HAVANA—Ever since President Obama began to lift restrictions on the trade embargo the U.S. has had on Cuba, television and film productions have been figuring out ways to take advantage of this new access to the island country. One resource they have had is Cuban International Network (CIN), whose efforts to help build out Cuban production have previously been documented by TV Technology. Now, however, CIN has the seal of approval from the U.S. government via a Specific License to Operate in Cuba from the U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC).

Though CIN was founded about two and half years ago, building relationships with the Cuban broadcast community and assisting some of the productions that have already taken place in Cuba, this OFAC license will greatly help the company expand its capabilities.

Barry Pasternack

“It allows us to work inside of Cuba,” said Barry Pasternack, CIN founder and CEO. “It allows us to hire. It allows us to shoot. It allows us to keep equipment there. It actually opens up CIN as a U.S. company operating in Cuba.”

While the license clears up some things on the U.S. side, CIN continues to work with Empresa Comercializadora de la Radio y la Television (RTV), Cuba’s leading broadcast network, and the Cuban broadcast community to get a strong foothold in the market.

“It’s an opportunity for growth of the industry that really hasn’t taken off yet because it never got a chance,” Pasternack explained. “I personally believe that there’s a good market, excellent market for both sides to be able to capitalize on what they have.”

Some of those opportunities are already in the pipeline, with CIN currently working on projects like the inaugural Friendship Classic Car Rally; jazz productions that will air in the U.S.; and bringing major sports broadcasts to both Cuba and the U.S. But this is just the first steps into what Pasternack believes clients will be able to do in Cuba.

“As we grow into the market and they allow us to have more and more ability to bring our equipment and finalize how we do certain things, the client will be able to do everything from concept to completion,” he said.

Barry PasternakHAVANA—Television broadcasting is nothing new here; actually it dates back to the time of the big post-World War II U.S. TV launch. Two Havana stations took to the air in the fall of 1950 and additional stations soon followed, providing coverage to most of this island nation. And just as in the States, national networks were established and eventually color television became a reality.

Bolstered by equipment and technology supplied by U.S. manufacturers such as RCA, Cuban TV broadcasting flourished in the 1950s, seemingly destined to continue following the same path being blazed in the nation 90 miles to the north.

However, such TV evolutionary “dual tracking” ended rather abruptly in 1959 with the overthrow of the regime of then-president Fulgencio Batista and the installation of a new government led by Fidel Castro, a move strongly opposed by the U.S. government. Almost immediately a trade embargo was enacted and this literally froze Cuba—including its television broadcasting operations—in time.

Fast forward to the 21st century and the easing of sanctions on Cuba earlier this year by the Obama administration. Now the country is about to get a TV makeover, thanks to Barry Pasternak and his Cuba International Network LLC (CIN). The long-time broadcast veteran and his group are working to bring modern technology to the country in the form of a state-of-the-art production facility and a couple of completely-equipped 4K/HD film and video mobile units.

“It’s really about Americans going to Cuba to train Cuban technicians on modern television equipment and techniques and to establish a facility to facilitate foreign broadcasters and content creators in originating programming from Cuba,” said Pasternak. “Our intent is to allow American and other production companies to come in and shoot without having to bring in boatloads of equipment.”

STILL A 525 NTSC WORLD

The Cuba International Network’s building in Havana Pasternak noted that even though contemporary Cuban television broadcasting would be considered “primitive” by many standards (they still operate in 525-line analog), the technicians are quite savvy and do not lack in understanding and expertise when it comes to digital video and 21st century production techniques.

“We’ve found that Cuban technical people are really very capable,” he said. “Some of those who left Cuba are now working at Telemundo and Univision.”

Pasternak is no stranger to Cuba, television or the Latino way of doing business.

“I’m 67 and have been involved in broadcasting since I was a teenager,” he said. “I’ve spent the past 30 years working in television in the Caribbean region and have been traveling to Cuba for the past 15 years.

“I’m the guy who’s been going there when everyone else said ‘Don’t, you’re just wasting your time.’ This whole Cuba thing is exploding on us right now. There are a lot of companies wanting to shoot on location in Cuba. We want to help them; however, our goal is to help them to establish a state-of-the-art industry in Cuba.”

Pasternak explained that isolation of the Cuban population from the rest of the world has created some interesting situations.

“Anybody there under 50 years of age might never have seen a contract,” said Pasternak. “They get very uncomfortable when someone starts pushing a high-end sales pitch, as they haven’t had any dealings with even low-level pitches. These are very smart people, but they don’t understand western ‘Business 101.’ They haven’t been exposed to business practices. There are some things they just can’t grasp on the first iteration For instance, many Cubans have heard of an MOU. And when you’re working in an environment like this you have to be considerate of the human element. You don’t want to intimidate the people there in Cuba.

“A lot of companies think that just because they’ve been working in the Latin American market, Cuba will be the same way. It’s not; it’s completely different and these guys quickly find out they don’t know what they’re doing.”

