The making and technique of ‘La Revuelta’ (RTVE): the greatest “ordered chaos” on television

David Olivares and Antonio Trilla, director and technical director of 'La Revuelta' (Encofrados Encofrasa, The Terrace (The Mediapro Studio)), open the door to the great revelation of the television season, a format of interviews, humor and entertainment that has allowed RTVE rephrase your access prime time and look into the eyes of a format as consolidated as 'El Hormiguero'.

Few could have imagined that that format designed by The Terrace to serve as a breakup duo with the now extinct Late reason of Andreu Buenafuente could have survived it, multiplying its reach and consolidating itself as a cultural phenomenon in just 100 programs on Spanish public television. The Resistance, presented in its genesis as the first late late show of Spain, allowed David Broncano continue to make a place for himself in the humor scene with what would be his second solo project after CrazyWorld, accompanied by a consolidated figure from the world of humor such as Ricardo Castella and the usual acidity of the beatboxer Grisons, who act as pointers like some Statler y Waldorf modern.

The program aired on Movistar Plus+ from February 2018 to July 2024 with a completely aesthetic trash and the goal of making the scarcity, virtue. The first steps of the program, recorded in the small Arlequín Theater in Madrid, allowed it to define an irreverent identity, with the apparently abandoned personality of the comedian from Jaén as the common thread, always surrounded by comedians like Jorge Ponce, also a scriptwriter and director, and a cast of collaborators of the stature of Ernesto Sevilla, Antonio Resines, Ignatius Farray, Pablo Ibarburu, Sergio Bezos and Valeria Ros, among others.

The arrival of The Resistance a Spanish Television, transformed in this new stage with the name of The Revolt, has meant a whole cultural phenomenon. Putting the focus on public and combining the essence of the format with a new approach close to the values ​​of public service of RTVE, the format of Formwork Encofrasa and El Terrat (The Mediapro Studio) boasts of having returned several generations to linear television, while at the same time telling hundreds of thousands of reproductions of his clips in the digital channels.

David Olivares, director, and Antonio Trilla, technical chief, put themselves at the service of the particular nature of the program to overthrow the established principles of television production. Operating from a theater without the technological preparation for the creation of a format of this magnitude, and rethinking the implementation scheme to create a feeling of immediacy, improvisation and surprise, ambos representan la esencia de un medio en transformación que, para agrado de unos y lamentos de otros, enfoca la técnica desde un prisma inimaginable hace apenas una década

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El caos ordenado de The Revolt

Si un espectador de televisión de los albores de la televisión comercial en España saliera de su máquina del tiempo y se encontrara de frente con La Revuelta, ciertamente quedaría desconcertado. Frente a aquellas escenografías cuidadas, la importancia de la fidelidad visual y la certeza de estar asistiendo a un entretenimiento cuidado al milímetro, el formato de RTVE hace virtud de la imprevisibilidad, la improvisación o incluso el fallo técnico.

David Olivares: “The way the management team works seems in a chaotic principle, but it has the things very clear and this is also transmit to us”.

It is true that behind this facade of neglect There is a clear path marked from direction, but Olivares recognizes that this “ordered chaos” is one of the pillars of the format: “The way the management team works seems chaotic at first, but things are very clear and they also transmit this to us.” As the director explains, it is common for the schedule to vary on a day-to-day basis, for things to happen. unplanned interactions and that there is unexpected public reactions, but the team The Revolt He is already "used to it" and is fully involved in this vision: "Everyone knows what they have to do. Although it may seem like chaos due to the music, the script and the audience, in the end everything is aimed at one goal: the content."

This unpredictability is transferred to the technical solutions used. The team led by Trilla lays the technical foundations on traditional broadcast tools, but in the production images from a iPad, mini cameras located in strategic positions, video calls with consumer software or even the comedian pc Miguel Campos, from which he launches memes, again, commenting on the future of the program. "When I entered for the first time they told me that it was a live program, and it's true. As soon as you have something prepared, they tell you to use a specific type of camera or go outside," explains the technical leader.

