For Emmy-award winning Diamond View Studios, a Tampa Bay-based video production company, it expects the best.
It has worked on large campaigns including the Atlanta Braves and University of South Florida and now has a new addition for its next big project: a robot to work on Super Bowl coverage.
"It's the same type of robot used in the automative industry to spray paint, assemble car parts," Tim Moore, founder of Diamond View Studios, said. "It's very high speed, very accurate. Very few people in the U.S. have something like this. They're very expensive because not a lot of people produce these."
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Moore bought the robot through a company in London, which has had some shipping delays due to coronavirus. He also added on a 20-foot LED screen that can create a 3D experience.
"It's definitely an investment, but I'm confident we’ll make it back," he said. "In the past, this has been exclusively for the really big production houses — like Star Wars shot some stuff on "The Mandalorian" on this. It's an interesting time in our business, that we're investing more into the studio because a lot of our track stuff has shifted to more in Tampa Bay."
That shift has come due to travel limitations as the novel coronavirus rages on. But a renewed focus on central Florida doesn't mean a slow down for Diamond View. There's the Super Bowl heading to Tampa in 2021, and talks of the NBA finishing the remainder of its season in Orlando.
"You wouldn’t block fans' perspective," he said. "You can experiment so much during this time."
And Moore is hopeful with the new addition to the region, others can use and elevate their own work to put Tampa Bay on the map for production.
"I think the region will be able to capture more opportunities by bringing people onto the shoot with us, but it's also a regional asset that people can elevate their current production," he said. "Our goal is other people in the region can use this as well and benefit from it."
