The World Cup of Indoor Skydiving 2018, held at Gravity Bahrain, offered us some unique challenges during our coverage of the event. Due to space limitations traditional manned cameras weren’t viable in some of the key positions required to truly capture the mezmorising jumping taking place. We installed five remote controlled cameras at locations around the tunnel to cover a variety of angles, all of which were then remotely operated by one single operator in our control room. This allowed us to be completely unobstrusive in our filming whilst still putting the viewers right in the middle of the action. Sports coverage should be about capturing those unique, unmissable moments without impeding performance in any way and that is what we were able to do using this cutting edge technology.

Watch this short video created by the content team at WCIS 2018 to learn more about the competition.

Gravity Bahrain is a stunning tunnel. At twelve meters tall, it’s one of the tallest in the world and is constructed of tempered glass to allow for an enthralling spectator experience. We embraced the challenge of truly conveying the magnificence of the venue and the event to a global audience by using the highly specialised, remote controlled cameras, thus allowing viewers a perspective that in some ways might actually be superior to what the live audience could see.

One of the key positions for a remote camera was in the ante-chamber where the participants stand before they go into the tunnel. We experienced peak viewership here during the finals and using this technology we were really able to capture the tense atmosphere and the emotion of the competitors before and after they competed.

As one of the largest indoor skydiving competitions in the world, the live broadcasting of Gravity Bahrain needed to reflect the prestigious nature of the event. To fully do this justice we used a team of six crew who worked on location for over a week setting up and producing a live broadcast, streaming to vimeo with 13 cameras, 18 microphones and a team of presenters and on-screen talent.

During the pre-production process we visited Bahrain to recce the location and worked closely with Mariam Fathi, Marketing Manager for the event, to ensure a live stream was produced inline with Gravity’s overall vision for the event. In addition to this it was crucial for Gravity that EpicTech operated independently throughout the competition so that they could focus on managing the event.

Our many years of experience filming indoor skydiving events made this a simple matter for us to achieve. We organised the entirety of the logistics and shipping as well as all aspects of the filming and production. We want to simplify the experience for our clients so that all they need to consider is the overall impact and end result of the filming.

For us, the goal is to bring TV-quality level production to live streaming of indoor skydiving events. To do this we use bespoke animated graphics, cutting-edge camera and vision technology, immersive audio mixing and many more television techniques. Using these we can convey the awesome backstory and emotion of the competitions and put the global audience closer to the action than ever before.

To see a prime example of this all coming together, here’s a clip of the tie-break flight from Singapore in the Dynamic 2-Way finals.