Sunset+Vine’s digital team, led by its senior digital strategist Will Godsiff, has brought wearable technology to the greatest dog show on earth, Crufts.

Bringing unique and never-before-seen views of the action on the green carpet, Sunset+Vine has been able to give the Royal Kennel Club’s (RKC) followers on social media insight – both exciting and educational – of what it is like in the thick of competition, from being a dog handler in agility to a judge on flyball.  

Meta AI specs

To capture its content, the digital team uses Sony FX6 cameras at Crufts, which are compact, full-frame cinema cameras, used by the team for making feature-based content. They also use two mobile kits for 9:16 content.

New for this year, however, was the use of wearable Meta AI version 2 glasses for the first time to get some fresh perspectives.

Godsiff explains: “The big one this year for the digital side of things was expanding into some wearable tech. We used a set of wearable camera glasses, and we’ve toyed around with. We take wearable tech like GoPros and other little wearable cameras with us, but we found that the glasses had a real ability to be unobtrusive.”

With the glasses filming in 9:16 HD, sometimes the digital team used a full shot for social media, and at other times, they did a split vision.

Comments Godsiff on the glasses: “They fitted into what we were doing from a production standpoint for the digital team really seamlessly. It required a little bit of careful handling with the arena crews, because again, they don’t want anyone to come in and disrupt their flow or affect the competition in any way. But we’ve been working with the Kennel Club and Crufts for a long time so that trust has been built up.

“This was the first year we’ve used the glasses and we’ve managed to get them on the green carpet quite a few different times,” continues Godsiff. “I’m hopeful that next year we can continue to expand and again, use the glasses as a really different way of showcasing the sports; we’re not just trying to be gimmicky. We actually want to provide value in what we’re doing, and these really do provide a really interesting point of view.”

Wearables in practice

The sporting elements of Crufts, such as agility and flyball, do not provide space on the floor for the digital team, which has to be completely out of the way of the dogs, handlers, and the host broadcast. Therefore the use of wearable glasses provided an opportunity to get a completely different perspective from people allowed on the mat, such as judges and handlers.

“There’s no way that you want to affect any of the outcomes [in the arenas], but we’re limited in where we can put our cameras,” says Godsiff. “Actually being able to use the wearable tech in a way that doesn’t distract the dogs is great, because some dogs don’t react too well to a camera. So having a pair of wearable glasses that we were able to put on some of the individuals, such as some of the police teams that were working in the displays, some of the competitors, and some of the judges, was brilliant. In particular, the judges one is interesting because you can compare [those views] with the broadcast output.”

Godsiff explains how the team worked with people on the mat, using the example of a judge. “The judge was able to have [the glasses] in his pocket, and then whenever he felt comfortable, he took them out and he’d film a couple of runs on them. You can then pair that with the broadcast output also – because we’re working so closely to the broadcast team we can pre-request ISOs out of the EVS teams – then we’ve got a very unique way of looking at the competition and seeing exactly what the agility judge is looking for.

“You can even see him just sort of zoom in a little bit when he’s checking that the dogs are complying with the rules and everything like that. I think, from my side, that was the most fun addition, because we’ve never had those camera angles before.”

For the police dog demonstration, the digital team got the person being chased down by the police dog to wear the glasses. Says Godsiff: “We did a shoot with the West Midlands police dog team, which was just a straight 9:16, and you could get a criminal’s point of view as a dog vaulted across the bonnet of a car at the guy and see the dog grabbing onto his arm. So that was fun!”

The glasses provided some educational points of interest as well, including that in the agility classes when handlers wore the glasses the team learned that the handler looks to where the dog is about to go, not at the dog itself. “So that then becomes another window into the training elements of the sport,” says Godsiff. “I really enjoyed doing that and everyone engaged with it really well. It was fun.”

The content from the wearable glasses has been so successful this year that the host broadcast production will look to incorporate them into next year’s coverage.