In recent years, the broadcast industry has increasingly incorporated processes traditionally associated with cinema in order to offer audiences more immersive experiences in environments that previously relied on rigid production models.

A recent example was the inauguration of the Sagrada Família’s Tower of Jesus Christ by Pope Leo XIV. The 3CAT team, led by Paulí Subirà and joined by cinematographer Domènec Gibert AEC and technical director Hector Sole-Bradshaw, delivered an iconic live broadcast with a distinctly cinematic aesthetic, built around a multicamera setup using Sony’s Cinema Line.

Beyond documenting a historic event live, the team sought to tell a story through light, color, lenses and movement, while working in an environment where unpredictable factors were unavoidable.

Paulí Subirà’s expertise and project manager Hector Sole-Bradshaw’s technical knowledge provided the framework for translating Igor Cortadellas’ creative and artistic direction and Juanjo Saunier’s lighting design to the screen.

Using a cinematic workflow based on the experience developed on ‘Mar I cel’ (2025), cinematographer Domènec Gibert AEC devised a hybrid lighting and camera approach for an audiovisual production that combined live material with previously recorded footage.

We spoke with Domènec and Hector about these challenges and about the evolving role of the cinematographer within this new form of cinematic broadcasting.

By Carmen V. Albert and Juan Esparza Cevallos

INTERVIEW WITH DOMÈNEC GIBERT AEC, CINEMATOGRAPHER

Where did the need to bring a cinematographer onto this project come from?

The way we worked on this project was different from a conventional live television event because it was a hybrid approach that tried to take the best from both worlds.

Once you start working with cinema cameras and color-grading processes, the role of the cinematographer becomes necessary because broadcast professionals are not always familiar with some of those workflows. Having someone who understands both worlds makes the whole process much more efficient.

A useful reference was an earlier project, ‘Mar I cel’ by Dagoll Dagom. Although it was not broadcast live, the system was essentially the same because the process involved recording, grading and producing a final HDR master for both television and theatrical exhibition, with different color corrections.

Unlike the Sagrada Familia project, on ‘Mar I cel’ we had time to manage the material, although we still had the pressure of a live performance because it was theatre.

How did you collaborate with the rest of the team?

Although the cinematographer interacts with the entire crew, responsibilities were divided between several departments.

For example, the exterior areas were lit by lighting designer Juanjo Saunier, while the interiors of the Sagrada Família were handled from a cinematography perspective.

Alongside director Paulí Subirà, who was really the driving force behind the project, there was another key figure: Hector Sole-Bradshaw, whose responsibility was to make sure the broadcast worked successfully.

There had to be complete understanding between us in order to define what equipment we needed, what we wanted to show, how we wanted to reach the audience and how to ensure that the prerecorded material would be compatible with the live images.

There was also a post-production component led by Xavi Bonet and a color-grading component handled by Eva Parra.

In addition to the CineAlta cameras, you also used Sony PTZ cameras. How did you configure the system? What kind of testing did you carry out?

There was a considerable amount of pre-production because the Sagrada Família is not an easily accessible location and you have to respect the basilica’s rules when filming there.

For the camera setup we used Mar i cel as a reference. We worked with Sony’s FX line because it allowed us to shoot the interiors in S-Log3, particularly the sequences involving the Liceu orchestra and the upper section of the Tower of Jesus Christ.

The live broadcast itself was produced in HDR using HLG. That meant all the prerecorded logarithmic material had to go through the grading suite and be matched to a live broadcast that had not yet taken place.

We used FX6, VENICE 2 and FR7 cameras. The FR7 is essentially an FX6-style camera built as a PTZ unit, which meant we could position it in areas that were difficult to access and operate it remotely.

The FX6 and FR7 cameras were fitted with Sony FE PZ 28-135mm F4 lenses, while the VENICE 2 cameras used Fujinon Duvo 25-1000mm, 14-100mm and 24-300mm lenses, allowing us to take full advantage of the full-frame sensor.

