Young at heart: an Italian sports production journey
Established in 1987 by Andrea De Gioia and Roberto Burchielli, Interference changed its name to Young during the 1990s and began to assume its present configuration of a production company geared towards producing audio/visual content for television. Today, Young’s two branches in Pisa and Genoa are focused on the TV sports broadcast market, primarily through mobile production units.
“We were born with [a] corporate communications [background],” says Young director De Gioia, “and have always made commercials, short television films, scientific documentaries, multimedia works, and [documentaries about] technical products. From [this base in] corporate communications, Younghas gradually grown its fleet of mobile vehicles and today uses the most innovative technologies to shoot high-definition television with up to eight contemporary cameras.”
On the basis of market needs, the company launched another, ‘hybrid’ OB vehicle in 2009 that is simultaneously capable of shooting in full HD and transmitting via satellite through a proper onboard uplink. This is an uncommon procedure since a sat uplink is generally separated from the main AV production units.
Changing technologies and quality expectations by broadcasters led Young to create a new full HD OB vehicle in 2012. With this and its other facilities, the company is now working in a variety of different areas, ranging from sports to opera to telepromotions.
“In the past and even today we have made all kinds of shooting for sports, [including] football, basketball, swimming, water polo, hockey and skiing. We specialise in and we can make recordings, broadcasts live and direct satellite television for various sports federations which then are broadcast on major television and satellite channels.”
The company emphasises its ability to provide not only technical services, but also great artistic skills thanks to a close-knit, expert team. “This multipurpose orientation prompted us to make programmes for Rai while providing various types of equipment and different professionals including director of photography, cameramen, sound engineers and steadicam operators. On other occasions we have provided a dolly, a jimmy jib and a lift up to 35m. For Sky we have created a show directly on location in the shopping centres of various Italian cities. For Snam we returned to documentary with a crew specialised over 24 months of filming. Sports always gives us great satisfaction: it’s not by chance that Sky Sports 1 HD and Sky Sport SuperCalcio have chosen us again – indeed, for three years now – for a TV programme based on daily connections from Italian beaches and the main control room in Milan.”
De Gioia refers here to a sports programme entitled Calcio Mercato Estate (Summer Soccer Market), which address the current and future shape of global football.
“Here we have used and will use this year too our OB Van ‘Unit 9’ with a complete satellite uplink [and] three cameras,” De Gioia. “We also built the whole set with audio and lighting.”
Young OB broadcast vehicles are often responsible for major sporting events such as Unit 9 (control room and satellite uplink), which recently recorded images of the ski challenge with the World Cup in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. The workflow saw Young passing the pictures taken from the official broadcaster, sending in all satellite uplinks, and integrating with other cameras that took care of the customisation for Zagreb-based broadcaster HRT.