Kala creates the ultimate vehicle for film production with Dejero technology

First Mile Technologies, DIFFERENT y Dejero have joined forces to integrate a vehicle with all the technology necessary for the production of film, television and advertisements.

The film production and dynamic camera movement company Kala ha created an innovative production vehicle capable of performing multiple functions while filming dynamic content on film, television and commercial sets. The workflow is helping to save time and reduce costs by offering the same capabilities that would normally require coordination between three or more moving vehicles and a base camp.

For this project, Kala has joined forces with the integrated connectivity expert First Mile Technologies, who chose to integrate the solutions Dejero in its cutting-edge production vehicle, which has been used for the production of multiple car advertisements, such as Volkswagen, Nissan, Toyota, Lexus y Mercedes. Many of them were filmed in places with network connectivity issues, such as mountain slopes, frozen lakes and remote villages. The Kala vehicle uses mobile transmitters I leave EnGo that combine multiple cellular and/or satellite networks to achieve reliable connectivity for real-time remote collaboration. Live footage is transmitted to geographically distributed creative teams from remote-controlled wireless cameras placed on cranes and booms on moving vehicles and other filming locations.

Dejero WayPoint y GateWay

Images from the cameras are transmitted in real time to a receiver Dejero WayPoint, to a server in the cloud or through the First Mile Web RTC platform. The live video stream can be viewed in a simple browser or through secure video projection applications by creative teams in multiple locations in different parts of the world, or from a central base camp. Directors, editors and agency staff can Collaborate and provide instant feedback and direction to the remote production team on set. The broadcasts are also displayed simultaneously on five monitors inside the vehicle for the production team on location.

On the other hand, First Mile has integrated a network aggregation device GateWay from Dejero to provide resilient mobile broadband Internet access from any location. The GateWay allows fast video and data transfers with a latency of less than one second. Like EnGo, GateWay uses technology Smart Blending of Dejero, which aggregates all available IP networks and dynamically manages bandwidth fluctuations, packet loss, and latency differences of individual connections in real time.

A demanding workflow

Producing car commercials or stunt scenes in locations where network connectivity is limited typically involves a camera vehicle carrying a camera crane, the imaging vehicle, and a chase vehicle. The chase vehicle, in which the directors, producers or agency travel, usually has to follow the camera vehicle close enough to receive a line of sight/short range video transmission to allow creative decision making.

Vinit Borrison, director of photography and founder of DIFFERENT, considers that this paradigm has changed, since its new vehicle addresses all the challenges of this type of productions: "With our new production vehicle, we have been able to combine the camera system, connectivity and creative decision-making functionalities in one; streamlining the entire production and post-production process and facilitating remote collaboration in real time. Being able to broadcast live at any distance, from and to any location changes things."

"Even with the cinematographer on set, there's a chance he'll miss a shot on the day, but having another set of eyes on the camera feeds from a remote editor or client helps us fix any errors on the fly rather than discovering them later. Being able to go live with Dejero's connectivity solutions makes the process a zillion times better," concludes Borrison.