The operators really appreciated how well the Sony cameras and Fujifilm lenses worked together, particularly given the considerable shooting distances involved.

When did you use the Sigma High Speed lenses?

We used those lenses for the Liceu orchestra, the organ sequence and the light travelling upwards through the interior of the Sagrada Família.

We also used an Inspire 3 drone fitted with an 18mm lens.

In broadcast, you normally have lenses with extremely long focal ranges, but that kind of equipment is not generally available for cinema cameras.

What made this project viable was having PL-mount cinema zooms with a generous focal range, together with cameras offering very high sensitivity.

That 25-1000mm zoom, for example, allowed us to get a close-up of the Pope.

For Juanjo Saunier, lighting a basilica such as the Sagrada Família while still giving us a workable stop was extremely difficult.

Entertainment lighting fixtures are designed so that the human eye can enjoy the show, but the actual quantity of light they produce can be relatively low for a camera working at 800 ISO.

Being able to run the VENICE 2 at 4000 ISO and the Sony FX6 at 12,800 ISO gave us enough exposure to broadcast the event.

“What made this approach viable was having highly sensitive cameras together with long-range PL-mount cinema zooms.”

In a space where you cannot really intervene, what fixtures did you use?

Inside the Creuer space, where we used a cinema camera with prime lenses, the idea was to use cinema lighting equipment as well.

In other areas, both inside and outside, we used automated fixtures positioned on the ground because some of the low-angle shots of the Sagrada Família involved distances of around 70 metres.

For example, we needed to backlight the stained glass, which was extremely dense, so we needed a very powerful source for the night shoot.

Access to the Creuer space was via a service lift that did not reach all the way up, so we had to carry some of the equipment by hand. That made it impossible to use large fixtures.

The sensitivity of the cameras, however, allowed us to work with very low light levels and use tubes and Astera AX9 fixtures.

To create the effect of a wave of candlelight entering the basilica and then travelling upwards, we used a Robe iForte LTX fixture capable of producing a beam that travelled around 65 metres. There really isn’t any conventional cinema lighting equipment capable of creating that kind of effect.

That reminds me of The Brutalist, where moving lights were used to illuminate a star high inside the building because of the distance involved and the need for a very powerful source. These fixtures seem to be appearing more and more often on film sets.

Yes. In fact, lighting consoles traditionally associated with television or entertainment lighting are increasingly common on film sets. Many LED fixtures now require someone operating a console or an iPad.

I think that kind of lighting-control philosophy has already become fully integrated into film production.

What was your role during the live broadcast? How did you coordinate with the rest of the team?

I was in the OB truck alongside the director, Hector Sole and the camera-control team.

I listened to the director’s instructions because anything can happen during a live broadcast and plans can change at any moment.

I was also monitoring the HDR display together with Hector because we were delivering both HDR and SDR signals.

By that stage, however, most of my work had already been done. My role was mainly to check that everything was working properly.

In that respect, the system is not very different from a conventional live television production.

If something fails, the director’s experience becomes even more important because they have to solve the problem without the viewer noticing.

It was not Paulí’s first time working at the Sagrada Família, and he has an exceptional ability to deal with unexpected situations.

Hector Sole is also extremely capable when it comes to managing a project like this, where the level of involvement was much greater than usual.

There are things you simply cannot control, but we were able to make sure that the entire camera and broadcast system was functioning correctly.

Timing also has a major impact on lighting. You might have one day to rig, one day to test and one day for the live broadcast. But those windows often become even shorter because on the test day you may not be able to check everything you intended to.

And because it stayed light until quite late, we were unable to see the basilica lighting under the actual conditions in which we would be working.

That was one of the greatest complexities of the project: having to imagine what we were going to photograph without ever having been able to see it under the real conditions.

Ultimately, you have to make many decisions based solely on your experience and make sure you do not under-spec anything, because once you go live there is no longer any room to fix it.

“One of the greatest challenges was imagining what we were going to photograph —and getting it right— without ever having been able to test it under the actual conditions.”

How did elements such as pyrotechnics affect your exposure strategy?