LIKE NO OTHER PLACE ON EARTH

CIN’s massive 16,000-square-foot studio facility has a 30-foot ceiling height and includes provisions for an 800-square-foot “wet stage area” for underwater shooting. Once barriers are broken down, Pasternak sees Cuba as something of a producer’s delight when it comes to location work.

“Unless you’ve been here for quite a while, you’re going to experience a tremendous cultural shock,” he said. “The Havana airport is high tech and modern, but you go one mile from there and you’re back in 1958—the automobiles, the buildings, just about everything else. Time has stood still. There’s really no place else on earth like this. There are locations on the island where no shooting has ever been done!”

Pasternak notes that an American production journeyed to Cuba last year to do the documentary “Papa Hemmingway in Cuba,” but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

There are a lot of companies wanting to shoot on location in Cuba, he said. “The antique car people are really interested due to the number of [vintage] vehicles that are still in use here and have been maintained. We’re working with some of these groups. Another advantage of doing production here is that it’s a lot less expensive than anywhere else.”

Pasternak described most shoots as being done with an American or European director and non-Cuban crews. He describes his company’s role in this as a facilitator of providing Cuban personnel who are fully trained in U.S.-style production.

“We work with the outside film companies to help them travel to Cuba,” he said. “We also help with the paperwork and in securing accommodations,” noting that some of his clients want to bring their families with them so that they can get a better feel for what was once known as “The Pearl of the Antilles.”

One of the big problems noted by Pasternak is the lack of an adequate communications infrastructure in Cuba.

“Internet connectivity, cellphone connectivity—these are big issues,” he said. “You can connect to Verizon, but the roaming charges are very expensive.”

He noted that while there is some fiber connectivity available, there is no direct path to the United States.

“Traffic first has to go to Jamaica or to Venezuela and on to the U.S. from there” he said. “Satellite communications are limited too. There’s a major restriction on bringing in satellite transmission gear.”

Pasternak’s company applied for and was granted a common carrier license, which will allow it to sell bandwidth to facilitate outside production companies, but this is just one of many issues that have to be resolved. Another is technical training.

“These are smart people,” he said. “But they haven’t been exposed to a lot of the technology we take for granted. They have a truck with some Sony HD cameras, but they don’t broadcast in high definition. The U.S. producers want to go 4K and the Cubans don’t have any experience with this. The techs really need training on the new technologies, but there’s no support mechanism here for that. We’ve brought in [telecom consultant and TV Technology columnist] Wes Simpson to help along those lines. He’ll be sitting down with several of our equipment suppliers to discuss training on specific pieces of equipment.”

HELP, NOT REVAMP

In discussing his involvement as a trainer for the project, Simpson noted that his part of the mission would be to ensure that CIN would have the technical manpower it needed and also to provide the Cuban technicians with more marketable skills when 21st century technology eventually becomes mainstream in Cuba.

“We’re not just coming in as technology ‘carpet baggers,’” said Simpson. “We’re bringing the technology to them with the goal of making sure they understand it and are able to incorporate it into anything they might wish to do. We want to make sure that they gain as much knowledge as possible during the training. It will be both theory and hands-on training.”

Asked if he thought the language barrier might impede training efforts, Simpson, said “definitely not. Most of the technologies [and associated vocabulary] involved are English-based. Most of the students I’ve taught in Asia and South America in the past have at least a working knowledge of the technical terms in English. I expect the same in Cuba.”

Pasternak stressed that the objective of his company was to help U.S. and other content producers, not to revamp the Cuban television infrastructure. “We want to open up an industry, train people and maybe make good content in the process and at the same time save money and grief for our clients,” he said. “ The market is explosive, but there are many things that have yet to be worked out.

“We don’t play politics,” Pasternak added, “we’re just here to do television.”

HAVANA— This was a happening.

True, this happening was just an exhibition baseball game; yet, it was history.

Major League Baseball teams have rarely played in Communist Cuba—the last game from “The Pearl of the Antilles” was played on March 28, 1999, between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban National Team, and broadcast by ESPN.

The network was also on hand on Tuesday, March 22, 2016, when the Tampa Bay Rays squared off against the Cuban National Team, with the presidents of the United States and Cuba in attendance.

This was not a normal broadcast from Havana or from its 60-year-old Estadio Latinoamericano baseball stadium; but not only did ESPN and ABC News make it work, they produced numerous news reports with pre- and post-game programming, and were able to share some resources while doing so.

BIDING TIME
About two months ago, ABC News and ESPN conferred about coverage of President Barack Obama’s goodwill trip, including the game, according to Brian Kennedy, vice president of newsgathering operations for ABC News, “because we knew we could share shipping and resources,” including a generator, lights, platforms and accessories, like tents, phones and Internet connectivity.

Going into Cuba, performance of the equipment wasn’t an issue—but it was understood that getting it to the island and setting up would be. While the Cuban police and the people were always friendly and helpful, working there can often be time consuming.

“The Cuban police went through every piece of gear we brought and everything had to be hardwired,” Kennedy said. “RF equipment was not allowed.”

