centrally from Manchester and the event.

00:12:33: One of the big important factors of the event is actually where it is.

00:12:36: Then we try and create a backdrop which reflects where it is.

00:12:40: So for example, our football programs of a weekend, which are just weekly football, they're not based around a place or anything else.

00:12:49: So I'll match the day program.

00:12:50: We have a window out, but it's just a generic skyline.

00:12:53: It's not meant to be anywhere.

00:12:55: It's just meant to be a nice nighttime skyline.

00:12:58: But then when we did, we've done Tokyo.

00:13:01: Obviously, we created a panoramic, three-sixty skyline for the Tokyo Olympics.

00:13:07: And as I said before, we created a kind of a Japanese.

00:13:11: It had a garden, it had an on and koi carp and everything.

00:13:16: And it was our first sort of really out there.

00:13:20: But the environment was a blend of just two-D photographic images of Tokyo.

00:13:27: And the thing that that was, again, we weren't pretending that we were in Tokyo.

00:13:31: so what we were able to do was we were able to actually take key elements of the Tokyo skyline and place them in positions that they weren't actually really are.

00:13:39: but for our camera shots they were always in shot.

00:13:42: so it gives you so because obviously if you do a three sixty of a lot of different skylines unless it's Manhattan or something.

00:13:48: there's a lot of areas.

00:13:48: they're not very interesting.

00:13:50: so with virtual the beauty is you can you can create almost like your own.

00:13:54: it's a real skyline but it's enhanced by just moving things around.

00:13:58: so that's a real beauty of it.

00:14:00: we've done we've done a full ski resort for the Beijing Olympics winter Olympics and it wasn't meant to be Beijing it was just.

00:14:07: we just created a full blown ski resort and the beauty of that was that we were then able to take people out of the virtual studio.

00:14:15: you're able to do virtual camera moves into the ski resort where we had various wildlife virtual wildlife.

00:14:21: we had deers we had polar bears, we had penguins.

00:14:25: and the reason for that was people might think oh it's a bit gimmicky but actually sometimes depending on the events.

00:14:32: so the Winter Olympics in the UK has got a little element of fun to it.

00:14:36: you know you've had the whole Eddie the Eagle Edwards and all of this back in the day and so it's just it's just creating that little bit of fun.

00:14:43: it's not like that.

00:14:43: we've got animals in the shots all the time.

00:14:45: it's just to being able to go out and do a few different things at various times and and got a bit of again it's getting stories on the back of the program and during it.

00:14:53: Yes, we've created various different worlds.

00:14:55: As I said, Euro's Berlin, we created a museum to marry up with the Brandenburg Gate.

00:15:01: And Paris Olympics, we had the real Eiffel Tower in the backdrop, but we created our own Parisian Square, which enabled that the presenters could then go from their main desk and sit into the square and just be immersed in that whole environment.

00:15:16: So why do you think broadcasts should invest in virtual production?

00:15:21: It looks... great obviously but it sounds expensive at least.

00:15:25: so what's the benefit of it for the broadcastable also for the audience except then looking nice.

00:15:32: Yeah listen great question.

00:15:34: so what I'll say here is when we do our big events and we've done Paris and as I say euros and on site we have bigger budgets for those and they are kind of one-off.

00:15:44: projects at that time.

00:15:45: so we do invest a bit more in those.

00:15:48: but they are events that are on over quite a period of time.

00:15:51: so an olympics is on all day you know for the for the period it's on and and obviously football tournaments are over four four five weeks.

00:15:58: so we do put a bit of investment in them.

00:16:00: you know investment in them because we've got bigger budgets however.

00:16:03: so our small studio in in Manchester the eighty four meter squared one is is the best description of a business case for virtual.

00:16:09: where that was was we just had a small television studio that just had you know, a TV screen, a desk, and some physical elements inside.

00:16:19: Now, we do all sorts of different sports from our studio.

00:16:22: It can be athletics, it can be gymnastics, it can be news hits, it can be anything.