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Some visual codes in redefinition

He visual and narrative language of The Revolt has been built accompanying the day-to-day interaction of the new generations with technology. The naturalization of pixel, of the failed, of the vertical formats a from static image sneaks into a format without fear of experiment, test, discard and integrate. Olivares points out that this approach was built by the “need” of being immediate and fresh starting from a starting point with limited resources: “Personally, my head was exploding, like many people on the team, to break with established things from other programs,” he explains, taking as an example when David Broncano asked to have control of the EVS from your PC instead of from control.

David Olivares: “It is possible to get used to break the canons of conventional television to establish other things that may be, are perfectly valid and, in fact, are being seen that they work”.

“The Revolt rompe esas estructuras, pero luego te das cuenta de que no pasa nada. El lenguaje está vivo, y es posible acostumbrarse a romper los cánones de la televisión convencional para establecer otras cosas que pueden estar, valen perfectamente y, de hecho, se están viendo que funcionan”, concreta el realizador, añadiendo que perfiles de todas las generaciones They are connecting with this vision: "Now that we have entered Spanish Television, we are seeing that a target of older people is also accepting this type of audiovisual language. For me it is fantastic to know that you can do other things and spend all day thinking about new technologies and how to adapt them to the television language."

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RTVE, non-professionalism and the opportunity for humor

In the stage of The Revolt At Movistar Plus+, the format's management team always highlighted the freedom of work and script offered by the Telefónica platform, which opted for disruptive entertainment who looked at European proposals in their redefinition more than a decade ago. One might think that Spanish Television, due to its position as public service supporter and the high quality standards that have historically accompanied radio and television, could advise, guide or limit the visual and content expression of the format of Formwork Encofrasa. As Olivares confirms, nothing could be further from the truth: “Spanish Television is totally respecting us, both the program, the format and the way of telling things.”3

Antonio Trilla: “Evidently no mistakes are wanted, but of them it is made virtue to give versatility and humor.

This acceptance by the public entity not only transfers to the content line of the program, but also to the technological failures that have accompanied some of their programs. An example was the program in which a connection was made with the National Museum and Research Center of Altamira, whose connection was full of sound cuts and freezes.

Given this situation, David Broncano, Ricardo Castella, Grison and Sergio Bezos They did not miss the opportunity to do humor of the situation, introducing all kinds of jokes: "The good thing about this program is that these technical failures are taken advantage of to create situations. Grison inserts a joke, another type of atmosphere is created and the failure becomes something positive. From there, both the management and Spanish Television do not give us problems in that aspect and they encourage us a lot." Trilla shares his partner's vision: "Obviously you don't want mistakes, but you make a virtue of them to give versatility and humor. It is also a way to professionalize the amateur and create familiarity with the public by using signals that everyone knows."

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A realization built with new references

While David Fernandez, director of The Anthill and heir to the original creation of the format of 7 and Action, recognized the rhythm and use of music from Martian Chronicles, Olivares finds the construction of the realization of The Revolt on all types of windows. The language of podcast and of Internet they mix with the codes of late show to build a unique reference in world television: “We have not focused so much on a specific program, but on many different formats and references.”

David Olivares: “Would I like to have more cameras o move them a lot more? Obviously, but that's what have y we play with it”.

Aun así, Olivares cree que la realización de The Revolt no ha sido construida conscientemente, sino que ha crecido fruto de un particular hándicap: que se priorice más el espectáculo del público que asiste a la grabación que el propio esquema televisivo. En sus propias palabras: “Es un espectáculo televisado. 350 personas vienen todas las noches a disfrutar de un preshow y luego el programa”. Esto hace que la colocación de las cámaras sea distinta al esquema tradicional del plató de televisión para no restringir la visión del público, que la PA tenga que estar alta so that the public hears each joke and that the side screens with which the public can see the audiovisual content are left out of the scheme to avoid feedback.

"Would I like to have more cameras or move them much more? Obviously, but it's what we have and we play with it. We have made a virtue of this situation. Maybe I don't move the cameras, but I do make many more movements and reactions between characters so that the production is more dynamic," highlights the director.

