Studio W has been a staple space at ESPN’s Bristol, Conn., headquarters since 2014. That’s among the reasons it was time to “tear it down to the studs” after Super Bowl LX.
Those are the words of Anthony Lacaprucia, senior director of ESPN studio operations, who has been with the network for three decades. He’s now working within a 9,000-square-foot environment so technically advanced that it would have been tough to imagine when he started.
"Studio W," Lacaprucia said, “still lives in Digital Center 2, in Bristol, but we’ve made huge strides with this first refresh."
And on that note, builders ESPN Studio Operations, The Walt Disney Company Technology, ESPN Creative Studio and designer Jack Morton Worldwide went big with The Network’s home of ABC’s college football coverage and NFL Live, and ABC and NHL wraps, among other shows.
The key feature of the rebuild was adding more than 9,200 square feet of movable LED displays, walls and desks, “with a purpose-built XR volume,” he said, featuring roughly 44.7 million pixels and rendering capabilities for multi-camera virtual shoots.”
So a multi-cam setup it is, with the studio equipped with Sony HDC-5500 cameras supporting native ST 2110, HDR, and UHD workflows, Mo-Sys camera tracking across a Jimmy Jib Pro, three robotic pedestals, and two manual pedestals, as well as a Vislink wireless RF platform for Steadicam operations across the facility. The new multi-camera virtual production technology allows up to four cameras to capture images simultaneously from the same LED wall.
“That presents new opportunities for storytelling in a virtual reality setting,” said Lacaprucia, such as various college football analysts depicted as being immersed in game situations, and NHL analysts P.K. Subban and Mark Messier discussing game action within a hockey rink during wraps. “The size of the LED displays, when combined, is 8 feet by 55 feet, and can be broken up into four individual tracking displays.”
So the displays “viewers see on college football broadcasts,” he said, use “the same technology for our daily NFL Live (and the weekly Fantasy Focus Countdown) shows. They’re just set up differently.”
Adding to the complement of automated displays is the 146-inch Creative Connors touch screen system, which can be relocated to other parts of the studio. So for Studio W, ABC’s college football is only the start of what’s to come from under ESPN’s vast umbrella.
In the end, it’s all about having options. “On any given college football Saturday,” Lacaprucia said, “it can be home to ABC, while Studio X is the home of ESPN, and Studio E is hosting ESPN2 wraps.”
