'Atrápame se podes': technology at the service of versatility in the TVG contest

Anxo Noya Castro, technical director of Audiovisual Voice, details the workflow that gives life to 'Atrápame se podes', an adaptation of the legendary regional contest for tvg that comes to life supported by a wide selection of equipment Blackmagic.

Catch me if you can, adaptation for Galician television of Catch Me If You Can, everlasting contest with a long history on numerous Spanish regional television stations, it is not another of the television contests that we are used to seeing in recent times.

The original format of Hostoil continues the tradition of those formats in which dynamism and knowledge play a predominant role. Candidates will have to measure their wisdom in order to advance through the phases until they reach a final challenge in which they will be eligible for the precious prize. With more or less phases or duration depending on the identity of the contest in each region in Spain, the format adaptability and his engagement with the audience has allowed it to remain on the air for several years.

The Galician version of this format, Catch me if you can, is a co-production between Mediapro y Audiovisual Voice, a veteran producer with 38 years of experience who assumes all the production and post-production work of the format. Far from spectacular sets, large technological resources or sets that house dozens of contestants, the program finds its greatest challenge in optimizing resources to be able to address a very fast recording rate and one post-production phase in which transcoding and rendering are minimized to the maximum to deliver masters to TVG in record time.

Angel Noya Castro opens the door to the most technological aspect of the contest to present a workflow materialized in more than 750 episodes in just three years.

---

Agility: the highest requirement Catch me if you can

To highlight the high production rate of Catch me if you can, Noya emphasizes that the team of more 50 personas of Audiovisual Voice that shapes the record format five programs a day. tvg opted to adapt the daily format, so that each week they broadcast five episodes of this contest; standard episodes that, on special dates such as Christmas, take on a new dimension with different specials.

“In the end, what we are looking for is production values that allow us to make a greater use of resources”

In order to meet this pace of work, the Galician production company is committed to having a flujo de trabajo “clear, mechanized and very agile”, so that everyone present on the set is clear about their functions: “The cameramen know their shots, the director acts mechanically, the graphics system is added on set…”. As Noya recognizes, there is very little for improvisation and EDL final It will be very similar in each of the episodes. It should not be seen as something negative, but the culmination of an exploration process in order to optimize resources for a contest that has consistency and solidity among its benefits. The viewer knows what they are going to find, and their support for this proposal is denoted by its audience share of 13.3%, two points above the network average. “The structure of the program has not been modified nor has its duration been varied. It works very well for us and we have a very stable audience,” says Noya.

Some of the adaptations of Atrápame si puedes For other regions of Spain, they are recorded from the same set, which is slightly modified or personalized through graphics to provide that extra bit of identity. In case of Catch me if you can is different: Voz Audiovisual shoots the format from one of his four studies, where scenic resources are permanently installed. This decision, beyond providing extra comfort to the talent involved in the production and the Audiovisual Voice team, has allowed the production company to optimize its technological solutions until perfecting a formula that is now consolidated.

---

HD capture with flag adaptability

The transition of SD al HD, as for other production companies, was a before and after in Voz Audiovisual. The Galician company transformed its entire technological infrastructure in its two production studios, as well as made a significant investment in 4K capture solutions with which it shaped series such as fog, thus following a long career in fiction that began with films like La lengua de las mariposas (1999) or other television formats such as Spring tides.

In parallel, Noya and his team identified the opportunity in the market to complete their equipment for more traditional television formats with cameras URSA Broadcast G2 de Blackmagic. Voz Audiovisual opted for these capture solutions both for their low cost as for his adaptability to many of the requirements that the production company may have in the day-to-day life: “We opted for this camera because it allows us to record this type of programs in a studio configuration, and also gives us the possibility of using it autonomously in another type of formats such as documentaries, advertising or series. In the end, what we are looking for are production values ​​that allow us to make better use of resources.”

---

URSA Broadcast G2 en Catch me if you can

The URSA Broadcast G2 also adapt perfectly to the needs of Catch me if you can, since the characteristics of the program mean that with a low investment “maximum performance” can be obtained by taking advantage of equipment that Voz Audiovisual already had such as optics, tripods or cables: “As we are talking about a very defined and mechanical format, the needs also "They are very delimited."

Aside from automation and synchronization issues, which are still in the testing phase and will help Voz Audiovisual to improve the staging of Catch me if you can In the near future, Noya highlights the benefits of the five cameras that make up the production: visual finish (verified but suitable for the format they prepare), as well as the ability to Record content directly at 1080 50p, which greatly speeds up the post-production phase.

---

One program, one day: the agile post-production of Catch me if you can

Audiovisual Voice records each chapter of Catch me if you can con five URSA Broadcast G2 from Blackmagic connected through a 40x40 VideoHub matrix to a mixer Atem Constellation 4K, controlled by an Atem Camera Control Panel and captured with four recorders Hyperdeck Studio HD Pro. The director produces the format in real time, introducing graphics and making a premix whose sources are ingested in a NAS connected via a 10 GB network to the post-production stations.

Once an editing assistant is in charge of synchronizing the camera sources and the program made, the editors will spend a day making the final cut of each of the episodes on MAC stations with Avid Media Composer. The final EDL, which is mainly based on the reduction of the 50 gross minutes of filming to about 35 minutes, will be sent to an additional terminal that is responsible for the export of the made program. Finally, mastering to TVG broadcast requirements will be carried out with DaVinci Resolve o Adobe Media Encoder.

The workflow might seem conventional if it weren't for the absence of proxies in the process. The decision, made possible thanks to having a wide-capacity network and exportable formats through the Blackmagic ecosystem, has as cons the significant size of the files, which add up 2 TB per day. The benefits, as Noya says, are superior: “As post-production is so immediate, we decided to edit natively on the raw materials. It is a significant time saving, since we do not have to do any type of transcoding.”

"As the post-production are immediate, we decided to edit natively on the gross. It is a significant saving of time, since we do not have to carry out any type of transcodificación”.

Optimization of resources, agility and adaptability they structure each of the decisions of Audiovisual Voice for Catch me if you can, a path that Noya and his team will continue exploring week by week to continue taking their work to the next level. Sometimes, the creativity of productions should not reside so much in the format, but in the decisions that lead to the best possible management of resources.

A report by Sergio Julián Gómez

Other articles on Adobe, Avid, Blackmagic, CRTVG, Mediapro, Audiovisual Voice