Medialuso organized a significant technical deployment to produce both tournaments simultaneously from three different countries
GRUP MEDIAPRO once again took on the role of host broadcaster at three EuroBasket venues and delivered the entire production of the AmeriCup for FIBA, the International Basketball Federation. The Federation again called on the group to produce the two international tournaments, with group company Medialuso in charge of simultaneously producing the two sporting events held in three different countries.
The group produced the games for EuroBasket, the top-tier tournament for European men’s national teams which was held between September 1 and 18 in the German cities of Cologne and Berlin and in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. A team of over 100 broadcast professionals from GRUP MEDIAPRO were deployed to the three cities to produce the International signal as well as SuperFeed, an international signal promoted by FIBA and featuring additional content.
The group deployed 3 OB units for the production, with up to 25 HD cameras (final stage in Berlin) at each of the venues, in addition to using a multitude of special cameras (4Sky, Ultra Slow-Motion cameras, Jimmy Jib Cranes, Pole Cams and robotic cameras), adding a DSNG unit to the tech specs to deliver the signal for the games played in these cities to the client.
Simultaneously, GRUP MEDIAPRO was also commissioned as host broadcaster of the AmeriCup, the FIBA basketball tournament that pits the national teams of South America, Central America and North America against each other, held this year in the Brazilian city of Recife between September 2 and 11.
The group was commissioned to handle the production, provide technical crews and deliver the signal for the 26 games played, involving a team of over 60 broadcast professionals working on the tournament using a total of 13 HD cameras as well as several special cameras, including Gimbal with CinemaStyle RF, a crane cam, several Slow-Motion cams and robotic backboard cameras to offer a subjective perspective of the hoop.
A TV3 production in collaboration with El Terrat (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO), directed and written by Tian Riba
TV3 has recently premiered “La pirámide invisible”, a production in collaboration with El Terrat (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO), as part of the “Sense ficció” season and is now available on demand. An average of 423,000 viewers saw the documentary, notching up a 21.3% share, well above the channel’s day average (16.8%).
How is it possible that despite the police keeping a careful eye on their every move that the ballot boxes for the October 1st independence referendum in Catalonia reached their destination" The answer comes in the shape of a pyramid, an invisible pyramid of citizens-purchasers, distributors, and people in charge of looking after them-with three key names involved: Lluís, Marc and Guti. “La piràmide invisible. Les urnes de l’1-O” provides faces and voices for the very first time to some of people who were part of these pyramids and exclusively reveals the names of the independence leaders who were the brains behind the whole operation.
“The French police rang me to ask me why we wanted those 10,000 boxes that were sitting in customs. I’d heard that a human-castle building group were celebrating their 20th anniversary and there would be 10,000 people from around Catalonia coming to celebrate with them. I also thought of telling them that they were for building a huge castle out of boxes and that we would be giving one to all of the participants”. That’s how the boxes arrived in the Catalunya Nord region all packaged up and ready for the vote on October 1st 2017. And the man telling the story is one of the three people who were at the top of the pyramid who made it all possible. A French national, who still uses his undercover name, Marc. Lluís, who was right at the top of the “ballot box” pyramid, got in contact with him. This is the first time that Marc has spoken on television and he did it with his back to the cameras “because I’m one of many”.
With Marc, Tian Riba, the director and leader of the project, visits the main distribution warehouse for the first time in Illa, in Catalunya Nord, where more than 800 ballot boxes were kept, coming in from China at the end of July 2017. They were moved on discreetly via a network of volunteers.
Àngel Baró, from Cadaqués, was entrusted with moving some to Portbou and as a precaution he used labels from the hardware store Leroy Merlin. But nobody asked him any questions. A few days later, a contact in Port de la Selva rang him with delivery details: “Thanks to people like you -he told me- the people can vote. ¡And on the day, it turns out that they were the ones that I had brought over the border! I still don’t know how they got to the polling station”.
