FICTS coming to Milan later this year

Italy: In the Autumn, Milan will host Sport Movies & TV 2011 – Milano International FICTS Fest – the Cinema, Television and Sports Culture World Championship, writes Italian Correspondent, Roberto Landini. The event sees 15 hours of coverage broadcast live on primetime over six days on Rai Sport TV and is run by FICTS (Fédération Internationale Cinéma Télévision Sportifs). Broadcasters attending include Al-Jazeera, China Central Television (CCTV), Eurosport, ESPN, Canal Plus, Channel One Russia, Rai, Sky, and SVT Sveriges Television.

I asked Prof. Franco Ascani, both a Member of the IOC Commission for Culture and Olympic Education and International President of FICTS, about the latest advancements of broadcast technology involved in sports filming. “In the future we’ll probably have an even more emotional and really interactive fruition of sports events because of the involvement of more senses,” he said. “In the meantime stereo 3D has already changed many things and our perception of the third dimension. This is probably crucial in the sports sensation because the viewer is really inside the event and takes part of the event in a very particular way.

“Marketing experts speak of augmented reality to describe every new experience which pushes the narrow boundaries of our perception beyond plain reality. 3D stereo is so destined to play a fundamental role on different stages in the broadcast world and in the ways of our future communication. Many, nowadays, are the technologies available. For instance in the filming department the are plenty of new stereo-rigs are available, such as the 3D creative OmniRig, which is pre-assembled and perfectly ready to operate just out of the box; no adjustments necessary.

“New singe body cameras already equipped with two lenses and double CCDs, in which Panasonic, Sony and JVC lead the way, are ideal for sports filming as they are very light, not expensive and practical. In other cases other equipment (such as from JVC) can create stereo 3D content out of 2D HD video shoots in order to further reduce costs. But in Italy we are just at the beginning of this new and incredible era.”