PLAZAMEDIA opens up new worlds with the ILLUSIONEER Studio – Kickoff with the world’s biggest single sports event: staging the Super Bowl broadcast for DAZN as a sports and brand experience.
Ismaning, March 20, 2024
It sets milestones in virtual production and can create an almost infinite number of worlds: the new ILLUSIONEER Studio from PLAZAMEDIA. The ultra-modern studio has been in use at the company’s headquarters in the AGROB Medienpark for a few weeks now. It was launched in February, when Super Bowl LVIII was staged for DAZN as a maximum sports and brand experience. The global sports entertainment platform DAZN presented the world’s biggest single sports event in one of Germany’s most innovative studios. Michael Bracher, SVP Production and Editorial at DAZN-DACH, is presenting the successful case at this week’s SportsInnovation 2024 innovation trade fair in Düsseldorf. Following a pilot project, the ILLUSIONEER Studio has been part of PLAZAMEDIA’s offering since the start of 2024. The founder is Daniel Silber, who brought the studio to PLAZAMEDIA and is now himself part of the PLAZAMEDIA family as Senior Executive Creative and Solutions, Products and Services.
Michael Bracher, SVP Production and Editorial at DAZN-DACH: ”We are proud to once again be at the forefront of modern and innovative sports broadcasting techniques, as the ILLUSIONEER Studio opens up completely new dimensions for us. Our production of Super Bowl LVIII demonstrates DAZN’s innovative spirit and the creative possibilities of the studio. Virtual sets and camera movements, as well as the ability to respond to different needs individually, create a unique emotional appeal and offer our viewers high-quality live coverage.”
Jens Friedrichs, Chairman of the Management Board of PLAZAMEDIA GmbH: “The ILLUSIONEER Studio increases the possibilities for virtual production. Thanks to a mix of technologies, including from the gaming and broadcast sectors, we offer impressive brand worlds for our customers. The Super Bowl production is an excellent case in point, and our long-standing partner DAZN has once again shown the courage to innovate. From now on, locations for us and our customers no longer have any limits, even the Metaverse is possible as a filming location. The advantages naturally include the cost factor and scalable services. The ILLUSIONEER Studio fits perfectly into our studio ecosystem, including the briX|woRk.studio. I am delighted that Daniel Silber and the studio he designed are now part of the PLAZAMEDIA family.”
The ILLUSIONEER Studio: Where spatial and temporal limitations fall away
The ILLUSIONEER Studio blurs the boundaries between the real world and fiction: Broadcasts from virtual studios are just as possible as simulated tracking shots and, with the help of teleporting, VIPs appear – far away from their actual location – as real guests in the studio. This also creates a completely different emotional appeal. Even time limits no longer exist: People can be recorded at different times and in different places and then reunited in the ILLUSIONEER studio. Travel and studio set-up costs are eliminated. The immersive sets create large stages even in small rooms. Because in the real world, the studio measures just 72 square meters, plus 33 square meters for technology and make-up, in the studio landscape it takes on a completely new size. The modular virtual services thus go far beyond the limitations of a classic shoot.
The founder of the ILLUSIONEER studio is Daniel Silber. He attended the New York Film Academy and the London Film School, among others, before becoming managing director and founder of ”DIE FILMOGRAPHEN” in 2009. This was followed in 2020 by the creation of ILLUSIONEER Studios. He was responsible for conception, design, research, technical integration and commissioning. Daniel Silber joined PLAZAMEDIA GmbH in 2024 in the role of Senior Executive Creative and Solutions, Products and Services.
Super Bowl LVIII in the ILLUSIONEER Studio
The Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers was one of the first highlights of the current sports year – millions of fans around the world cheered on their American football heroes on the night of February 11-12. With the support of PLAZAMEDIA, DAZN staged the mega event in the new ILLUSIONEER Studio in a highly emotional way and with a variety of sensational effects such as holographics and camera flights through the larger-than-life football helmets of the opposing teams. Daniel Herzog hosted the show, Flo Hauser was the commentator together with pundits Nadine Nurasyid and Roman Motzkus. All of them, as well as local reporter Christoph Stadtler and star guest Fredi Bobic, were repeatedly connected live from Las Vegas and Berlin to the studio in Ismaning.
With a view to the technical production implementation for DAZN, PLAZAMEDIA broadcast live from the studio using the permanently connected TV control rooms. All signals for the broadcast were sent from Las Vegas via PLAZAMEDIA’s broadcast center. There they were sent to the DAZN Production Room (PCR) for the ILLUSIONEER studio, the TV control rooms, central monitoring, highlight editing, post-production, analysis graphics and the archive, and from there to the distribution channels for the customers. The interaction between the great connectivity of the broadcasting center in Ismaning and the ILLUSIONEER studio was fully exploited in this production.
About PLAZAMEDIA GmbH: Leading provider of smart content solutions
PLAZAMEDIA, a Sport1 Medien AG company, has developed into a leading sports TV producer in the German-speaking region since its foundation in 1976. Today, with its roots in classic television production, PLAZAMEDIA is also an established provider of smart, digital content solutions for all media platforms. Its customers include not only public and private broadcasters, but also platform operators, international sports associations, agencies for sports rights and national and international companies.
The range of services is broad: classic OB van-based production or remote production, staging of live sports or entertainment events, state-of-the-art content management solutions, editing, archiving and target group-specific content distribution on all media platforms – with convergent solutions, PLAZAMEDIA supports customers in the digital transformation of their business models along the entire content value chain.
More information: www.plazamedia.com.