00:16:28: And obviously, the beauty of having a virtual space there is that once we invested in it, which obviously had a cost to it, but that's now been in place for sort of six years, five, six years.

00:16:41: All it is now, you have to maintain various parts of technology, but because it's there, it's just down to the creative.

00:16:49: So what you can do is you can build a template studio and have that for a quick switch on, or if you want to go and like we did for the women's euros, we did it all from there and we did a backdrop of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

00:17:01: So it's that initial investment in your own space, but then the opportunities that gives you beyond for whatever you want to do virtual production wise.

00:17:10: And as I said before, because of sustainability, because of production costs and travel and all of these factors in broadcast now, we all know that a lot more production is going to be done from a central base because of that.

00:17:21: And so having that kind of creative space to be able to create worlds is definitely worth that initial investment.

00:17:28: When we talk before the recording, you also mentioned that it's about target audiences.

00:17:31: It's about reaching especially the pain point of the whole industry reaching the younger audience.

00:17:37: How can virtual productions help in getting young people into watching TV again?

00:17:42: Yeah, absolutely.

00:17:43: And this is something that, you know, it's about, and it might not even be about trying to get them to watch TV.

00:17:50: It's about enhancing your coverage on the platforms that they watch their content on.

00:17:55: So, I mean, obviously, you know, it's TV but you know our coverage is on our iPlayer and digital anyway which you can obviously then watch anytime you want.

00:18:05: and then obviously you've got YouTube channel and everything else.

00:18:07: and I think the thing with the virtual elements are because it's game and engine and if you tell that story that's what you're doing.

00:18:15: I think it does bring a little bit of the younger audience into it saying oh they you know BBC are doing a presentation of the Olympics from a studio which is is driven by what they're playing Fortnite on.

00:18:26: And it might not be that they are, as I say, it might not be that they are kind of driven then to the TV, but they might then start going on social media and actually making comments about it and all that.

00:18:37: So all of that kind of whatever feedback it is or whatever conversation is taking place, as I say, it might not be about them watching it on the TV, but it's about them talking about the BBC on various platforms.

00:18:50: So that is one benefit I would say is really good.

00:18:53: And the other thing is just that it's how we then develop what we are doing to maybe take it into other areas outside of the media streams, if you like.

00:19:05: We played with certain things like do we?

00:19:07: do we kind of games about?

00:19:09: kind of?

00:19:09: do they want some of our settings that we built there to go into games and per headsets and all these kind of things?

00:19:16: for you know we've done things for museums where they can put a headset on.

00:19:19: they go into a certain environment.

00:19:22: so it opens up all of that I think I would say on the virtual production.

00:19:26: So if you look into the future because as you said the progress here has been dramatic during the last few years.

00:19:35: What's ahead for the next one, two, three, five years?

00:19:38: what do you think?

00:19:40: Really good question again.

00:19:42: I think the technology obviously is there, you know, you can do so many things with it.

00:19:47: I think just from our purpose, and I might have mentioned this in the beginning, I don't know, but obviously a lot of our subs being green screen, we've now delved into the world of LED, yeah, LED, volume XR and LED.

00:20:00: I think we will, I think we're now looking at how we can potentially move from green screen into a more kind of cinematic LED volume production world.

00:20:10: Obviously, with the budgets being broadcast.

00:20:14: Because I think what that does, again, it gives you an extra element of realism.

00:20:18: The talent your presenters, they can see what they're doing.

00:20:21: You're not worrying about keying.

00:20:22: So you can turn things around quicker.

00:20:24: You can do things for social with one camera and all of these kind of business benefits to it.

00:20:29: So I think that's one thing that we will, from personal, we will be looking into.

00:20:33: I know it's not LED volumes are nothing new, but it's in terms of just kind of.

00:20:37: You know, starting to create our worlds in that ahead of green screen is our thing.

00:20:42: The one thing I'd also I would say is that the technology for virtual production is great.

00:20:47: But actually, it still feels very hard to set up.

00:20:51: It still takes quite a lot of time.

00:20:52: Once it's there, it's great.

00:20:54: Because camera tracking now, as I said before, camera tracking was really bad when I started.

