PROCASESTUDY
FOR-A provides MAP with production kit for Emirates Draw broadcasts
From left: Imad Bassil, owner and GM of MAP, with Mohammed Abu Ziyadeh, System Engineering Manager for FOR-A Middle East & Africa.
FOR-A has delivered a complete flyaway production kit to Fujairah-based Media and Art Production (MAP). The kit is designed to provide the technology platform for Emirates Draw, a live entertainment and draw programme in the UAE broadcast every Sunday in prime time. MAP is a major facilities company serving the UAE and the broader region. As well as providing production and post-production creative services, it also develops technology solutions to support them. For Emirates Draw, it provides complete production services from creative concepts to delivery. When MAP was contracted to undertake the Emirates
Draw project, a key creative decision was to ensure the production would not be studio-bound. Rather, it would reflect the diverse nature of the country by taking the draw and its surrounding entertainment out to a different location each Sunday. That called for a portable technology platform flexible enough to meet the needs of each site while delivering very high production values. While the show is currently broadcast in HD, MAP wanted the capability of moving to 4k Ultra HD in time, to reflect the demands of the audience. “We have in-house engineering resources who are up to date with
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“We demonstrated that FOR-A could deliver all the quality, reliability and ease of use they demanded, that we could provide technical and operational support to MAP’s in-house engineering team and we could complete the project to their tight time scales” Mohammed Abu Ziyadeh, System Engineering Manager, FOR-A MEA
everything that is on the market,” says Imad Bassil, owner and GM of MAP. “They set about designing a flyaway system that would deliver the flexibility we needed, alongside the ability to be rapidly rigged and cleared at a new location each week.” MAP was already familiar with FOR-A as a provider, having used its switchers in the past as well as operating an LTO-based archive from the company. So discussions started around a production switcher for Emirates Draw. “Our operators were comfortable with the HVS490, and we saw that as the right choice for this project,” says Bassil. “But as we talked to Mohammed Abu Ziyadeh of FOR-A in Dubai,
