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FEATURE THE CUBE’S ‘GAME-FREEZE’ TECH


The Cube is one of the simplest gameshows on TV, and Objective Productions’ executive producer and show creator Adam Adler says that to get the show commissioned, it needed “extra layers”. “We try to make everything in The Cube the opposite to a normal show, so rather than rely on GFX, we have 3D CGI,” Adler says. “And now we always look for that extra layer of depth.” Now in its fifth series, the Objective Productions show has picked up


Bafta Craft awards for two years running. One of the ways in which the programme stands out is its use of ‘game-freeze’ technology, a process similar to the bullet-time effect used in The Matrix. It’s used to heighten the tension in The Cube, elevating what could otherwise be a poten- tially mundane task. Pete Johnston (below right), creator of the technology, explains:


“The early game-freeze was two straight trusses at a 90-degree angle. From there, we moved on to a circular truss with 90 cameras and a 225-degree curve, which is as much as we can get away with without encroaching on the set.” At either end of the rig is a Red camera, which provides footage to


The Cube: simple gameshow needed ‘extra layers’ to get commissioned


‘Holding people to linear TV will be driven by play-


along elements’ Simon Ingram, Ionoco


gameshow control company Ionoco. The BBC gameshow Don’t Scare The Hare wasn’t a ratings success but the ani- matronic hare was, Ingram says, “a really clever way of having something unique that wasn’t easy to copy and gave the show identity”. He adds: “There is increasing


diversification of the way people view TV, and entertainment- based formats with some kind of interaction will be the future of live tele vision. Getting viewers to stick with linear TV will be driven by innovative tech and play-along elements.” Hampshire-based Ionoco


provides computer systems for shows such as Red Or Black?, High Stakes and Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old?. The company uses a range of tech- nology, including pressure pads,


20 | Broadcast TECH | May/June 2012


vibration sensors, accelerome- ters, tilt switches, lasers, ultra- sound transmitters, RFID chips, facial recognition software and augmented reality. Ingram says it is important


to get involved with a production as soon as possible. “It helps to let them know that innovative things are possible. For Red Or Black?, we used sensors to trigger different events and our system delivered LEDs on stage. So when a contestant makes their choice of red or black, that is fed into our system, which allows us to change the lighting effects. “We have been working with ITV and Syco on the second series and we built the system that was used for the last series in an open way, so we can plug pretty much anything into it. “For me, the exciting thing is that much of this technology is getting to the kind of price point that is viable for most production budgets. For example, we can do live camera tracking with Vinten Radamec pedestals to mix with live footage, which always used to cost too much.”


edit in and out of the game-freeze sequence. The whole package – video and stills – is shot at 4k resolution. “That gives us a big canvas to work with, so we can roam around and pick alternative focal points,” says Johnston. “For example, if a ball is flying across the cube, we don’t know where it will end up, but we need to use the ball as a focal point, so we need room to play.” The cameras can be triggered in two different ways. The first is


what Johnston refers to as a traditional time-slice effect, where all the cameras on the rig take a shot at the same time. For the third series, sequential triggering was developed to add motion to the whip-around effect. “For the sequential triggering, we had to design and build a trigger device, which is essentially a box of electronics with 300 relays, so we can vary the trigger time,” says Johnston. The editors create low-res proxies of the game freezes, which they


give to production so they can decide which they want to use. Game- freeze editor and Broadcast Hot Shot Paul Routledge (below left) uses After Effects to match the sequence with the Red camera footage and polish the sequence. The motion shots of a ball smashing through glass or passing through water are achieved with a Photron high-speed camera. With 16GB of on-board memory, the ram is partitioned into six sections, with each capturing up to two and a half seconds of footage.


www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils


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