Once in Catalonia, the boxes were distributed across 8 main warehouses. The head of the warehouse in Osona reveals that the owner “didn’t know that they were there and he still doesn’t know”. He remembers that hundreds of volunteers were distributed along the roads where the lorries had to drive on the lookout for possible police roadblocks. From the eight main warehouses, the ballot boxes were moved to 40 smaller sites and from there onto a host of unidentified sources and then onto people who had to keep them in their own homes until the day or night of the vote : “I was contacted to pick up nine ballot boxes in a car park and the person who gave them to me told me he didn’t know what I had to do with them”. “They rang me and asked me if I knew someone who I trusted who could help out with something and I said: ‘Yeah, me”. “I got a call and they told me they’ll be bringing me some Catalan sausages and a guy turned up with a car full of ballot boxes covered with a blanket”. These are just some of the accounts of the volunteers who were the final piece in the puzzle. “A lot of them decided to keep them in the boot of their cars”.
The documentary reveals the name of the person who was behind the invisible pyramid of anonymous citizens as well as the name of one of the only three people, from the political parties who knew all the details behind the organization of the operation and who managed the supply of the ballot boxes, voting slips and electoral roll without any heads of each part of the organisation knowing who the others were or what their jobs were.
With the help of journalists who have investigated the organization of the referendum vote and published their accounts, the documentary reconstructs the map of the clandestine organisation of the vote and discovers the secrets behind the operation which involved members of the public and which despite all the obstacles placed in its way allowed the ballot boxes to appear in the polling stations on the day of the vote on October 1st.
To see the “La piràmide invisible” on demand
The opportunities generated by the World Cup this year and the interest in sports of the content platforms, among the topics discussed by Jaume Roures during his presentation
GRUP MEDIAPRO was one of the key speakers at the World Football Summit (WTF), football’s showpiece event which is currently being held in Seville. Jaume Roures, the group head, took part as a key-note speaker in a presentation which took place yesterday and which was chaired by business and sports journalist, Marc Menchen. The World Cup Qatar 2022, different TV models and live sports were some of the topics discussed.
Jaume Roures outlined how the holding of the World Cup in Qatar at the end of the year “is an excellent opportunity to confirm that this type of competition work because there is no other live sport happening at the same time, no other football, no Formula 1 or mass sporting events and as a consequence it’s a time of huge advertising investment. At this time of the year, it can generate stable audiences which are difficult to achieve in the summer months”. In addition, Jaume Roures reminded the audience that live sports content is “the only sports content capable of capturing audiences with no spoilers, with outcomes unknown until the referee blows the final whistle”.
He also spoke about the interest of content platforms in sports: “Everyone is looking for subscribers, now the battle is with fiction but live sport is key to attracting eyeballs”. Discussing public television, he commented upon its different role from private networks, “but without audiences, their reason to exist disappears. Football is one of the few things which provides consensus and maybe the public administrations should pay more attention to sport on television and go beyond coverage of the Olympic Games”.
The Athletic Club Museum - Tour San Mamés, recognized as the best attraction at the Remarkable Venue Awards
Two projects which have seen GRUP MEDIAPRO involvement have picked up awards at the Remakable Venue Awards, from more than 200 nominees in Spain across 7 award categories. Mirador torre Glòries was given the innovation award and the Athletic Club Museum - Tour San Mamés won the best attraction award. The awards which have been running since 2017 highlight the very best attractions and museums from around the world chosen by the users of the activity ticket platform Tiqets.
Mirador torre Glòries, the most innovative site
Mirador torre Glòries, a MERLIN Properties initiative and developed by Mediapro Exhibitions is a new cultural and leisure landmark in Barcelona. Coinciding with the Mercè Barcelona City Festival, this multi -activity space sold out all viewing tickets over the weekend. Mirador torre Glòries which blends art, science and technology permanently opened to the public in May. It offers exclusive views of the city and reinterprets the traditional concept of a look-out and hosts the only permanent collection of Tomás Saraceno art in Southern Europe offering multi-sensorial experiences as well as a temporary collection from the same artist.