We were able to test the movement and color of the drones beforehand and measure their light levels.

For obvious reasons, however, we could not test the fireworks.

My recommendation was therefore that they should not go too high and that there should not be too many of them, otherwise they would simply become a ball of fire.

The advantage of HDR is that it allows the signal to retain information within those very bright areas that would disappear in SDR.

If you watch it on YouTube in HDR, the fireworks do not become a featureless ball of white.

I think it worked very well, because there is no real way of calculating the intensity of one hundred or two hundred fireworks in advance and determining exactly what aperture you will need. Nor could we make an iris adjustment at that precise moment.

How did you approach color on the project?

When we recorded the interiors, we carried out a color correction that was then used to generate another LUT, which was ultimately incorporated into the live material.

Every camera also had physical filtration in front of the lens.

That was another way of differentiating ourselves from traditional broadcast and creating what we call Cinema Live: using the expertise of live-television professionals and combining it with tools and techniques developed for cinema.

What was the biggest challenge for you personally?

Because I had to rely heavily on experience and work with entertainment lighting, the main challenge was making sure we used cameras capable of producing an interesting, spectacular image without noise, taking into account the light levels, sensitivity and working stop.

What do you think about cinema manufacturers such as ARRI and RED developing their own Live product lines?

The RCPs we use at 3CAT are Sony, so integrating products from the same manufacturer is obviously easier. But every manufacturer, including RED, has very good systems.

One of Sony’s strengths is that it has developed small cameras that can easily be integrated into the chain. The new FX5, for example, now incorporates a RAW LT codec. A camera such as the FX5 or FX3 allows you to do what we did on Mar i cel, where we had an operator dressed as a pirate carrying a camera that was virtually invisible, while still being very easy to match with cameras such as the VENICE or BURANO.

INTERVIEW WITH HECTOR SOLE-BRADSHAW, PROJECT MANAGER

You were responsible for the technical direction of this project. What is your background in productions of this kind?

My profile is essentially that of someone who can oversee the entire end-to-end process across all departments.

I originally trained as a camera operator and I work with my own Sony VENICE. I started out shooting news reports and current-affairs material, but these days I work mainly on high-end, specialist projects.

Since 2020, I have also worked on the technical implementation of international events such as the Olympic Games, the World Cup and UEFA competitions.

I also provide consultancy for platforms such as Amazon Prime and international streaming projects in areas related to image engineering.

That is why Paulí, the director of the project, called me to handle project management —a role encompassing all departments, including cinematography, equipment, operations, workflow and process implementation.

How did you design the workflow to integrate all the equipment from beginning to end?

My role on this project was slightly different because I coordinated departments such as engineering, cinematography and color, but I did not interfere with their work unless something put Paulí and Igor Cortadellas’ creative proposal at risk.

My position was essentially in the middle. In a way, Paulí and Igor were my clients, while the television departments were the teams I worked with to make that vision happen.

It was also important to get the best from every specialist because we wanted to create a different aesthetic using tools and technology that are not common in television.

At the same time, all of that technology had to work flawlessly during a live international broadcast. Failure was simply not an option.

A very important part of the concept was using the full-frame sensor from capture all the way through transmission without any crop.

That meant choosing the right lenses and placing the cameras differently from conventional broadcast cameras because the zoom ranges available with full-frame coverage are far more limited than those used in television.

So we had to work through those issues with the cinematographer, explain them to the director and find bespoke solutions without compromising the technology, the cinematography or the color.

And all of that had to operate within a UHD HDR workflow. “A very important part of the concept was maintaining full-frame capture all the way through to transmission.”

Was it difficult to deliver both signals simultaneously?

Delivering HDR and SDR simultaneously is very common in broadcast. That is quite different from cinema, where you have the time and the advantage of producing two separate grades.

In television you cannot do that because you work within a horizontal UHD HDR workflow.

HDR is the master workflow —hence the term Single Master— and from that you derive the secondary SDR format.