00:20:59: We don't think about camera tracking now really.

00:21:00: I mean, obviously, the companies are great.

00:21:02: So we bring it in, but we don't have that headache anymore.

00:21:04: We're not thinking about things not.

00:21:06: not being still and all that.

00:21:08: So that's all moved on great.

00:21:09: But I just think that kind of whole, look, AI is probably going to help a lot of this.

00:21:14: What I would say is that we have slowly started the process of utilizing AR in our development.

00:21:20: And what I mean by that is, I think you're always going to need the FX artists polish at the end of it.

00:21:25: You're always going to, if you're going to create really high end work, you always need that.

00:21:30: But that early stage conception side of things, that early modeling, which does take time.

00:21:35: and does take effort where you start to use that.

00:21:38: I think that process will start to help the kind of the timescale, which obviously then helps with cost.

00:21:45: So that whole AI I think in the background of starting to help drive that will be key going forward.

00:21:51: Last question, when do you think that like headsets and glasses will be?

00:21:55: become relevant for TV and your kind of production so that people might someday really wear AR glasses all the time?

00:22:04: or VR headsets will finally go mainstream if they ever will.

00:22:07: We hope so, of course.

00:22:09: So you already have in mind how to include those technologies into what you're doing so that you're not just broadcasting over traditional screens but also

00:22:19: over headsets.

00:22:20: Yeah, I think so.

00:22:21: I think the issue we have a little bit with all sports, live sports is that I remember there was a big project in the UK going back a few years, a three-D project and they gave a lot of UK pubs where the football was on and they were all people in the pub on headset and then obviously so they were able to watch the games in the pub kind of with the headsets on.

00:22:47: Now obviously... that that didn't work because people when they're watching a live football game are not there to kind of.

00:22:53: they want that interaction with each other and they want that.

00:22:55: you know they don't want that.

00:22:56: but where i think that we where i think that the the headsets but again probably for maybe more younger audience wise is that if we can if we can start to kind of bring our productions into a world where real-time live the kids are you using the headset to be in that environment and almost feel part of the production?

00:23:16: I think that would be a game changer.

00:23:18: I think it would be really, but what you would have to do with that is you'd have to give them.

00:23:23: So when you're watching TV, it's directed by us and you have no choice really in terms of what you're doing.

00:23:29: I think the younger audiences want that choice.

00:23:31: So if they go into that environment, they have to be given tools to be able to kind of, oh.

00:23:36: So they're talking about that.

00:23:37: I don't want to talk about that.

00:23:37: I want to click onto another AR graphic.

00:23:40: So you need to give them that.

00:23:42: That's the whole thing, I think, where it's not just about a headset.

00:23:45: I know it's given them our studio, because I think that's a bit boring.

00:23:48: You have to give them the options.

00:23:49: and how we do that alongside a live production is, I don't know yet, but yeah, people have been thinking about it.

00:23:56: Great.

00:23:57: Thank you so much.

00:23:57: That was amazing.

00:23:59: Great insight.

00:23:59: Thank you.

00:24:00: Great.

00:24:00: Thank you very much.

00:24:01: Thank you, Wolfgang.

00:24:03: That was episode seventy-five of the new Realities podcast by WonnieNine and XR Bevere.

00:24:08: If you enjoyed it, please rate, subscribe and recommend it.

00:24:11: You will find more information on John's work and links to some videos in the show notes.

00:24:16: And now the credits.

00:24:17: WonnieNine is the new home for future optimists who want to make the world a better place with new ideas and technologies.

00:24:23: Beside this podcast, it also includes an online magazine, a community platform and events.

00:24:28: You can find all the information at WonnieNine.community.

00:24:31: XR Hub Bavaria was founded to advance the XR community in Bavaria, to support the development and distribution of XR applications and to increase the visibility of Bavaria as a location in this ecosystem.

00:24:43: Learn more at xrhub-bavaria.de.

00:24:47: This podcast is made possible through the support of the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs.

00:24:51: Many thanks for that and see you next time!