Both networks started broadcasting on Sunday, March 20, the date of the first of two of ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” broadcasts, from a shared compound in downtown Havana’s Parque Fraternidad. It included two sets, with a tented control area with a router, monitoring and transmission equipment, plus Ku- flyaway uplink and IP transmission via ABC’s TVU Grid.

Meanwhile, the ESPN crew shipped NEP’s Supershooter 23A and B OB trucks, with an Illumination Dynamics twin pack, Transvision fly-away uplink and a 24-foot box truck, with ancillary hardware—all of which was X-rayed by local authorities upon its arrival on March 13.

Then, upon the equipment’s, then the crew’s, arrival at the stadium on Saturday night, it was time for another customs inspection.

“ABC had 16 boxes and we had 25,” said Terry Brady, director of remote production operations for ESPN. “The review of the cargo at the stadium with the Cuban customs started at about 7 a.m. on Sunday. Every box had to be inspected, and it took almost eight hours. That included cases of cable, since RF equipment was not allowed.”

Brady said the crew finally “hit the ground hard on Sunday afternoon because we were going live by 11 a.m. on Monday,” he said.

ESPN’s Hannah Storm, and Evan Longoria and Kevin Kiermaier of the Tampa Bay Rays on the set of SportsCenter during the Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cuban National Team spring training exhibition game, March 22.GETTING IN POSITION
Brady said that the ESPN set out to “keep a unilateral approach, pooling resources, ESPN sources and Cuban iso feeds for the game broadcast.”

Camera positions were traditional: high home, low third, mid-first, centerfield, low first, tight centerfield and, mid-third; ESPN also shipped two full ENG units, with handhelds used in the first base dugout (that were also used for SportsCenter), in the low third base stands, from the scoreboard for beauty shots and for the conference rooms.

In addition, a Marshall and GoPro POV camera were installed in the both ESPN booths, including one for Desportes. “We used a more traditional approach, given the limited amount of fiber and increased reliance on copper,” said Brady.

All told, ESPN used 12 cameras from the truck: six handheld, six hard; plus a high speed NAC, with three EVSs.

ESPN had a set on the field, and also shot from other points in the stadium, including one by President Obama’s seat. The crew worked closely with the Secret Service and stadium security “to ensure that we had the access we needed,” Brady said.

“That hybrid approach was due to the age of the stadium, which isn’t cabled,” he said. “Since everything was hard wired, it was challenging to get cable in everyplace we might need it, like it can be in the smaller venues here in the states.”

To get the signals up, ESPN/ABC News used two Ku-band 2.4-meter satellite dishes “that we don’t use that often, but it made it easier for us to hit U.S. domestic satellites,” said Kennedy.

Though the Cuban broadcasters have some satellite trucks that ABC News rented just over a year ago during the initial softening of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, those resources “were not available,” he said, “because the Cubans were using them for the game broadcast and coverage of the events around President Obama’s visit.”

POST-GAME WRAP
Also regarding transmission, the Cubans “were terrific in giving us 50 Mbps of raw data for the Internet that we used for three channels of video, and we used them to send video in both directions between Havana and New York City,” Kennedy said, “because if we get interference on a satellite, for instance, we could have switched over to the Internet connection and continued the broadcast. So these days, when we have Internet access, that’s usually our preferred way of connecting.

“What was remarkable to us,” he added, “is that we can do TV with just data, and not just satellite dishes, because dishes traditionally carry just video. Though we were prepared to use them with just data-over-satellite, it was much easier to access data via terrestrial connectivity.” All told, broadcasting the trip and the game (which was won by the Rays, 4-1) was a challenge accepted and addressed, as far as Kennedy and Brady are concerned.

“It helped that we have people on staff who had been to Cuba many times, including an engineer who’s been there more than 30 times,” said Kennedy. “They knew what to expect” concerning customs and the time constraints.

“We went in with the mindset that it would be a challenge that required our full attention,” Brady said, “especially since the two-pronged approach by ABC News and ESPN was unusual. This wasn’t about a particular job; everyone pitched in to get it done.

“This was a unique experience,” he said. “It was a ‘bucket list’ experience.”

WASHINGTON—The FCC International Bureau has opened the doors for U.S. telecom carriers to expand their services to Cuba with the announcement that the country has been removed from the Commission’s Exclusion List for International Section 214 Authorizations, also known as the Exclusion List. The Exclusion List identifies countries and facilities that are not covered by grant of a global facilities-based Section 214 application, requiring instead a separate international Section 214. Cuba was the last remaining country on the Exclusion List.

Telecom carriers are now free to provide facilities-based telephone and Internet service to Cuba without separate approval from the Commission. Carriers that were seeking new international Section214 authority for services to Cuba will now receive it sooner, while carriers with existing global Section 214 authority and permitted to provide services between the U.S. and Cuba without further authority.

The removal of Cuba from the Exclusion List is effective immediately.

The State Department recommended that Cuba be removed from the Exclusion List back in Oct. 2015. This follows President Obama’s decision to reopen diplomatic relations with the country in 2014.