Fifty Frames (GmbH) on Pioneering Next-Generation Live Event Productions

A seasoned live event production professional, Fifty Frames Founder Christian Heinzel applies chaos theory to his work daily. He thrives on expecting the unexpected across any live event productions his team takes on, seeing each new project as an opportunity to embrace emerging techniques. While his team isn’t afraid of new challenges, they lean on reliable gear to control the elements they can. It’s one reason, Heinzel says, that they use tools like AJA Ki Pro Ultra 12G, FS-HDR, and KUMO 3232-12G. Check out our interview with the industry veteran to find out how he’s leveraging UltraHD, HDR, augmented reality (AR), and SMPTE ST 2110 to deliver standout live event productions and studio installs.

What is Fifty Frames’ specialty?

We’re a boutique live event production shop and installer based out of Germany that works with clients around the world, including luxury car manufacturers, bands, and other organizations with live production needs. Our team envisions the workflow, secures the technology to execute it, provides the crew, and either carries out the production or ensures the client’s studio is production ready. As a boutique shop, we’re nimble and can dive head-first into new tech as it emerges. We love what we do and that our clients trust us to establish the workflow and techniques required to transform their visions into realities.

Walk us through a typical day on the job. 

There is no average day because there’s no copy and paste in live event production. Each day, each job is unique and brings new challenges. Some weeks, we’re working from home. Others, we’re in the warehouse prepping for a job or on the road servicing clients. Whatever we’re doing, I try to have the best kit available. Although this involves a lot of advance research, when we arrive at the venue, we’re ready to kick off a show; we pull the equipment out of the truck, plug in the cables, and are up and running in under 15 minutes. 

How did you end up at Fifty Frames?

I entered the video business nearly 30 years ago as an engineer and launched Fifty Frames in 2015. I’ve witnessed the transitions from analog to SDI, SD to HD, and, more recently, HD to UltraHD. I started doing UltraHD productions before UltraHD switchers were even available because I figured out a workaround to make them possible. Today, Fifty Frames has all the necessary UltraHD equipment, and we’re looking to move over to SMPTE 2110.

Why the focus on SMPTE ST 2110? Are you exploring other IP approaches as well? 

Our goal is to deliver an uncompressed or nearly uncompressed full resolution native signal flow to maintain full production quality from start to finish with the lowest possible latency. Since our work is live, if an artist on stage claps, but the picture on the LED screen behind them is delayed, the audience will notice. We always try to ensure that the production signal gets to the LED screen pixel by pixel without any resizing or unnecessary processing in between. 

SMPTE ST 2110 enables us to work as we would with SDI, with no compression. All that said, 2110 can be complex. We planned to do a recent project on it but ran out of time. Instead, we opted for 12G-SDI and tools like the AJA Ki Pro Ultra 12G recorder, FS-HDR HDR converter, and KUMO 3232-12G router. They made the setup simple, especially given the short time we had. We’re all about finding the best approach to each project, so we’ve used 12G-SDI, NDI, Dante AV, and now 2110. We just wrapped up an NDI studio design for a corporate client. 

Is there a recent project that stands out in your mind? 

In August, we took on an UltraHD HDR production for a German punk band that included more than ten cameras. It was a massive event, but the recording aspect was secret. Even 95% of the crew had no idea what was going on. The band’s management team designed it this way after performance anxiety ruined the last few performances they were trying to capture for a DVD recording. By the end of the show, we’d captured 75 terabytes of UltraHD HDR footage using 14 Ki Pro Ultra 12Gs and purposely turned our rack around so that the band wouldn’t spot it. Ki Pro Ultra 12G was an easy decision for the project because I’ve used Ki Pro devices for years without issue. They’re always in my production and studio designs because they’re reliable and affordable, especially compared to other options on the market.   

Ki Pro Ultra 12G is also ultra flexible. I can do a single channel of UltraHD or multiple channels of HD recording. I can record eight HD camera feeds with just two Ki Pro Ultra 12Gs, which saves a ton of rack space. It’s so intuitive that I don’t need a dedicated specialist for it, which isn’t the case with all gear. Most importantly, I can easily access it from rental houses when a production requires more than the ten units I keep on hand. I know it will be easy to secure the units because they’re popular in the production circuit.

What else made the project memorable? 

We started planning a year ahead for the three-day event. It took place in a massive venue on a former airfield in Berlin, and more than 150,000 people turned out for it. When we got the first drawings of the stage and the LED screens, we realized just how massive it would be. We knew we’d need to do something really special because it wasn’t a traditional concept. 

