ARRI Hi-Motion Footage Lands Sportel Award

Super slow motion footage shot with the Hi-Motion camera system, which can record images at up to 600 fps in full HD resolution, has won a Golden Podium award at this year’s Sportel convention in Monaco. Andy Hayford, ARRI Media’s Digital High-Speed Manager, accepted the award on behalf of SKY Sports and director Mike Allen, who came top in the ‘Best Cut/Edited Slow Motion Shot’ category for his edited sequence of the 2008 Ryder Cup.

With an inventory of 10 Hi-Motion camera systems, ARRI Media is the biggest supplier in the world and Sky Sports is its biggest Hi-Motion client. In 2007 ARRI Media helped to develop a unique approach to Sky’s slow motion digital coverage of the Solheim Cup, the premier event in women’s international golf.

“The director wanted the high speed camera to travel quickly between numerous locations around the 18-hole course,” explains Hayford. “We built the Hi-Motion into a golf buggy that ran off batteries powering the system through an inverter and did the replays via an RF link from the buggy back to the OB trucks. The buggy was completely mobile and self-contained; it worked very well.”

Mike Allen wanted to use the same setup for SKY Sports coverage of the US Open in June 2008, so ARRI Media passed on the technical configurations to Fletcher Chicago, a Hi-Motion supplier based in Chicago. This proved such a success that SKY put in the same request for the Ryder Cup in September and it was footage captured from the specially adapted Hi-Motion buggy at this event that won Allen his Golden Podium award.

“The team of cameraman, engineer and producer worked really hard to move the system that was built into a golf buggy around the course for three days to get the dramatic and emotive Hi-Motion shots that were then put into this gorgeous sequence,” says Hayford. “I was honored to accept the Podium D’Or on behalf of SKY Sports.”