OmniScope Featured Story: From the Super Bowl to Taylor Swift

October 8, 2024

'OmniScope Featured Story':

From the Super Bowl to Taylor Swift:

Funicular Goats Deliver Live Cinematic Multi-Cam Events with Nobe OmniScope


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In the fast-paced world of multi-camera productions, Funicular Goats has become a trailblazer, pushing the boundaries of live workflows by blending cinema-grade visuals with broadcast-level efficiency. Known for transforming live events into cinematic experiences, the company has worked on the world’s most iconic pop music performances, including Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Billie Eilish’s 66th Grammy performance, and the last four Super Bowl halftime shows (featuring Usher, Rihanna, The Weeknd, and more.)

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The team at Time in Pixels were thrilled to learn that Digital Imaging Specialist Adam Lighterman and the team at Funicular Goats rely on Nobe OmniScope to help bring stunningly unique looks to live events. We caught up with Adam to learn more about this specialized field of “cinematic multi-camera production”.


Hi Adam, thanks for chatting! Where are you from and how did you get started doing color for live video productions?

Hey, Time in Pixels team! I was born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. My mother was a television producer, so I grew up being on film sets. I knew from an early age that I wanted to work in the industry. There’s actually pictures of me at 4 years old looking through the viewfinder of an Arri 435!

I got started in my teens by interning at a camera rental house called Cine Video Tech and then worked at a company called VER/Cineverse – cutting my teeth as a prep tech and QCing cine and broadcast gear.

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The rental houses graciously let me take out the original RED and Alexa cameras to shoot short films and music videos. I quickly learned that you needed to grade the footage to make it look good. It was an instant spark! I fell in love with color and image science and went on to work as colorist on a variety of music videos, commercials, and short films. Since South Florida was a small market, I decided to build a DIT cart to use my color skills live grading and creating dailies on TV shows & commercials.

In 2022, I joined Funicular Goats – one of our specialties is utilizing traditional cine-cameras and lenses for broadcast events. I was brought on as their in-house Digital Imaging Technician (DIT) and Video Controller (VC).

You’ve certainly worked on some well known productions recently. What projects have you been the most proud to work on?

I’m definitely proud of all the music videos, commercials and short films that I cut my chops on in my early color grading career. More recently I was given the opportunity to work on the Taylor Swift Eras Tour Feature. Between three DITs (Matt Conrad, Justin Wells, and myself) we live-graded and exposed 30 Sony Venice 2 cameras, 4 Sony FX3s, a drone and a heli-cam.

For the Grammys I was given the unique opportunity to bring in a Venice 2 with a special Otto Nemenz Ottoblads lens to capture the cinematic experience for Billie Eilish’s live performance of “What Was I Made For”. Since it was a single Steadicam shot, we were able to live in our own little cinematic world and not have to worry about matching the broadcast cameras. This allowed me to really focus on creating a custom LUT with a bit of a film print emulation. Not exactly color related, but I was also able to live-detune the Ottoblad prime when we went in for close ups – this increased the focus fall off on the sides creating a beautiful portrait look. I feel this really complemented the performance and distinguished it from the rest of the broadcast.

I’d also like to mention that while working with Funicular Goats I’m always proud to find and recommend new tools, workflows, and efficiencies that can be used on set by DITs and VCs. I’m very fortunate to be in my current position and thankful for the amazing opportunities I've been given. I wouldn’t be here without others paving the way and placing their trust in me. I just want to give them a quick shout out:

James Coker (Funicular Goats, Founder & Tech Producer) has been instrumental in pushing the cine-live market and doing so without failure on some of the highest viewed shows in the world. He has pushed my career further than I thought possible.

Matt Conrad, Jordan Harringman, and Justin Wells are colleagues who were accepting of me into this tiny group of “ Live Cine DITs”. They are my biggest collaborators on advancing our craft.

JM Hurley and Terrance Ho are both broadcast Video Controllers that understand and appreciate the cine-live field. They have taught me so much about color from a broadcast perspective.

We heard that you are using OmniScope in a live setting? What does that look like?

When it comes to live there is “live broadcast”  and “live to tape”. We’ve worked on Concert Films (live and pre taped), Variety Specials, Award Shows, Comedy Specials, and Corporate Keynotes. Funicular Goats does it all and OmniScope is vital in all our workflows.

While pre-lighting a show I have the Vectorscope and RGB parade Waveform taking up the entire screen to help match cameras and lenses and to dial-in key lights (spots) from the lighting team. It is also used to check the LED accent lights for flicker — this can be one of the hardest things to fix in post, and in some scenarios almost impossible without significant image motion degradation.