Because of the UltraHD screens, we opted to go all in on UltraHD and tap into HDR to give it that extra visual appeal. As the recording was secret, we had to strategically place the cameras, some on the roof of the airfield towers and others in less visible spots. Due to the lighting situation, which included changes from bright to dark, and a lot of effects that you normally don’t see, SDR wasn’t an option because we’d need camera shaders all the time. HDR, on the other hand, gave us a bigger dynamic range, so we could see there was a lot of light, but it wasn’t overexposed. 

We used a mix of broadcast grade and remote UltraHD cameras, an UltraHD switcher, FS-HDR, Ki Pro Ultra 12Gs, and a host of other kit. Because of the mixed camera situation, we had to match them. We used AJA’s FS-HDR to align the HDR and color settings on the remote cameras to the broadcast grade cameras; the device is absolutely brilliant in that respect. It’s truly a Swiss Army knife for color conversion.

What other projects can you tell us about? 

We worked on the Frankfurt Motor Show back in 2019. The production stage for the event covered a big area and featured massive UltraHD HDR LED screens, and we created the end-to-end HDR production chain. Along the way, we encountered an issue because the media servers only had HDMI and display port outputs, so we couldn’t transport the HDR signal. Over drinks, one genius member of my team, Oliver Derynck, came up with a solution; we realized that if we could convert the signals of the media server to 12G-SDI and run it through an FS-HDR, we could then tell the signal that it is HDR and run it through the switcher. We tested it out, and it worked, so we were able to retain the HDR metadata. It provided a simple solution to a complex challenge. A few years after that project, we supported a big AR production with 8 UltraHD cameras, all with an AR render client, to create a massive virtual stage, and we used AJA FS-HDR and Ki Pro Ultra recorders on the project. 

Is there any other kit you use often across productions? 

Routing is always a need, and we often use KUMO 3232-12G SDI routers. They’re an affordable way to get signals where they need to go, whether to the shaders or for monitoring needs. KUMO 3232-12G does what it’s supposed to do well, and it’s reliable, unlike routers from other companies I’ve encountered. The usability is also perfect. You don’t have to study the manual in-depth to operate it. That’s important because my team doesn’t have time to fiddle around with equipment. We need our gear to work. 

When producing augmented reality projects, we also use Unreal Engine for real-time rendering on machines that we built in house with integrated AJA Corvid 44 12G cards for I/O. We’ve done a few projects with Zero Density, and they’re a lot of fun, even though the workflow is a bit different. Our systems for these are presently baseband SDI, but the goal is to move them to SMPTE ST 2110. 

What trends are you following and why? 

SMPTE ST 2110. There’s still a reluctance among some in the industry to embrace IP because their engineers aren’t used to IP networking. I tell those people that if you really look into SMPTE ST 2110 or other IP protocols, once you’re set up, your main engineer will be able to work on IP as he would with baseband SDI, and I might argue even better. IP introduces a whole host of benefits, from a reduction in equipment volume to substantial power and performance gains. Less equipment means a lighter load for travel, and with the right IP router, I can easily get 400 UltraHD signals using a 1RU device, which is amazing. Next year, I think we’re going to see a lot more SMPTE ST 2110 products from manufacturers like AJA. 

What advice would you offer those just getting started in live event production? 

Be passionate. With concert productions, audiences are paying to see the artist perform, so as a live event production professional, it’s your job to make sure they have a memorable experience. The days are long, and you have to give 110 percent. You’re also responsible for ensuring there is a record of the event; if your recording fails, there’s no way to get that experience back. That’s why it’s so important for you to invest in good equipment. It’s also annoying if your technology isn’t working right. Proper preparation can go a long way in preventing this, but you also must be ready for curve balls because things happen.

About Ki Pro Ultra 12G 

Ki Pro Ultra 12G is a multi-channel Apple ProRes® recorder offering up to four channels of simultaneous HD recording, or a single channel of 4K/UltraHD/2K/HD Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHR® recording/playback. Portable or rackmountable with half rack wide, 2RU dimensions, the device boasts 12G-SDI single cable simplicity for large rasters up to full 4K and HDMI 2.0 digital video connectivity, with HDR recording/playback support. Extensive analog and digital audio connectivity ensures teams can answer nearly any project demand, and for distance or remote workflow needs, 12G and 3G Fiber SFP+ options are available. Ki Pro Ultra 12G also offers the ability to record genlock free sources with frame sync support on inputs.

About FS-HDR 

FS-HDR is a powerful universal converter/frame synchronizer designed specifically to meet the High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG) needs of broadcast, OTT, production, post, and live event AV environments, where real time, low latency processing and color fidelity is required for 4K/UltraHD and 2K/HD workflows. Developed in partnership with Colorfront, the FS-HDR’s HDR/WCG functionality is powered by the Colorfront Engine proprietary video processing algorithms.