“The flexibility Notch gives me is unprecedented.”

CS Sports Award is the biggest show of the year for Swiss sports television. Studio One created dazzling AR Overlays with stYpe Red Spy kits tracking and Notch VFX. Screen Producer Urs Nyffenegger explains why he chose Notch “to do all our Graphics – augmented or not!”

Urs is Creative Producer at Studio One – a joint venture of two companies d.solve and relative.berlin. He has expert experience working across broadcast, live events as well as commercials and music videos. Urs is a specialist in AR for broadcast, designing on projects such as Einfach Himmlisch and the PSL Cricket opening ceremony in Dubai.

Studio One has been creating showstopping content for CS Sports Awards since 2013. Television producer Marco Krämer had his sights set on something special for 2018’s opening show. Inspired by the MR work that Studio One had created for other broadcasts Marco reached out to Urs to develop bespoke AR and MR elements for CS Sports Award. These elements would feature heavily during the highlights of the show – the nominee announcements and the live music performances.

“Usually we work from a mood board supplied by production, but on this occasion Studio One created the mood board which led into style frames.”

“For Wintershome’s performance, we took inspiration from the artists existing artworks and videos. We created a night scene with a snowy mountain backdrop. During the performance, projections affected the tree’s in real-time causing them to change colour. The producer told us James Blunt was going to be at Art on Ice, so we incorporated this into his stage design by creating an ice palace.”

During a one month production period Urs and the team created their design using a combination of C4D and Notch.

How do you tackle the challenge of maintaining consistency across multiple mediums?
“With Notch, I can create all of the visual elements using the same tool. I can create pre-rendered Quicktime files for LED screens, produce real-time content and use the same Notch block to create perfectly matched AR content. The flexibility Notch gives me is unprecedented.”

The team were able to tweak and effect the real-time content using exposed Notch parameters in disguise. The content reacted to the tracked Camera position at the same time – without needing to change or create new Notchblocks. “The combination of Notch and stYpe camera tracking gave us versatility while on set and the opportunity to show off some magic! We could move between live Notchblocks and pre-rendered Notch Content seamlessly, creating a look which I like to describe as the Augmented Window.”

The entire broadcast ran on disguise with every content element made in Notch. The AR and MR elements of the show impressed the viewers at home and the team on set: “Marco and the presenter fell in love with the design and the depth that the AR created. It was a unique experience for them – and a proof of concept for our augmented window.”

Credits:

Client: SRF 1
Production Company: tpc ag
Notch Designer: Marc Andre Müller, Timo Ott
Screen Producer: Urs Nyffenegger (Studio One)
Equipment Vendor: Stype Red Spy
Media Server: disguise gx2