If you are not aware of Premier League Productions then you don’t know the huge machine that operates behind the scenes in delivering content for the Premier League. It looks after the global production and distribution to broadcast rights holders all around the World.
But it has taken many years to get to where it is now.
It was a conversation in the edit suite many years ago (yes, back then all content was generated via one edit suite) where the Executive Producer responsible for all the content expressed his interest in getting some new animations created to showcase the stadiums and their georgraphical locations so viewers all around the World could better understand where some of the teams were located.
Back then, Media219 was just an idea in my head, but I asked myself just how difficult could it be to create content that could work for this project. So I sat down with a colleague and brainstormed some ideas and looked at how this could develop. Having a camera fly through a 3D model so you could see the map of the UK, zooming down into the city and around the stadium and even the city landmarks. I was aiming big, not quite knowing how this was even going to work.
With the internet at our disposal, we tried to unearth what we could and picked Newcastle United’s stadium to start with. I knew the city well so that may help us pinpointing some of the key features of the city. But Newcastle is a complicated city with its rivers and steep landscapes. We found researching material on the stadium construction not as straightforeward as we had hoped. With no input from the clubs themselves, this was just a fact find to start with to see if this could work.
About two months later and taking quite a few liberties with motion blur, lights and camera tricks, we had created a short animation that I presented to the client. Well that started us on a long journey of development and creating stadiums that we are still on even today.
The task was to create 20 short animations which showed the UK map, pinpointed the stadium location then zoomed down to show off the stadium in all iots glory, at which point the gallery director would then mix through to the live game. It was to become an identifying sting so viewers all around the World could understand where every club was positioned and the stings became a useful tool to link the fans with various clubs.
Having the models also allowed us to spin off extra content as we tried to freshen up existing graphics used throughout various outlets. From promos to programme content we tried to get full use out of the models each season.
Over the seasons the stadium stings evolved and changed and then we hit our Nirvana moment when we created a series of animations that not only showed off the stadiums in great detail but also the surrounding area inside a square. This was quite a challenge using not only reference images via the internet, but also trying to gather as many images ourselves as we could.
The end stings were a huge success not only for Premier League but also all their broadcast partners. They looked amazing and certainly showed a great journey from such basic beginnings.
The 3D models were used by Premier League Productions for over ten years and featured in many different situations. What started off as a simple idea in one person’s mind shaped part of the company’s production for many years afterwards.