Mirador torre Glòries came about following a request from MERLIN Properties, the owner of the Torre Glòries, to Mediapro Exhibitions to come up with a look-out over the city which would make the most of the exceptional views from the top of the building designed by the architects Jean Nouvel and Fermín Vázquez and which opened in 2005. Mediapro Exhibitions developed an innovative project which provides a unique and different experience, with the goal of turning it into a local and international landmark. The project teams designed and produced a space which offers a combination of leisure and culture with a clear emphasis on contemporary themes and rooted in the times. MERLIN Properties also teamed up with Mediapro Espais for the management of the attraction.
Athletic Club Museum - Tour San Mamés, best attraction
Mediapro Exhibitions was also behind the development of the audiovisual and interactive content of the Athletic Club Musuem, which opened in 2017 and which won the award in the best attraction category. Fans can enjoy up to 13 different interactive stations with a total of 590 videos and 11 audiovisual displays. A 50-strong team took part in the project.
A docu-thriller about the man from Barcelona considered the world’s biggest art forger
“Oswald. El falsificador” is a documentary film directed by the Goya-winning filmmaker, Kike Maíllo, shot in the United States, Italy and Spain. Viewers are introduced to Oswald Aulestia Bach, the Barcelona artist on the US Justice Department’s most-wanted list for being one of the cornerstones of the “Operation Artist” case, an FBI investigation, with the support of the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Italian Carabinieri, to catch the people behind one of the biggest art forgery gangs of the last few decades. “The forger” provides firsthand accounts of a life of excess, petty crime and deceit which has seen him rub shoulders with some of the art world’s most famous faces.
“Oswald. El falsificador” forces us to reflect on the concepts of what is original and what is a forgery, reality, legend, truth and lies. Different people who were close to him, as well as the authorities involved in Operation Artist and two figures who went to prison as a consequence of their links with the case (the Italian merchant Elio Bonfiglioli and the American Michael Zabrin) help viewers to understand the multi-faceted man who hid behind glasses and a moustache and defined himself as a“cowboy”, a cynic and a likeable rogue who drew people in with his personality and the mystery of his past.
Filmin will premiere the film on the platform and in cinema theatres under the new Filmin Original stamp, “Oswald. El falsificador”, produced together with Playtime Movies, Sábado Películas and with the support of El Terrat (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO), Televisión Española, Televisió de Catalunya, ICEC and ICAA.
“Oswald. El falsificador” is a project made up of a film and a 3-part series. The feature-length film is set to premiere in cinemas and on Filmin on September 30th and the series is slated for release in the first few months of 2023.
Mediapro Argentina is producing and generating the broadcast feed for the 32-match tournament
GRUP MEDIAPRO is the host broadcaster for the Conmebol Libertadores Futsal Championship, the international five-a-side competition which sees the best clubs in South American taking part.From last Saturday, the group has been working on the production of a total of 32 matches, 6 a day, generating the feed in Spanish and Portuguese as well as the distribution for the entire American continent.
For the production project, which is taking place in the Malvinas Argentinas Stadium in Buenos Aires from September 24 to October 2, Mediapro Argentina is using an OB van and 12 cameras, including a super slow motion camera among them.
Conmebol has teamed up with GRUP MEDIAPRO again, with its proven track record in events of this type and since 2018, it has been responsible for the international distribution of the Conmebol Libertadores, South American Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup producing in that time more than 1,000 matches and 15,000 hours of content for the client.
With it base in Buenos Aires, GRUP MEDIAPRO has been present in the Argentine market for more than 15 years with business units specialising in the provision of audiovisual services, innovation, the development of new digital formats and content production.
Mediapro Argentina has a 650 strong staff, its own production facilities and a fleet of OB vans which provide audiovisual services for the management of sports channels and take part in high-profile sporting events such as the Pan-American and Para-Pan-American games, Conmebol, CONCACAF and Copa America competitions, among others.