It is essentially an automated version of a trim pass. The difference here was that the camera-control technicians were not making the kind of detailed image adjustments they normally would in television.

They were concentrating primarily on exposure and white balance. It is similar to what happens in cinema when we work in Log or RAW. We do not necessarily configure the camera matrix or make final color decisions on set. Instead, we concentrate on getting exposure and white balance right.

Many of the creative decisions are now made in the grading suite before the project begins.

What the camera-control operators effectively monitor is an SDR image generated through the same LUT the programme uses to derive the SDR output. This is the workflow currently used for most major international HDR events.

Ideally, you would create completely separate HDR and SDR versions, but on a technically complex live production this approach allows you to deliver two well-balanced formats.

Domènec mentioned the need to reconcile two things: making the live broadcast look beautiful while also making the event spectacular for the people watching it in person. It reminds me somewhat of shooting on film, where you have to imagine what the exposure and stop will look like because you cannot prepare or rehearse the exact conditions beforehand.

Yes. In that respect, we are almost going back to the origins of cinematography.

You have to think of it as a night-time show containing specific lighting elements within a defined dynamic range.

It is similar to the way we approached film, where what mattered was the relationship between different elements, which naturally led us to think in terms of contrast ratios.

In this case, the concept was that the temple would be illuminated from the inside out.

Outside, we also had people —including the children’s choir, who carried practical lights illuminating their faces— and an audience that also had to be lit.

So we had to think about those contrast relationships, their relative importance and which elements should carry the greatest intensity.

The conceptual idea was the light of all the generations that have witnessed the construction of the Sagrada Família.

They illuminate the temple from outside towards the inside, and then the light travels upwards until it illuminates the cross.

The intensity and contrast ratio of that light are therefore fundamental.

This is very similar to shooting a multicamera scene on set because several cameras are looking at the same element from different angles and all of them have to preserve the same contrast relationships.

But alongside contrast we also had to consider color temperature.

Some lights were whiter, while others were warmer on faces.

There were also moments dominated by blue light that were particularly difficult to photograph.

How did the creative process of establishing the look work?

Once the conceptual proposal had been presented to us through a render, we had to turn it into reality using several different camera systems.

Working with an FX6 is not the same as working with an FR7 or a Sony VENICE.

We were also using several variable-focal-length lenses, some of which lost light over certain parts of the zoom range, while some cameras used hybrid Sony stills lenses because they had to be controlled remotely.

All of that had to work without cropping the sensor, with many cameras operating at ISO 25,000.

There was also no conventional color correction during the production, and we could not apply noise reduction.

Before the shoot we decided to introduce two additional elements that made the workflow more complex but which we knew would make a major contribution to the image.

We wanted the picture to have a color look that was clearly different from the camera’s native image because, after all, we were also telling the story of something happening live.

Domènec, Xavi Bonet, Paulí, Eva —the colorist— Diego at V1 and I had many discussions about what actually defines a “cinematic” look.

We concluded that highlights needed a chroma-free roll-off, that the mid-range curve had to be shaped according to how we wanted to tell the story visually in the grading suite, and that the blacks needed a different treatment.

We also noticed that halation in the highlights has become a very common characteristic associated with a filmic look.

That led us to filter the image physically, which is unusual in television.

We first developed the look in the grading suite and generated a LUT.

That LUT was then incorporated into the HDR workflow for the live broadcast, allowing us to create a clear distinction between the true-to-life sections and the more narrative moments.

That transition takes place once the Pope sits down, the lights go out and we enter the narrative world.

At the end of the show, the look created in the grading suite disappears and we return to true to life.

Where does the term “true to life” come from?

It comes from television, particularly sports broadcasting. Essentially, it means presenting what is happening as realistically as possible, almost as though the viewer were physically there.

That does not mean you cannot make the image visually appealing, but you cannot make it radically different from reality either.

For example, the Pope’s white clothing needs to reproduce as a technically neutral white because that is how we imagine that pure, liturgical white.

During the final part of the performance, however, before we return to true to life, the Pope is no longer neutral white.

