Live From the FIFA Women's World Cup: FIFA's Florin Mitu, HBS's Stefan Wistuba Discuss Groundbreaking Workflows Live coverage is produced from a hub in Sydney; non-live content, from London By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, August 10, 2023 - 1:39 am
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The production philosophy that FIFA and HBS have embraced for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand raises the bar when it comes to new concepts in remote production. It is the largest and most prestigious event on which the teams producing the live match coverage are based not at the stadiums but at a central production hub. And it could be a game-changer.
IP flypack capture kits at each of the 10 stadiums transport the audio and video signals to the hub. At that hub, in Sydney, are four main galleries where production teams that historically would work in a truck in a car park go about their business of producing world-class World Cup coverage.
Florin Mitu, head of broadcast production, FIFA, and Stefan Wistuba, project director, HBS, sat down with SVG Co-Executive Director Ken Kerschbaumer at the Women's World Cup IBC in Sydney Olympic Park to discuss the new workflows, IBC operations, and much more.
HBS's Stefan Wistuba (left) and FIFA's Florin Mitu in the FIFA Women's World Cup IBC
This year, FIFA and HBS have a new philosophy for production: the match production teams are working in galleries at a hub here in Sydney instead of in trucks at the stadium. How have things been going?
Mitu: From a FIFA perspective, I can say we were looking forward to doing something like this setup with the remote production. Sustainability is a big factor in everything that we are doing and what we are planning going forward, and this has allowed us to see in the real world how it would work.
In general, we can say it works well. It obviously involves some challenges in the planning phases and at the start of the tournament until it started working like a well-oiled mechanism. But we're very happy so far.
It's more sustainable, but what are the benefits you have seen with the production teams?
Mitu: My feeling is that it creates a team atmosphere that also achieves the consistency we're so keen to have at the World Cup. Everybody is in the same building and working in different galleries, but they also stay in the same hotel so it's easier for them to talk to each other and exchange experiences and learnings. Of course, there is the downside that they never see the cameramen, but, nevertheless, everyone has managed to adapt to the setup, which is working well.
Wistuba: I agree. We took the approach that, in all areas of the event, we wanted to do things differently. Not just the live side of the production but also the non-live-content-production side, which is being done out of a hub in the UK and in a streamlined way from the IBC.
In every aspect, we want to be more sustainable and challenge ourselves. We had five production teams working across 10 stadiums, so how does that all work from a centralized perspective? It worked out well, but the setup phase was demanding as we had not only to deal with the live side of rehearsals and checks but also to integrate all the other sides from FIFA, like FIFA Football Technology and Data and FIFA Infotainment. A big number of feeds had to be routed properly between the live hub, IBC, and non-live hub working in a different time zone.
The first week was tough. Even with great facilities like we have here, nothing is ever plug-and-play. You work through a lot of long nights getting everything resolved. The goal is to have a remote production where the viewers don't notice a difference from a cutting perspective or replay perspective, and that has been achieved.
I also think the production teams feel good being in the remote facility. They have a comfortable environment to work in, and things have settled down, and they are in a groove. They're not traveling; [they are] able to walk to the live hub. They're rested and have been able to produce a lot more games individually, compared with previous tournament rotations. If they had to travel, we would need as many as 10 production teams for this event.
We're also using a lot of the local Australian and New Zealand camera operators and teams and marrying them up with the international teams, which has worked out very well in terms of quality, leaving a legacy, and reducing the carbon footprint.
And a lot of those local production people have been working this way for a few years so I am sure that must have made you more comfortable with wanting to work this way.
Wistuba: One hundred percent.
Mitu: We employed four directors who have all done remote productions at some time, not just during the time of COVID. The only one who had not is Sebastian Von Freyberg from Germany, and he has felt very, very comfortable working remotely.
The World Cup hub gets busy hours prior to match kickoff.
Another important step we, together with HBS, had undertaken was to bring in three new directors to the FIFA World Cup setup. Jamie Oakford from the UK and Freyberg from Germany have done World Cups before, but Gemma Knight from the UK, Angus Millar from Australia, and Danny Melger from Netherlands are new to the World Cup, and we're very comfortable with their work. It's a very important game for FIFA to have new blood on board. Back to working remotely, the fact that they can look to Sebastian and Jamie and work with them helps their development as FIFA World Cup directors.
How are camera meetings and production-team meetings held?
Wistuba: I think it's more than just camera meetings on the day of the match; it's also briefing the ops, and especially the local ops that haven't been working with
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Live From the FIFA Women's World Cup: FIFA's Florin Mitu, HBS's Stefan Wistuba Discuss Groundbreaking Workflows Live coverage is produced from a hub in Sydney; non-live content, from London By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
