In Relaunch of NFL Network’s Good Morning Football, Remote Virtual Production Workflows Play a Key Role

After moving studios from New York to Los Angeles, the show turned to virtual production specialist Sequin AR

By Jeff Berman, SVG Contributor

When the Emmy Award-winning Good Morning Football relaunched on July 29 after NFL Network’s studio relocated from New York City to Los Angeles, a new remote virtual production workflow played a key role in the show being able to switch seamlessly between each city during its live broadcast.

NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football” returned this summer following a move from New York City to Los Angeles.

After a four-month hiatus, the show, which first debuted in 2016, has returned, with hosts Jamie Erdahl, Peter Schrager, and Kyle Brandt. While Erdahl is hosting from L.A., Brandt and Schrager are splitting their hosting between L.A. and N.Y.C. during the live broadcasts. The hosts are being joined now by ex-NFL defensive end Akbar Gbajabiamila and news reporter Sherree Burruss.

To integrate the two locations seamlessly during the broadcasts, virtual production specialist Sequin AR worked with Embassy Row, which produces Good Morning Football, to create a virtual set in Unreal Engine to be used for the N.Y.C. portion of the show. Meanwhile, E.C. Pro Video Systems built an LED wall studio in the Embassy Row production office in N.Y.C. and All Of It Now was responsible for the tracking, wall calibration and connection to the L.A. control room.

Dan McInerney, Director of Business Development, Sequin AR

Dan McInerney, director of Business Development at Sequin AR noted that E.C. Pro “reached out to us because they had contracted with … Embassy Row, and they were looking for a virtual set, so that’s how we came on board” to the Good Morning Football” project.

Because part of the hosting crew was going to continue to work out of New York, a remote hybrid workflow was required.

The new virtual production workflow that ended up being developed features two large LED walls with an Unreal Engine render system using nDisplay and FreeD for camera tracking, said McInerney.

“When we came on board, we became the system integrators for the virtual production, so basically [that includes] everything outside of the installation of the actual LED walls,” he explained. “What Sequin specializes in is creating the content that goes into the wall,” he pointed out, noting that includes working with Unreal Engine, the 3D content that’s going to make up the virtual studio and the virtual set.

Sequin then contracted with All of It Now, which was “responsible for setting up the actual tech inside of the studio,” he said.

While a team of Unreal Engine artists handled the content, engineers managed the system setup.

Behind the desk at Good Morning Football’s studio set in Los Angeles.

“Developing the hardware system required multiple in-depth meetings with the client’s engineering team to create a solution tailored to Embassy Row’s studio conditions,” said McInerney.

“The entire process, from design implementation to on-location setup, took over two months,” he told SVG, adding testing of the new solution started two weeks before the show’s relaunch.

Advantages

The main advantage of using the new remote virtual production workflow was “being able to seamlessly match the Los Angeles set without needing to build a physical set and not needing to find a large studio to put it in,” according to McInerney.

Also, he said: “The LED wall studio gives the feeling of depth.”

And, last but not least, a lot of money was saved, he noted. Because of the small window of time that NFL Network had before the show relaunched, “they simply may not have had the time to get a physical set ready,” he said.

Good Morning Football used a virtual studio and remote workflows to connect Good Morning Football hosts in New York and L.A.

Challenges

The virtual production workflow includes the broadcast studios in each city working together live, McInerney noted, adding there were challenges specific to the project.

“The LED walls’ render frustum depends on the active render engine, and the L.A. studio controls the camera cuts,” he said. “Therefore, all shot render switching commands are managed by the L.A. studio.”

That, he pointed out, created a challenge: “The long distance between the studios caused significant frame delay issues, requiring extensive fine-tuning and calibration in the virtual production setup to ensure the virtual background displayed in sync.”

Also, because the control room was 3, 000 miles away from the studio, “just making sure that that signal flow was correct – that it was moving fast enough to be able to do that seamlessly” while live – was challenging, he said.

After all, he added: “It was completely live, so everything had to work.”

But he said: “The biggest challenge we faced was coordinating the studio build process within the given timeframe. While the LED walls were being installed by the LED wall provider, our engineers were onsite setting up the render system. This step would normally happen once the LED walls were completed. With many moving parts happening simultaneously, we had to be very flexible and come up with support solutions on the spot to facilitate the process.”