He becomes warmer and more orange because the entire show adopts that look, creating a greater distinction between the different lighting elements appearing throughout the performance.

I found that particularly interesting because you cannot normally photograph the Pope through a stylized look.

Everything he does is real, factual and non-narrative. But when we looked at films featuring papal figures, we noticed that the white was not technically neutral.

So we wanted at least one moment —even if only for a few seconds— in which the same shot could be seen both with and without the look.

That made the creative intention behind the performance immediately apparent.

Domènec told us that you had to match the prerecorded interior footage with the rest of the material.

For the exterior section that would happen live, we carried out a camera test.

We had to persuade people that it was necessary because camera tests are not common practice in television.

But we needed a reference for the contrast, color and lighting of the live broadcast, even though there were still aspects we would not actually see until the event itself.

Then we had the prerecorded material covering the interior, the Creuer space and the cross —three different areas within the basilica that were not recorded live.

Those scenes used Sigma High Speed lenses and Sony E-mount lenses, and there was obviously an optical difference between the FX6 and Sony VENICE.

For that material we worked in S-Log3 / S-Gamut3 and later graded it to integrate with the HLG live workflow.

The process did not actually begin with the camera test. Before that, I had already shot test plates with the VENICE, lighting and color charts so that we had a reference for how each camera reproduced skin tones.

The same camera behaves tonally and colorimetrically in different ways when working in HLG and S-Log3.

The starting point for the color was the Creuer space because it was visually spectacular and formed part of a very important moment.

At night, with the lighting designed by Juanjo Saunier together with Domènec, the space appeared warm, even though conceptually we had initially imagined it as white and hard.

We therefore decided to embrace that warmth. We developed the color around it and then extended the approach to the exterior camera tests, the camera plates containing color charts, the material later recorded at the cross and finally the live broadcast.

That same LUT was then carried through into the limited rehearsals we were able to do, where we concentrated on identifying anything that did not quite match what we had already established.

How was the 3CAT production coordinated with RTVE’s signal?

TVE was working true to life and delivering a conventional television broadcast.

We therefore knew that the feed coming from TVE would always match what we were seeing at the point where the signal changed.

When the Pope leaves the church and steps onto the horseshoe-shaped platform, we switch from an RTVE camera to a 3CAT camera, and there is visual continuity at that moment.

In the same way, you can define a delta —the difference between two signal values— between true to life and the creative look.

We knew that our cameras had to match the true-to-life level because that was what TVE was sending us.

Any difference could then be handled through the look, which had been designed to receive an HLG / true-to-life input.

That was also the basis of the color post-production workflow: we transformed S-Log3 so that it arrived as HLG, which is the input the look expects.

That meant we could quantify what was coming from each camera, what we were receiving from TVE and exactly what happened when we moved from true to life into the creative look.

To make sure a broadcast can continue even at the most critical moment, how much resilience did you build into the system?

Crisis management always involves two extremes: maximum protection means maximum cost. The key is finding a sufficiently high level of protection that still makes financial sense.

At the extreme end, an Olympic Games opening ceremony will have an entire transmission system duplicated.

Automatic switching systems can move from the main system to the backup if they detect a certain number of black frames or an interruption. But duplicating everything makes the production substantially more expensive than a standard broadcast.

That was too expensive for us, so instead we planned from the outset to have significantly more cameras than we technically needed to cover both the area around the Pope and the façade of the Sagrada Família.

The Steadicam, for example, was the only camera using a wireless RF link, and at one point that link failed. But we had already positioned three wired gimbals as backups.

The camera plan and the entire footprint were also divided almost as though we were working in a theatre: left and right.

The temple was essentially our stage, with the audience and authorities distributed around it. Each area had its own camera cluster. All the cameras assigned to each side were connected via fibre carrying both signal and power back to the truck.

Our strategy was to create redundancy in those cables and signal paths, making sure that nothing always travelled through the same route. Even though the cameras were powered through the SMPTE cable, we also made sure they had additional power and battery backup through a UPS.