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I’ll usually record the log signal from a couple cameras during the pre-light and rehearsals, so I can create a custom look for the show in Resolve. I’ll utilize the Vectorscope to help me swing hues to where the LD, DP, and I find pleasing and dial-in the skin tone for our #1 camera.

During the live show I‘ll use the typical scopes, but also have secondary Waveforms and Vectorscopes that are zoomed in, so I can match the neutrals in terms of luminance & color. And I sometimes use False Color as a confidence check for skin tone exposure.

Why do you use software scopes when hardware is generally used in live events ?

While traditional hardware scopes do have their place in broadcast, when it comes to the Quality Control of video signals, none of the customization I need is really possible. Most hw scopes have fairly small screens and I find it can be difficult for critical color and camera matching.

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I would say that for what we need to do as DITs and VCs on-set, Nobe OmniScope is absolutely necessary for our level of live color productions.

What other tools are used in your workflow?

I utilize Pomfort Livegrade on most projects to grade the image via our Aja FS-HDR image processors, and Davinci Resolve to create a look with custom DCTLs. I have to give a shout out to Cyanview RCPs as they have created an amazing interface to control almost every type of camera (and lens) that exists. The RCP can follow the video router, so I have instant access to any camera feed that my main monitor is switched to. I also have multiple Elgato Stream Decks in every setup -  they are essential for video routing within a small form factor using custom coded computer macros. I’ll also use a Tangent Element Kb Panel to grade, as the broadcast trucks are usually very tight. To capture the signal I'll use Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink cards in PCIE enclosures. For reference monitors we utilize SmallHD 22’ OLEDs, they hold their calibrations really well over time. For HDR content, we bring in Sony BVM-X300s — although I'm looking forward to trying out the new Quantum Dot OLED products from Flanders and SmallHD.

When did you start using Nobe OmniScope?

I first found out about Omniscope back in 2020 when the beta was announced. I wanted a replacement for my Convergent Design Odyssey on-set and needed more flexibility than Resolve’s native scopes. I was an instant fan as soon as the beta was released!

There are so many features of OmniScope that make it stand out. As mentioned before, I love the zoom function for the Waveform to get neutrals perfectly matched between cameras and lenses. When I need to make volumetric adjustments I'll open up Resolve to modify the LUT and monitor with the Vectorscope.

During live to tape jobs, and depending on budget, we will only monitor a dirty feed (camera video tap with info overlaid). I’ll utilize the crop function to remove the overlays — as it's usually at 100% white and makes the waveform very “noisy”.

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During pre-lighting I will get the cameras to center frame on a chip chart and then draw a mask around it in OmniScope. Then I quickly switch between cameras and match them via Livegrade. There are variations in how the light is reflected off the chip chart at different angles, but you take what you can get when you only have 10 minutes to match 15 cameras!  It can be a short window — where everything is up and lighting is ready before the talent comes in.

I also love creating custom layouts to quickly switch between my pre-light & live show layout. If I need another type of scope up for a moment, I can always switch very quickly.

Some shows call for clean whites and blacks instead of a split tone look, the new Twin Peaks diamond scope is hands down the best tool to tackle this!

You guys obviously know what you are doing! What do you think makes Funicular Goats so successful at delivering cinematic quality live productions?

There are certain types of live performances, especially concert films and TV specials, that can benefit from a cinematic look versus traditional broadcast. There are many aspects that make up a “cinematic” look including Frame Rate, Lighting, Production Design, Lenses, Camera, and obviously Color.

And most importantly it is the talent involved to make artistic and technical choices and push the boundaries of what’s possible. I think that’s where our team at Funicular Goats shine. We understand the technical intricacies of broadcast workflows and also work closely with the artists to help bring these creative visions to the world.

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Funicular Goats - Custom Remote Van

Thanks for chatting, Adam. To wrap it up, how has your customer experience been with Time in Pixels?

There are very few people like Tom (Tomasz Huczek, founder of Time in Pixels) in this industry. I think the hardest thing to do as a developer or hardware manufacturer is wade through all the noise of feature requests from clients and find the gems that can advance your product without getting jaded. His almost instant responses with customers at all times of the day are something other software engineers should take note of. As with any software there can be bugs, but typically Tom has pushed out fixes within minutes in some cases. I’m a huge fan and appreciative of his hard work & knowledge!

To learn more about Funicular Goats, visit funiculargoats.com