The broadcast consultant at TV3’s Sagrada Familia celebrations in Barcelona talks about monitoring two types of expertise for the project – broadcast engineering and digital cinema.
The major event held at the Basilica of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain on 10 June was captured in a production that marked both a historic visit by Pope Leo XIV to the church, and the centenary of the death of the basilica’s legendary architect, Antoni Gaudí. It also celebrated the recent completion of its Tower of Jesus Christ.
The famous church has been under construction for 144 years and is anticipated to require a further decade of work before it is entirely finished. Nevertheless, completing the Tower of Jesus Christ represents a hugely significant moment for Catholics. In engineering terms, it is the Sagrada Família’s central structure and the world’s tallest church tower at 172.5 meters tall.
Mixing Digital Cinema with Broadcast Engineering
Accordingly, expectations were extremely high for the broadcast production of the Jesus Tower inauguration, coinciding with the Pope’s visit, which was overseen by the national Catalan broadcaster 3Cat (TV3). Production director Pauli Subira Claramunt brought to life the vision of artistic director Igor Cortadellas, to show both the interior and exterior of the church. The project made use of cinematographic techniques and equipment, some of which – like Sony’s Cinema Line cameras – had not been used before in an international UHD/HDR live broadcast.
“Regardless of the cost that UHD/HDR might incur, the importance of the production and the relevance in terms of archival and distribution is so large that cost doesn't really matter,” said Hector Sole-Bradshaw Beltran, the broadcast engineering consultant serving as technical director for the project. He described his primary challenge as the need to unify two fields of expertise – the broadcast engineering requirements of Tier One production, and the use of digital cinematography tools.
Test and Measurement
At the same time, Hector wanted to employ some of his own trusted production tools – including two devices from Leader Electronics. One of these is his PHABRIX Qx rasterizer, which he always includes in high-end OB deployments. “What I tend to do is have a V-Lock battery powering the unit, so I don’t need to plug it into mains,” he said. “That allows me to move to different spots in the engineering footprint wherever I need to carry out testing and analysis.”
He also brought along a LeaderPhabrix LPX500 quad 4K-input waveform monitor, a hybrid IP/SDI device. In this instance, as this production did not involve IP connectivity, the LPX500 was used to display and monitor four 12G-SDI signals. “I was able to check both the HDR and SDR cameras at any time during the show or rehearsals,” he noted. “It’s another very reliable piece of equipment that helped make the production run smoothly.”
Pleasing Everyone
The architectural and physical constraints of the basilica created a number of challenges for the broadcast teams, who had only two days to complete the load-in and set-up. Meanwhile, everyone was aware of how much was riding on the events of 10 June. But according to Hector, the production went very well with few incidents.
The Leader T&M equipment certainly played its part. “One of the most difficult things to do nowadays, especially when you take into account different political and religious beliefs, is to arrive at a production that is pleasing to everyone. But by focusing on the building itself, which is outstanding and unique in the world, it was an occasion that achieved universal acclaim, leaving people with a really beautiful memory of the day.” leaderphabrix.com
