The Pepsi Halftime Show has always been associated with PRG technical and logistical expertise, and this year was no exception. Back for its 22nd year supporting the Halftime Show, PRG provided solutions including lighting, rigging, networking, cameras, broadcast equipment, and truss, along with its tested proprietary workflows to 2022’s big game coverage.
Pre-Show Lighting and Rigging
Once again, team Production Club designed the custom light show and display featured in NBC Sports coverage prior to Sunday’s game. PRG provided lighting and rigging for those moments by way of technical producer Tim Fallon. PRG sent six lighting technicians, a rigger, a fiber networking engineer, and an on-site project manager. The lighting order included six MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles distributed on site and more than 300 fixtures, with the entire system integrated with SoFi Stadium’s internal single mode fiber network.
Twenty-two Solaris Flares and 44 Martin Rush PAR 2s surrounded Zedd for his pre-game DJ set in the end zone. Lighting Designer Griffin Behm lined the tunnels of SoFi Stadium with pipe, drape, and hundreds of sparkling GLP Impression X4 Atoms and Arri Skypanels, which created a paparazzi effect as players exited their locker rooms. As they entered the field, 16 Arrimax Cinema lights on Roadrunner stands went off.
Halftime Cinematic Cameras, Engineering and Remote Control Room
Music’s most-viewed stage hosted a West Coast heavy lineup of hip hop legends including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and Mary J. Blige, along with surprise performances from 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak. PRG was there to elevate and capture the action with a proprietary camera workflow, engineering, and lighting solutions.
Following its successful debut at last year’s halftime show, director Hamish Hamilton, and show producers Jesse Collins and Aaron Cooke, once again turned to PRG’s proprietary 35LIVE!® multicamera system to achieve a stunning visual result. The 35LIVE! workflow replaces a traditional multi-camera approach using 35mm cinema cameras and film lenses, powered by a broadcast engineering and fiber system. For Sunday’s live production, PRG built a control room inside the NFL media center, purpose-built for the Halftime Show feed. The control room featured a large Evertz router system, along with an AJA Kumo router, and FS-HDRs that allowed live color-grading to all 24 of the cameras.
“We used one of our larger flypacks for this event” explains PRG’s Technical Project Manager Brian Barnett. “The Brute system includes an Evertz EQX-16 288 x 862 router, EMR audio router, and VIP-X multiviewers, along with Cobalt UDX & DA’s. Additionally, we had 26 AJA FS-HDRs to provide camera format conversation and apply LUTs for live color grading, which is something you don’t often see in this application.”
The camera order included 2 camera engineers, 13 Sony Venice cameras, an assortment of Fujinon and Canon lenses, and the 35LIVE! lens control and ancillary accessories. DP Dylan Sanford worked closely with Hamilton, Lead Video Operator John Hurley, and DITs Matt Conrad and Terrance Ho to dial in the best look incorporating a live color grade. James Coker, Lead Camera Supervisor, designed a camera workflow that allowed each Venice setup to tie in seamlessly with the control room.
One of the rarer pieces of equipment on the field was a 35-700MM Fuji lens. This one of a kind, super-long 35mm box lens is outfitted with a PL mount and a F2.8 T-stop range (35-315mm) to F4.8 (to 700mm). It fills a very specific need with its longer focal length, allowing the capture of farther distances without sacrificing stop loss when adapting to a B4 box lenses.
PRG’s Morgan Kellum oversaw the camera and control room side working closely with Technical Producer Tim Kubit and Tech Supervisor Chris Sullivan. Kubit and Sullivan had the huge task of connecting the cinema cameras, NBC Broadcast cameras, and other various feeds into several control rooms utilizing (6) Ereca Stage Racer 2 systems and a plethora of multi-channel Tac Fiber provided by PRG.
PRG’s Matt Puthoff managed the Broadcast implementation led by Lead Engineer Warren Chong and Engineer Joe Dalecki who alongside Barnett, were instrumental in handling all ends of the control room. They were supported by PRG’s lead engineer Johnny Bagtatlyan and his team of engineers: Sam Sanchez, Izzy Zuniga, Bobby Arias, Kelly Nixon, Dave West, and Mark Belhumeur.
Lighting
Al Gurdon served as lighting designer for the show and PRG provided a large lighting system for his design, with programming by Eric Marchwinski and Mark Humphrey, and gaffers Alen Sisul and Jason Uchita. With over 600 lighting fixtures, it was a massive amount of gear, including 4 PRG GroundControl™ Long Throw Followspots, all controlled by four MA Lighting grandMA2s and a grandMA2 Lite.
The halftime show is famously set up in approximately six minutes, making it one of the most high-pressure moments in television. With the world watching, there is no room for error. During setup, eight lighting carts were rolled out and positioned on the field. PRG’s Series 400® Power and Data Distribution System, was used to rapidly connect the field carts, ensuring that everything went off according to schedule. In addition to lighting fixtures, each rolling cart housed 1 full and 1 half S400 rack for a total of 144 break out boxes, with the overall system including more than 30 PRG Super Node™.
Here is the Super Bowl LVI Half Time Lighting Network Drawing
“PRG proved that we are at the top of our industry not only in lighting, but also in camera, networking and broadcast” said PRG Global Sales Officer Jens Zimmermann. “We were hired for this job because we bring our decades of expertise from the film, music and sports worlds.”
