Reprinted with permission from Content + Technology Magazine

Stab High is not your conventional surf competition. Launched in 2018 in the “surfing mecca” of Texas by online magazine Stab, fixtures are staged in a wavepool and focus on the aerial maneuvers of the competitors.

Held in October, Stab High Sydney 2025 took place at Sydney’s Olympic Park. It was also unconventional in that coverage of the action incorporated RED Digital Cinema cameras for paywalled live streaming, YouTube highlights and a long form special of the event.

A 15-year veteran of surf broadcasts, consulting producer and director for Stab High Sydney, Chris Smith, says, “Surfing's had a long history with trying to integrate more cinematic angles into coverage. One of the things I wanted to do with Stab, because it is a bit more of an alternative comp, it does lean into more of that core surfing, was look at how can we change what's already been done in the surfing space with, for example, what the WSL (World Surf League) has been doing. It's very broadcast-centric. How can we mix that up? And that's where I wanted to talk to RED about how we could start to integrate that cinematic look and feel.

“I wanted to try RED because I hadn't seen it done, and that workflow is something that I wanted to explore, and something that I thought is a stepping stone into doing a full live broadcast with RED, having that versatility of a cinematic look, the ability to get all that footage to post produce later, but also pushing the boundaries of the look and feel of a live broadcast.”

The Stab High outside broadcast was supported by SEN (Sports Entertainment Network) and its television production company, Rainmaker.

According to Chris Smith, the production featured three main cameras - Panasonic camera chains from Rainmaker.

“Within the pool,” he says, “we had a camera covering the right and the left, and then a center camera, which was able to swing between the two. Next to that center camera is where we put our RED specialty camera as well (RED V-RAPTOR [X]). Then on top of that, we had a water camera (Sony FX6) which was a live linked water camera with a guy floating and bobbing around right underneath the surfers as they were taking off out of the top of him. And then, a (DJI Mavic 4) drone as well (from Platinum Drones on the Gold Coast) , to cover it from the sky, too.

“Then we had two RFs out in play as well - one that was getting right up where they had what's known as the acid drop too. The competition organisers built scaffold platforms that were overhanging the pool that surfers could jump off into the pool to kind of increase their score, add risk, give them an extra element that they could use as well. So, we had one of the RFs usually covering up there, getting acid drops, getting the surfers as they were going out, and then another one down positioned in the crowd as well - because it's a pretty raucous kind of crowd on this thing, too.

“There were two sideline reporters as well, and then a commentary camera, too. So, a pretty good complement for a wave pool, and the beauty of a wave pool is that you almost need less cameras than you do on the ocean because you know where it's gonna break, and it breaks the same every time, and it's predictable.”

A RED Cine-Broadcast module attached to the RED V-RAPTOR [X] was used to feed SMPTE Fibre with two 4K Streams to a RED Connect Server supplying four phases to two EVS XT-Via replay units.

According to Smith, the RED Cine-Broadcast enabled the vision to be colour corrected via a CCU to match the other cameras in the OB set-up. It also fed the two EVS units for slo-mo replay, and allowed files to be exported to external drives for later use in post production.

“It's not like we're breaking ground with doing live slow-mo,” says Smith, “but the workflow that we were able to put together with the RED specialty camera made it feel no different from any other broadcast camera in the chain. There was no clunkiness. This RED workflow was just like any other triple speed or six times, where you've just got this constant slow-mo feeding in for use, and it just fits so perfectly in your replay sequence because you're not having to wait for it. You're not having to rethink it because you've got to wait for the triggering.

“And it just looked incredible to be able to slow down those single maneuvers, those airs, and really kind of analyse them from a commentary perspective, and also just appreciate how beautiful they are, and how technical they are. I think that was really accentuated by having the RED on it, and having that, that really nice kind of shallow depth of field, and that cinematic look on it too.”

Of course, a cinematic look depends on a cinematic lens and Smith’s team selected the FUJINON Duvo HZK25-1000mmF2.8-5.0 CineBox PL Lens (Duvo 25-1000), supplied by Videocraft.

“It's the lens made for that environment,” says Chris Smith. “It was a beautiful big box lens that fitted the broadcast aesthetic on the ground, but it also provided amazing imagery when paired with the RED camera. It just seemed fitting, if we were going to use a specialty camera, to really unleash it and put as good a lens on it as we could, and putting the Duvo on it felt like the right showcase for that.”

Using a full 1080p 59.94 workflow, all audio and vision was sent to SEN’s 4K ONE OB truck with the final live stream sent out in 1080p 29.97 to JW Player for delivery via JW’s live streaming platform.

For audio on the day, the Stab High production team employed RF hand mics for two roving reporters, as well as Riedel’s Bolero wireless intercom used as a “VIP headset” for sponsorship segments.

In addition, there were effects mics on every camera allowing the capture of crowd sounds and the sound of competitors jumping into the pool.

“There's this moment,” says Chris Smith, “as surfers would acid drop off the platform and you hear that splash as they hit the water, or that you hear the smack of their board hitting the wave, and it was great to be able to capture some of that by having that RF be able to get so close at the top of the pool.”

For graphics, the Stab High production employed Lightning Visuals’ HTML, web-based graphics overlay that was built in concert with LiveHeats, the scoring and graphics provider.

“What we did in advance was we worked with both Lightning Visuals and LiveHeats to develop a package that was tightly integrated to the wave pool format,” says Smith. “Obviously, there haven't been that many wave pool surfing events run that need broadcast graphics. So, the scoring graphics component was kind of there with a few intricacies that Stab introduced, but then what Lightning Visuals did is they re-skinned an existing package, and added a few custom elements that gave it Stab's look.

“It seems like a no-brainer, but when you're talking about new formats and new sports, it's a component that can get quite expensive if you're just doing it for a one-off basis, so working with LV and LiveHeats meant that we could do it quite economically, but also still have really tightly integrated scoring and graphics.”

THE CREW

“Most of the camera operators are surfers themselves, so you get this kind of really nice synergy of crew who love the sport, but also know what they're doing. And it's not just the camera operators. The EVS operator we have, he's been doing pretty much every surf event since 2014 when we brought him on tour, and he's just a weapon at it. So, having people who know the sport, who do the sport as well, I think for something so niche as surfing really helps to exploit it as much as you can from a broadcast perspective as well.”

However, Smith says that despite the crew’s collective experience there is still much to learn about covering surfers in a wave pool.

“The beauty of a wave pool,” he says, “is there were times when we had a Bolero to the wave operator, and we'd say, ‘Hey, can you hold the wave up?’ So, it's nice to have that level of control that you might have on any other stadium sport, to be able to go, ‘Hey, well, hold on. Hold that wave. We gotta, we gotta get through this first.’

“We're still learning how those beats work in some ways. In theory, you look at your rundown and you've got a 90-second wave interval. Great. 90 seconds seems like an eternity to finish a wave, show some replays, pay off a score, come back for the next wave, but in reality, that 90 seconds goes so quickly, and you're trying to work out how you're going to do the next wave and then come back and pay off the score for the last guy, and the judges are trying to catch up as well. This event's really quirky in that the judges judge their waves by just holding up paddles with numbers on them. You want to get those moments, too, so you're looking at how you can use picture in picture, but you still want to make the waves the hero.”