Behind the scenes of the 24 Hours of Le Mans centenary with Xtrem Productions

On 10 and 11 June, Porsche, Peugeot and Cadillac were among the manufacturers lining up to compete in The 24 Hours of Le Mans (24 Heures du Mans). This year saw the world’s most famous endurance race ­– created and organised by Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and held annually in North West France ­– celebrate 100 years since its first staging.

Over a day and night, driver teams of three battled fatigue and the field to steer their prototype racing machine towards one of the biggest prizes in motorsport, with Ferrari delivering an historic tenth victory on its return to the race after a 50-year absence.

With video views exceeding 51 million across all social media channels and an audience reach of more than 60.8 million, engagement levels were up 400% as Le Mans celebrated its centenary.

Tasked with post producing that content along with the broadcast magazine deliverables was collaborator Xtrem Productions. Founder and president Sacha le Coroller takes us behind the scenes of his company’s long-standing technical partnership with the race’s executive producers, Le Mans Endurance Management (LMEM) and the ACO.

How long have you been providing post production support?

I have worked with Le Mans Endurance Management for 20 years, supporting its two European championships (European Le Mans Series and Le Mans Cup) and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), including the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. With 19 races across three championships, LMEM entrusts us to manage all aspects of postproduction and archiving.

Tell us about the magazine formats for ELMS (7×52 minutes), LMC (7×26 minutes) and WEC (7×52 minutes) and the main challenges in turning around postproduction 

Each season, we produce a mixed package of magazine shows across the three race championships for broadcast internationally in over 200 countries. Scripted and rich in subject matter, these magazines offer race highlights as well as a human and didactic behind-the-scenes look at the world of racing.

24 hours after an FIA WEC race, and 72 hours after the finish of each ELMS and LMC race, broadcasters receive an edited and mixed magazine, with commentary in English or an international version with a script.

Those shows rely on two types of footage. There’s live OB coverage for each race alongside our own dedicated ENG crews. Depending on the championship, we’ll deploy between two and four teams, with OB provider AMP Visual TV employing up to 18 cameras on a typical race.

Likewise, up to 24 onboard race cameras are deployed in the competitors’ cars during a WEC race and six on the European Le Mans Series. A mix of eight lives feeds from AMP Visual TV comprising onboard views as well as clean and dirty feeds are ingested into our multicam postproduction workflow.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans race is even bigger with more than 50 cameras, and 24 cars have four onboard cameras. That’s 96 angles available from the OB provider alone! For ELMS we’d usually deploy an OB truck for postproduction. However, we required more space to accommodate the increase in personnel, so we had access to dedicated office space on-site at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Talk us through your technical footprint for the 24-hour race

We fed all incoming signals into a Blackmagic Design Smart Videohub 40×40 and distributed those to various monitors and the eight inputs on a DeckLink Quad 2 capture card, which we used to record the live feed using Softron’s MovieRecorder.

We also employed a Blackmagic MultiView 16 within the setup. Its 16 independent 6G-SDI inputs mean we can connect any combination of sources and monitor them all simultaneously on a single display. In addition, we also deployed a mix of SmartView 4K preview monitors, the Blackmagic Audio Monitor and SmartScope Duo, to monitor incoming video and audio signals.

We also record backup copies of the clean and dirty feeds from the live stream to SSD using a pair of HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro broadcast decks.

How do you typically prepare for something like Le Mans?

We start adjusting the event setup several months before the Le Mans week. While the setup is similar to what we deploy around WEC, we do have to increase the storage and network capabilities as we have many Terabytes of rushes to store, secure and share. The number of editing stations was also increased, adding three more for this race giving us a total of 10 edit bays, seven featuring 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) connections and three with 1GbE for journalists.

What was your brief for 2023, and what were the chief technical considerations? 

2023 was the 24 Hours of Le Mans Centenary, which heightened interest and saw an increase in demand for content from media, broadcasters and race teams alike, all wanting access to dedicated packages on top of what is usually expected. Likewise, we also produced a lot of specific rough cuts for the team’s own promotional purposes.

Tell us about your technical footprint and how/where Blackmagic Design fits into that

Typically, we’d use a Mac Mini M2 as our host server and Promise DAS attached. Our editors use a combination of M1 and M2 MacBook Pros connected to the server, and this year we ran the Blackmagic Cloud Store 20TB as our primary storage solution for the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

With editing done on Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.5 was also enlisted for its new AI-powered transcription capabilities.

Using the Blackmagic Cloud Store was a big step forward. The product is easy to use, affordable and powerful. It is also fast and reliable, giving us a more responsive post workflow with better transfer speeds. We could also monitor storage mapping and individual connection usage in real-time using a HDMI monitor.

What resolution/format(s) were the finished magazine shows supplied to the broadcasters in? 

We provide the finished deliverables to broadcasters in 1080i50 MXF with social media delivery formats determined by the platform. YouTube was output in H.264 35Mpbs.

With the requirement to also deliver social media assets, that’s more content going to more places than ever before. What challenges does that create? 

We helped to post produce all of the championship’s social media clips. The aim is to enhance the digital ecosystem in terms of engagement and conversion, making the FIA WEC, ELMS and LMC loved brands with a positive spectator experience.

Because we have a rigorous and well-tested approach to organising media, there are no hurdles to overcome when delivering for social media other than its immediacy, which requires us to work fast. Twenty years ago, TV for broadcast was 99% of the postproduction activity. Now it’s a 50/50 split between traditional broadcast and social media.

Do you handle the social media clipping live during Le Mans, and what does that workflow look like?

LMEM uses dedicated tools to grab simple in/out action during the races for posting to its socials, whether Instagram or Facebook. Our postproduction edits are more than in/out as we can access a broader range of materials, allowing the editors to edit more complex packages for social. The simple stuff can be a replay of the start, an overtake, or a crash, whereas we can produce a slow-mo compilation, an edit with music, or an interview with b-roll footage.

Was any consideration given to how you might reduce the amount of gear and/or people required on the ground? 

For two years, we have implemented a remote production to manage team products like rough cuts, which don’t need to be edited quickly. We have two options: one based on original files when the internet connection is strong enough, and the other based on proxies.

How was the postproduction team split between the magazine format and live social? 

Each editor is assigned to either the magazine or social media content. They can use a short version of an edit for social networks and a more extended version for the magazine. We also encourage the editors to send ‘action’ to the social network team.

Do you have any stats on the size data for this year’s 24-hour race? 

We ingested over 150 hours of live feed data, including clean feeds, PGM feeds, onboard cameras, etc, and more than 300 hours of ENG footage. This year, there was around 17TB of media and more than 50TB if you include backups.