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Theater, condition and opportunity

The Revolt It is filmed in the afternoons from Monday to Thursday in the Príncipe Gran Vía Theater, located just a few meters from the commercial epicenter of Madrid. This decision, inherited from The Resistance, has forced the technology team of The Revolt to deploy cabling, racks and networks in an environment that is not at all prepared for a television deployment. And at the technology level, Trill He considers the deployment as a "small mobile unit": "You have to run cables and fibers throughout all the floors of the building. In addition, you have to take into account that the space has its own actions on weekends, so everything has to be deployed in a way that does not interfere."

With the GLU, electronics and control with exclusively fixed positions for the program, the rest of the elements of the deployment are collected and enabled at the beginning of each week. “The PA is pushed back, the cameras are picked up and put away… The assembly is on Monday morning and it only takes us an hour or an hour and a half,” explains the technical manager.

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A technique prepared to make the leap to 4K

Despite the particularity of this deployment, the technical chief of The Revolt claims the cutting-edge technology with which the format is created. Specifically, eight camera chains are used Sony with three large optics of 90, 40, 22 and 14 mm, and one attached to a scorpion crane. This deployment is completed with the mini cameras Marshall CV360 not remote.

The entire camera chain could be adapted to Outputs a 4K, but Trilla confirms that the rest of the workflow is not designed for these resolutions. However, undertaking the transformation "would not be a very big leap": "The matrix we have is a 72x72. Both it and the mixer would have to be adapted to 4K. The rest of the elements, such as the EVS or the vast majority of cameras, are already prepared for 4K.

In the production room you operate with a table Kahuna 9600 accompanied by multi-screen system Kaleido of Grass Valley, while intercommunication is undertaken with a system RTS with a 64-channel ODIN matrix and Riedel Bolero for wireless ones. The treatment of audio in the theater deserves special mention, an outsourced task that allows the public's reactions, the day-to-day life of the program and musical performances to be captured reliably.

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An express production and post-production

The day to day of The Revolt starts with the mentioned preshow in which Sergio Bezos entertains the audience while the protagonists are selected who will be able to have their moment of glory in the introduction of the program. Around 17:45 the program is recorded at once with a prerealization live led by Olivares with just a break before the interview block.

This pre-assembly, which is complemented by six mastered cameras via EVS, it is sent to the postproducción del programa, ubicado en la parte superior del teatro, para realizar la edición. En el día a día, esta consistirá en recortar 15 o 20 minutos, adecuando el formato a los tiempos de Televisión Española: “Antonio Trashorras se encarga de minutar el contenido en directo, indicando temáticas, bromas y sucesos en un Excel. Al finalizar la grabación, alrededor de las 19:30, se reúne el equipo de dirección para definir los cortes del programa”, explica Olivares.

El montaje final, realizado con Avid Media Composer, tendrá que hacerse en apenas media hora, dado que el formato comienza su emisión a las 21:45 y el envío a Televisión Española se realiza por play and via FTP: "We are quite rushed and some days you notice some cuts that are a little rougher. However, the editing people are used to it and they do an exceptional job every day."

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Controlled improvisation: the essence of The Revolt

One of the moments that has caused the most talk in the first 100 episodes of The Revolt, beyond The roar of the deer in response to external pressures from The Anthill about guest planning, it was the sequence plan with which the Pamplona artist the end presented the single “I have a thought.” Olivares, without detracting from the scope of this action, considers that there is “much more difficult challenges all days"which are the true expression of the format. "The constant improvisation that we have and the maximum alert that we have to follow with the madness of David, Bezos or Grison mean that the entire team remains on alert. If we are not at 100%, this machinery would not work,” explains the director, claiming that challenges arise every day to overcome.

Es ordered chaos, controlled improvisation y almost unpredictable entertainment. Something unimaginable a few decades ago, but palpable and difficult to describe in our days: "Every day I am grateful because I have a great time. Many times I have to tell the cameramen to be careful, because they laugh and the cameras shake, and the same thing happens in control, where sometimes I have to ask for silence. Everything is very good and makes you see that things are being done well."

A report by Sergio Julián Gómez