When the jumbotron at an NBA game says to “GET LOUD,” it doesn’t matter if you’re in VIP box seats, up in the nosebleed section or if you’re a Boston Celtics or a Los Angeles Lakers fan. You scream with the crowd because you’re all there for the same reason. With all of the lights and excitement, the energy in an arena is just as much a part of basketball as the game itself. When it comes to amping up the crowd in between quarters, it’s the postproduction crew that scores.
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The Atlanta Hawks’ video content crew takes particular pride in entertaining the crowd at Philips Arena. Their court projections are unparalleled in the league, with 3D graphic effects that carve cubes out of the floor and zoom in on high-definition footage of players at lightning speed. Paired with creating the LED displays on the jumbotron, the graphics ring around the arena and the end zone boards, as well as designing and implementing any advertising spot that involves video; the post team has a big job. Thankfully, it is made quite a bit easier with Red Giant plugins.
“Our five full-time employees work in one big edit suite right here in-house,” says Mike Deuel, manager of video content for the Hawks. “We capture much of our footage at the beginning of the season at our marketing day media shoot with Hawks players.”
This content, which the crowd sees on the arena screens during the game, must be divided into roughly 40 games worth of fresh visuals. Although the video content crew reuses some content, such as lower thirds and bumpers, there are new graphics for every game that are all pre-shot and pre-produced. With such a time crunch in tight quarters, it is no wonder the Hawks’ video content crew is so familiar with the Red Giant Trapcode Suite. The team uses numerous different effects to make the visuals pop, while saving them time on larger projects.
“I use much of the Trapcode Suite on court projections,” says Andre Hickman, senior producer of visual effects for the Hawks. “The projections are labor intensive and use a lot of new technology. It takes a long time to produce these effects in a manual capacity, but the Red Giant plugins create dynamic visuals and are easy to use.”
Keying Up for Clean Tracking
In order to make the Hawks’ court projections look so good, the video content crew films the team in front of green screens for the best effect. Of course, once the players start moving and the basketball game begins, it is difficult to get an accurate track in post, so the crew uses Red Giant’s Primatte Keyer to remove the greenscreen with the touch of a button.
“Primatte is an easy tool to use,” says Andre Hickman. “Everything makes sense. Other keyers are very limited and you have to go through a lot of masks to get what you want. With Primatte, it’s very rare that I have to make a junk mask on something. I can just key it and clean it up.”
Primatte is especially helpful when the video content crew receives green screen footage from an outside source. When the footage is not lit very well or if there is another technical problem, it gives the crew the flexibility to get what they need.
“Even if the footage isn’t perfect, the key always is,” says Andre. “Primatte catches it all, and that’s incredibly helpful.”
How it Looks to Get Loud
The graphics at a sports game are only half as fun without the sound, and the Hawks’ video content crew enjoys creating music-driven animations to increase the energy. For everything music and sound related, the crew uses Red Giant’s Sound Keys to attach music tracks. When the LED graphics on-screen use light effects, they are always attached to Sound Keys and music to correlate with the beats.
The crew also uses Echospace, another Trapcode Suite plugin, to amp up animated layers. This helps them create even more complex animations in no time, making the court projections in particular come alive to the music.
“I like the textures you can create with Echospace, and we usually use it when overlaying text on a background,” Mike Deuel says. “I apply the effect and play with it to get a cool texture, especially on the 360-degree display. We complement motion, color and sound, and it looks fantastic.”
Red, Green, Gray, White and Other Team Colors
There is not a finished product that comes out of the Atlanta post suite that doesn’t include Colorista or Looks from Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite. Because the crew uses DSLR cameras to shoot all of their footage flat, color correction makes a huge impact on the final graphics.
“I think that out of all the color correction tools I’ve used over the years, Colorista is my favorite,” says Andre. “We adjust the white balance using the eyedropper, and being able to adjust the highlights and the shadows is very intuitive and easy. I love the final effect it gives on the footage.”
The crew often goes out on electronic news-gathering, or ENG, shoots to get footage, and because there is no extensive lighting setup, it can be tricky to get a consistent look. Dan Bartlett, senior producer and editor for the Hawks, uses Red Giant’s Denoiser to reduce noise in darker settings.
“We occasionally have to shoot in places with poor lighting conditions,” and Denoiser is a lifesaver to bump up the gain a little bit and remove all of the grain,” he says.
Strong color is important to helping the Hawks’ graphics stand out during the game, and the Magic Bullet Suite gives the video content crew an extra boost. With all of the other incredible effects the team is using, it is nice to have a suite that pulls it all together with ease.
“On every Magic Bullet plugin, the user interfaces are very simple and easy to understand,” Andre says. “There aren’t a lot of buttons or settings that are difficult to understand. It’s clean and easy to acclimate yourself to, especially with newer plugins. We love it.”
The Future of the Game
The 2015-2016 season has already been full of excitement, and the video content crew hopes to create new graphics that reflect its success. This season, the Atlanta Hawks changed the visual identity of the organization, so the video content crew built off of their past successes to meet the new aesthetic. In seasons prior, where advertisements on the graphic food and drink menu boards were concerned, they used Red Giant’s Instant 4K to help standard definition spots fit on the 720p boards. They hope to incorporate Instant 4K into their workflow even more this year.
“It’s more crisp and clear than just using the normal scale,” Andre says. “It’s really helpful, and I use that plugin all the time. I’m hoping to get more into Instant 4K when it comes to expanding video footage of players and the like. I’m excited to use it to blow up some of the content so it looks better.”
The Hawks’ video content crew has been using 80% of Red Giant’s plugin offerings to get their work up to speed for this season, and there are still surprises left to roll out. “Red Giant just kills some of the other stuff out there,” Andre says. “Every season we’re doing something new, and it helps us to stay on track. We’re so excited to continue to roll out new material for this and future seasons.”