Specialists from AbelCine and Diversified talk about developing cinematic live pipelines tailored for faith-based productions, featuring live grading capabilities powered by AJA ColorBox.
Houses of worship (HOWs) have begun to adopt cinematic techniques in recent years to tell their stories and evoke emotion within their congregations. More faith-based organizations are also aiming to enhance the live content they share, in person and online, by blending broadcast and cinema production practices.
In response, specialists like cinematic video expert AbelCine and HOW production solutions provider Diversified have developed and tailored cinematic-live pipelines for faith-based productions.
The Potential of Cinematic-Live
The worlds of broadcast and professional AV in general have in fact been gradually converging for some years. AbelCine established a cinematic-live event production approach in 2017, which applied the company’s decades of cinematic production experience to live events. The approach brings cinema tools, cameras and lenses together in a live or live-to-tape workflow.
Since launching the package, which connects cinema front-end tools with a more traditional broadcast-style backend, AbelCine has deployed it for some of the world’s best known live events, such as the Big Game halftime show, major concert tours, and The Weekend Live at SoFi Stadium, among others.
Noting a shift toward higher end content in the faith market, Diversified recognised the potential of cinematic-live for those productions and partnered with AbelCine last year. Together, the two teams are now responsible for many of the most impressive live streams and recorded content produced by faith organizations today.
Blending Broadcast and Cinematic Pipelines
Instead of trying to make cinematic production tools work within a live broadcast pipeline, Diversified and AbelCine took the opposite route, introducing live production processes into a cinematic workflow. One aspect is in the colour pipeline. Historically, broadcast professionals used a remote-control panel, multi-matrix, scope and chart to colour output from a cinema camera in the same way as broadcast camera material.
However, in cinematic post production, colour correction and grading are often among the last steps in the creative process. Consequently, AbelCine solved the issue with a robust workflow for live production based on a look-up-table (LUT), with AJA ColorBox at the centre.
"Often, the broadcast team handling weekly Sunday services, the post production team, and interstitial and social media teams work separately, which can lead to workflow gaps,” said Jeff Lee, AbelCine’s Director of Education and Product Specialization. “When we come in and start talking about how we're going to use LUTs in the live production, we bring together all these teams, because working together more tightly leads to higher quality content that looks cohesive and makes everyone's lives a little easier. This is especially important considering church production crews are often volunteers."
Tim Corder, Vice President of Faith and Performance at Diversified described the considerable implications their pipeline has for HOW end-users. “Most video engineers we encounter today grew up using non-linear editing systems to manipulate colour," he said. "We're essentially giving clients the means to take that familiar language and apply it to their live productions. The difference in the quality of the content is night and day. Live content, and content shot in the field or studio, both look like they came from the same organisation and creative team."
Vision, Expectation and Reality
Their LUT-based live production workflow finally emerged following an ‘aha’ moment when AbelCine and Diversified were consulting for a church in Oklahoma. Its team struggled with its colour pipeline. The pastor’s vision and expectation for the church's content was to make it look as good as a concert special on a major streaming platform. Not surprisingly, even with high-end production tools and lighting, LED walls, media servers and a 4,500-seat arena, he found the quality lacking.
Tim decided that they could use the AJA ColorBoxes or OG-ColorBoxes to apply LUTs to the HOW's video switcher M/E (Mix/Effects) output, as well as their traditional workflow, on a camera-by-camera basis. Initially, the client hesitated to work with LUTs, anticipating that it would require too much technical expertise. But they soon found that it simplified the camera shading process, which previously had been a stumbling block. There were far fewer variables to tweak, and the end result looked much better.
"On the first Sunday the workflow went live, we received texts asking what we were doing differently. They wanted to understand why the images had so much more dynamic range and detail, but actually, the LUT-based workflow built on ColorBox was the only meaningful change," Jeff said.
Building the Pipeline – Consistency and Control
"We turned off the colour processing from the cameras, which had been outputting Rec2020 HLG HDR signals, and instead output log signals from the camera. We then introduced a LUT and colour processing with ColorBox to handle all of the image details. Previously, there was so much variation from week to week in the content quality, but there's now artistic consistency and the refinement of a unique branded image."
The pipeline took just three days to get up and running. AbelCine and Diversified started by asking for lookbooks and goals from the client ahead of time, and then reviewed inspirational footage and the feeds coming off their cameras – native and log. After comparing these looks to their end goal, they worked with the client to establish their first LUT.
The next step was installing the ColorBoxes, first working through a couple of test rounds, and then using them. Now they make adjustments weekly, based on the song choice or sermon mood, using a combination of Livegrade Pro software that manipulates the CDL in real time and the onboard proc amp – used to correct the black level, contrast, colour and hue of the different video sources in real time – within the ColorBox.
What they learned from this project has informed every HOW workflow since, and they often install OG-ColorBox cards or standalone ColorBoxes across HOW installs. Many clients use them both in an M/E output workflow, or they buy enough to have one per camera and a couple of spares.
Live Grading on the AJA Color Pipeline
ColorBox and OG-ColorBox support clients’ live grading needs as well. Operators can manipulate a LUT in real-time to make creative decisions, the same way many use audio plug-ins to manipulate their audio mix. For example, a church they work with on the West Coast recently introduced an introspective song during their Easter service with black-and-white visuals, then gradually incorporated colour by manipulating the LUT in ColorBox live, as the song progressed.
"While we've had proc amps that function like ColorBox at a gross level for 20 or so years, ColorBox is much more approachable for the teams that are using these systems. Ultimately, it comes back to the fact that our users can work with workflows that they are already comfortable with," said Tim. "We're not having to teach them how to use colour grading programs or how to massage colour. Instead, we're helping them fit what they're already doing into the larger entertainment landscape of YouTube, Broadcast TV or wherever they want to share their content."
"Also note that we're just scratching the surface of what's possible within ColorBox. We're mostly using the 3D LUT mode in the AJA Color Pipeline and haven't yet touched the Colorfront features or any of the BBC or NBC style colour pipelines. I think as folks get more acclimated to tools like this and transition from SDR to HDR / HLG broadcast, some of these options will seem more desirable," Jeff commented.
New Opportunities and New Audiences
The technology has also opened up new opportunities for AbelCine and Diversified to deliver a High Dynamic Range (HDR) finished product that is approachable for nearly every client and budget, should thery wish to explore it. "The ability of ColorBox to take a log video signal and put a LUT on it with nearly non-existent latency is special, as is its built-in UHD-to-HD down converter,” Tim remarked.
YouTube is the primary platform for most of their customers’ content, serving as a straightforward way to broadcast high dynamic range UHD cinematic video to audiences. He said, "ColorBox is a far more affordable way to process the HDR feed, create a complementary SDR version, as well as down convert the UHD feed to HD for destinations within the system that require that signal than previous options available to us. We can build a fully modern broadcast on a level with the industry mainstream, just by including a rack of, say, six to ten cards or devices bolted onto the rest of the video system."
Lee reflected that, regardless of the level of switcher or cameras in use, the technology translates well between use cases and is platform and manufacturer-agnostic. “That's part of their value – the ColorBoxes and OG-ColorBoxes are that critical glue. The gear may be important, but the workflow is what makes the difference on a day-to-day basis to make something achievable. These tools have revolutionized the workflow." www.aja.com