RTVE also had a couple of cameras that could provide redundancy, and we had more than one way of accessing those feeds. Essentially, every critical point was made as redundant as the budget allowed.

Another challenge was the large number of performers carrying lights that rose up to create a kind of symphony of light. What lights did you use, and how were they controlled?

This project was also a hybrid of television, cinema and live entertainment or theatre. The difference between the Sagrada Família show and, for example, the halftime show at a FIFA World Cup final is that in the latter the live audience often sees very little because the show has been designed primarily for television.

At the Sagrada Família, the performance had been designed first for the people attending in person, and television came second. The lights carried by the performers were not professional LED film fixtures. They are the same type used at Coldplay concerts and are triggered by infrared signals at the appropriate moment.

They were integrated into an automated lighting-control system, using the same console that triggered the lighting inside the basilica, the façade lighting, pyrotechnics, the cross and so on.

Juanjo Saunier, who specialises in lighting concerts, entertainment productions and large-scale events, was responsible for the show lighting.

Our role was to capture his work, although technically his system operated independently from ours. The entire show also revolved around music that we supplied, which contained embedded timecode.

The OB truck triggered the start, but all the automation and theatrical control was handled independently by Eagle Studios.

A cinematographer is normally used to being a head of department, controlling the lighting and camera work. But on projects like this, despite being a major creative figure, the cinematographer is not really the head of the overall project because part of the lighting has already been designed. As project manager, were you above those departments?

As project manager, you work equally with every department in order to deliver the best possible final product. You try to act as the bridge between the director’s vision and the talent and experience of each department and its crew. That is complicated because it is not normally how things work in other contexts.

There are also more traditional cinematographers who are extremely good at scripted productions but do not adapt well to television.

Domènec, for example, has a great deal of television experience and understands that world. We very quickly agreed not to use any motors on the lens iris.

Once you go live, if an iris motor fails you cannot stop the broadcast so that a camera assistant can replace it. That is why I think it is important to work with cinematographers who have television experience and understand that the pace is completely different, as are the director’s requirements.

Another important point is that the look is not decided by the cinematographer alone. In television we have the V1, the vision engineer responsible for “painting” the cameras live. That person has ultimate responsibility for the look of a conventional live television broadcast, while cinematographers are not usually familiar with all the tools used inside an OB truck.

Those conversations are now happening and they can sometimes be difficult to manage because the cinematographer gives up control over many things.

But I also find it extremely interesting because it allows us to question how we work: which processes need to change, what went wrong, what could have worked better and what worked extremely well. It is a change, and like any change, it creates debate.

Looking to the immediate future, do you think Cinema Live will become standard practice and that cinematographers will routinely be involved in workflows like this?

Some cinematographers resist change and defend the traditional role with a certain degree of romanticism.

But I think we have to be realistic and understand where the industry is coming from. When I work on a project like this, what I am looking for first is the cinematographer’s visual education.

I want them to propose aesthetic and photographic references that both I and the client respond to, and to have at least a broad understanding of how we might achieve them.

My job is then to turn that vision into reality through the workflow. I also want the director to be able to say: “I’m really interested in how this DP shoots a concert because I’ve seen their work on other projects and they have an interesting aesthetic.”

But if the cinematographer is constrained by the working practices of traditional productions, they will probably struggle to fit into a project like this.

Ultimately, you hire a cinematographer because they create images that are aesthetically compelling. Technology can help you achieve those results, but technology comes after taste and visual education.

We also have to remember that audiences today have a much broader and constantly evolving visual education than they did twenty years ago.

So this kind of cinematographer will need to evolve aesthetically while also having at least a basic understanding of how the technology works.

The industry is clearly changing. ARRI, for example, one of the biggest companies in the cinema industry, reached a point where it faced significant financial pressure, and RED also went through major structural change. Now a major broadcast company has acquired ARRI, while ARRI Rental has been separated from the company. That is a very clear indication that ARRI is moving towards broadcast because Riedel is looking to combine ARRI’s legacy with its own broadcast expertise.