Ed Sheeran @ TikTok EURO 2020 Halftime
Evoke Studios is involved in a wide range of Augmented Reality (AR) projects. A headline broadcast project coming out of Summer 2021 in which AR played a key role, was the halfway point celebration of the UEFA EURO 2020 champions league. The show was organized and broadcast via TikTok, driven by Ed Sheeran’s biggest hits, to a record breaking, fully remote audience receiving a 9:16 augmented viewing experience.
EVOKE Studios produced a number of AR looks in Notch, as well as providing the full technical consultancy and on-site systems and engineering.
To the best of our knowledge, it was a global first to present a 9:16 Augmented Reality broadcast in this format.
Challenges
Our managing director, Vincent Steenhoek, has a few words to share about the challenges within this project: “Presenting a 9:16 Augmented Reality broadcast, to be experienced on a mobile device, and to do that well, is a clear challenge.
Feeding into that, using a medium like Augmented Reality, can rapidly become complex, which is why lead time is of great importance. Without even looking at budget, time alone affects feasibility and quality of outcomes tangibly. This project came in with 3.5 weeks between the lead coming in, through to on-site delivery.
To compress concepting, consultancy, creation, planning and engineering of a multicam stadium scale AR project within a format never been done before, is a challenge. To do so within the time frame of less than a month, and to delivery it successfully, is significant.
It would not have been possible without the amazing team of people that make up Evoke Studios, and the support of our suppliers within this project.”
The setup
We identified key camera positions around Portman Road stadium, to enable Hamish Hamilton, the Camera Director, to create all shots he would need in order to cut a responsive, dynamic show together, and that would amplify our Augmented Reality treatments.
Depending on the look, AR can purposefully, or at times by playful accident, cause occlusion within the camera frame, and it was important that we could play with this occlusion in a creative way, while safeguarding that the talent on stage firmly remained as the core subject of interest.
By using long lenses shooting from across the field and from center line on the left hand side of the pitch, we were able to create panning looks, close-ups, and large pull-outs from Ed, and we used a Luna Junior 5 Dolly with tracks running across the width of the field, providing substantial freedom of movement to bring the AR alive.
We used Mo-sys StarTracker camera tracking on the Junior 5, running reflective markers on the deck of the dolly rail, and we used Mo-sys remote heads to provide accurate tracking data from the other two cameras. Disguise GX2C systems were used for compositing, with Notch as the creative render engine to produce the AR treatments in.
Achievements
The event was live broadcast to a record breaking TikTok Audience of over 5.5 Million people – the largest amount of people broadcast to jointly at any given moment in time since the platform’s inception. It was a great success for all parties involved and for the audience to enjoy.
…Without the expertise and tenacity of Evoke Studios, this project would have been impossible to deliver.
We want to thank Paul Hourican and the TikTok team, Hamish Hamilton & Done + Dusted, the teams from Creative Technology London and Mo-sys Engineering for helping us extend our services, to Mark and the Ed Sheeran team for the trust in our delivery, and of course our content creators and engineers who worked with us on this.
It's such a privilege to be part of a project that not only broke records with the #tiktok community globally but creatively, smashed the ceiling as to what is now possible for Music Live streaming and Vertical Video.
Client
Services
Credits
Hardware suppliers:
Mo-Sys Engeneering
Creative Technology London