Back in 2023, we were tasked with recording the audio for the official film for the UEFA Champions League Final. The producers were keen to make ‘sound’ centre stage and got usv involved early on in the planning process to brainstorm ideas.
It was clear from the start that they wanted A LOT of sound recorded over the course of a week filming so we first worked out a way to log any audio recorded that wasn’t related to a picture. We settled on the Timecode+ app – which lets you set a manual timecode (roughly the same as your mixer) and log notes throughout the day. The media managers were then able to import this log and lay it directly onto the Avid Timeline so they had a text note stating what was recorded where. This not only helped in the logging process but also in finding bits of audio to match pictures that were shot where sound was compromised.
Here is a link to that app:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/timecode-cameraman/id590534084
To separate out the 2 different parts of this doc I’ve split it down into 1. ‘The City’ compromising the build up to the match from the cities point of view – how it changes, fans arriving, how the locals feel, and establishing the city in general. Secondly comes ‘The Match’ which tells the story from the clubs point of view – arriving in the city by plane, press conferences, training and pre match rituals and of course the game itself.
1. The City
The ‘build up’ side of the documentary was fairly straight forward – multiple crews roaming the city of Istanbul capturing amazing GV’s of city life, mixed with set up talks with locals, and visiting fans from each club talking about the buzz and excitement around the game. We all deployed Zaxcom mixers and Zaxcom radio mics to capture this, and roamed with a variety of microphones to capture atmos around the city. These included Sennheiser 8060’s, Sanken CS1/CS3’s, MS rigs and a brand new microphone that had just hit the market – The Konos. We managed to get 2 of these directly from Dotterel specifically for use on this documentary and during the match; not only to get some incredible audio, but to feed back to the manufacturer about the microphone in general.
The Konos in action pitchside during the pre match training session.
Istanbul is a vibrant city, and full of wonderful unique sounds; the sweetcorn street vendors using the tongs to drum out tunes on their bbq’s in order to attract customers, the endless stream of amateur fishermen on the galata bridge, the calls to prayer that echo around the city, the grand bazaars and markets, traditional music and dance performances and endless more. We certainly enjoyed roaming around with red lights on.
Fishing rods and seagulls on the Galata Bridge
Recording a traditional band accompanied by the famous Whirling Dervishes.
A rooftop view out over the city. @gregluscombe on camera.
2. The Match
The build up from the players POV started with the airport arrivals. This is a particularly tricky sequence to capture sound in due to the very close proximity jet engines and high winds, not to mention the restrictions the club security put on how close you can get. I opted to use the Konos mic on the end of a long boom, and recorded its processed output in order to try and get some better side rejection if I were to get the boom right over an important persons head at the right time.
The Konos was also my mic of choice for the club training sessions – which happen in the stadium on the pitch itself. You can only get as close as the barriers that surround the pitch – so the pull of the Konos would be my best bet. I got some amazing results, with clear dialogue from players around 25-30 metres away, laughing and joking – sync that made it into the final film which I was proud to have captured.
As part of our spec, we made sure all cameras were time code synced, and also had a decent top mic on board. There are places the sound recordists couldn’t get access too, where the cameras operators were allowed so this was crucial incase there was opportunity for any sync sound. On match day, we took a jam from House Broadcast timecode so that all our footage was in sync with the broadcast team – allowing for any cross use seamlessly.
For the match itself, we had three recordists roaming around the side of the pitch, doing our best to capture anything that happened close to the sidelines, and grabbing as much fan noise as possible. We used a mix of shotgun, Konos & parabolic mics to try and get a mix of things they could use in post, as well as some stereo atmos of the stadium. We also had a request that 3 x producers were deployed with small sound bags so they could roam the upper levels of the stadium, and mingle with fans capturing extra sound! For this we used mix pre’s in 32 bit float record, paired with 8060 shotgun microphones on small booms or pistrol grips. This allowed for a high quality, but low profile, and ‘distortion proof’ recording solution.
Another tool we used were some fixed mics pointing back towards the managers dugouts to try and get some of those screams for instructions in sync. We put these on a wireless hop and gave the feed to the nearest camera operator during the game. That way, they could monitor the feed and if they heard anything good – could quickly pan round and get the sync on camera! This was a complete success and got us lots of usable pictures of managers shouting – with decent audio to boot!
Finally, at full time – 2 x recordists were allowed access onto the pitch with camera operators in order to get the sound of some of those moments right when emotions are highest – allowing us to get booms right overhead of players up close as they process the results of the game. We managed to cross-shoot a hug between Pep Guardiola (Man city manager) and Kevin De Bruyne (midfielder) sharing a passionate hug and both expressing how long and hard they had worked to get the win. We had a camera op on each side of the hug, and a boom over each person capturing the sync – An amazing moment in football history captured in a cinematic way is a great achievement.
All in all, we threw a lot at this and got some incredible audio which the producers were very happy with. Watch the full doc on UEFA TV!