The Voice Lebanon is Augmented by Voyager from Ross Video

‘The Voice’ has been an incredibly successful show format that began life in The Netherlands in 2010 and has since been syndicated all around the world, attracting millions of viewers and making stars of many of its contestants. While the core ingredients of the show remain constant regardless of country, there’s no doubt that there is a degree of friendly rivalry between international production companies, as each tries to introduce a new element or facet that will make their version stand out from all of the others.

For the most recent series of The Voice Lebanon, local company Visuwalls were approached at the very beginning of the project to provide set design, props, LED walls and motion graphics. It was at this point that Visuwalls suggested the use of Augmented Reality in order to add an extra creative dimension to the show. Visuwall’s team of 3D artists took several of the assets that had been created for the motion graphics software and converted them for Voyager, Ross Video’s innovative graphics rendering solution that is based on the Unreal engine by Epic Games. Launched in 2019, Voyager enables content creators working with Augmented Reality and/or Virtual Studio workflows to create stunning, hyper-realistic graphics that add new levels of creativity to programs and delight audiences. Amongst other assets, the team at Visuwalls worked with the famous Voice hand logo so the production team could make this appear on the physical set and then animate it as the camera (Spidercam or jib) flew past. Commenting on the use of Voyager, Nicolas Malbon, Visuwalls’ Head of Media Servers & Augmented Reality, was more than satisfied with the results. “We had previously seen Voyager being used in an esports environment, with the camera flying around virtual renders of the team players and game characters in the stadium, and we thought it would be cool to do something similar in a broadcast environment. The production company in charge of The Voice loved the idea and we ended up created animated augmented reality elements to complement many of the songs beings sung by the contestants over the series.”

Gideon Ferber, Director of Virtual Solutions for Ross, points to the competitive nature of prime-time TV around the world as a key selling point for Voyager. “The broadcast market is increasingly crowded, and while successful shows like The Voice will consistently attract healthy audience figures, content creators are always looking for ways to differentiate their programs and make them more visually creative. Voyager does exactly that, and is both highly flexible and cost-effective. We were delighted to work with Visuwalls and The Voice Lebanon team, and we look forward to seeing how they use Voyager in future series.”

Image courtesy of The Voice (ITV)