We get to play with budgets – Jibril from Litemotions

Article for AV Magazine March 2025

Litemotions is no longer a young company as we wrote back in 2020(May 2020 article by Jens Walther), when the company had just turned three years old. Since then, Litemotions has grown significantly and is now a well-established player in video production and live streaming. Litemotions is still owned and managed by Jibril Syed, who back then was a one-man army. He planned, produced, shot and edited all content himself. But that’s no longer the case.

Today, Jibril is still the general manager in charge of sales, but he has built a strong team around him and an advisory board, which had its first meeting in early 2024. Today, Litemotions employs two full-time employees, one part-time employee and two permanent freelancers, and there are already plans to expand the team with two more employees in 2025. All indications are that the coming year could be a record year if the development continues as Jibril expects.

One of the most crucial periods in the company’s history was during the corona epidemic, when Litemotions experienced a significant shift in demand. The focus shifted from traditional video production to live streaming as many companies faced the challenge of communicating digitally in a world with limited physical meetings and events. This transition proved to be a success. Today, live streaming and often live-on-tape is the bulk of Litemotion’s business.

Jibril originally had ambitions to become a mechanical engineer, but chose to drop out just before graduation to pursue his passion for video production. However, his technical background, fascination with engineering, and geeky understanding of advanced technology has been crucial to where Litemotions is today, running a business that harnesses the full potential of technology to deliver professional live streams and video productions.

A good example of this is the development of Litemotions’ live streaming setup. Initially, the system was based on Sony Alpha cameras, chosen for their high image quality, which was also used in Jibril’s traditional video production. However, this solution presented challenges in terms of HDMI cable runs and separate power supplies for each camera. For a short transition period, robotic cameras were tested, but today Litemotions has optimized its setup and works primarily within the Blackmagic ecosystem.

One of the most crucial periods in the company’s history was during the corona epidemic, when Litemotions experienced a significant shift in demand. The focus shifted from traditional video production to live streaming as many companies faced the challenge of communicating digitally in a world with limited physical meetings and events. This transition proved to be a success. Today, live streaming and often live-on-tape is the bulk of Litemotion’s business.

Jibril originally had ambitions to become a mechanical engineer, but chose to drop out just before graduation to pursue his passion for video production. However, his technical background, fascination with engineering, and geeky understanding of advanced technology has been crucial to where Litemotions is today, running a business that harnesses the full potential of technology to deliver professional live streams and video productions.

A good example of this is the development of Litemotions’ live streaming setup. Initially, the system was based on Sony Alpha cameras, chosen for their high image quality, which was also used in Jibril’s traditional video production. However, this solution presented challenges in terms of HDMI cable runs and separate power supplies for each camera. For a short transition period, robotic cameras were tested, but today Litemotions has optimized its setup and works primarily within the Blackmagic ecosystem.

Today, the heart is a custom-designed control desk with 6 monitors, vMix, SMPTE fiber workflow over Ethernet with CCU control via a Skaarhoj controller and a 12G Videohub, with up to 20 inputs and 20 outputs combined with normally 4 Blackmagic Studio Camera 6K Pro, offering advanced features such as image transmission, talkback/intercom, tally, camera control, built-in color correction, Blackmagic RAW recording directly to USB-C disks and precise focus and zoom control. It all runs over a single network cable that handles both data and power supply to the cameras, creating a much more streamlined and efficient production. This setup not only ensures high quality, but also significantly simplifies production and set-up in the studio or on location.

Jibril lights up as he talks about the setup. “A lot of the products are super cool individually, but even cooler when they’re connected.” Everything is designed so that many of the parts can also be used in a smaller format; perhaps with just one or two cameras, a laptop and a Skaarhoj controller, which can be set up in a very short time at the customer site.

As mentioned earlier, many or perhaps most of the productions are live-on-tape, as they are called. That is, productions where everything takes place as if it were live. All camera streams are recorded individually in Blackmagic RAW, while switching between the different angles and cameras during the live stream. The entire stream is saved as a single recording. Should there be a need to rework, change camera angles or remove something afterwards, the workflow makes this easy. vMix generates an XML file that can be imported directly into Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, enabling efficient and flexible post-editing.

Today, Litemotions works with a number of major customers across various industries, including companies such as L’Oréal, DJØF, Visma, SDU and Telenor. For these customers, Litemotions provides a wide range of services ranging from video production to live streaming. “We’re not the cheapest, but our service level is extremely high and many of our current customers – often corporate clients – come back again and again,” says Jibril with pride in his voice.

For several customers, Litemotions is involved early in the process, giving them the opportunity to contribute already in the budget phase. “We get to play with the budgets,” as Jibril puts it. This has resulted in the production of a product presentation for L’Oréal, where both people and products were filmed with an OLED screen as background in the studio at Copenhagen Media Facility.

The future looks promising for Litemotions, where Jibril has also hired his younger brother, Rafael, who now has a central role as the company’s skilled and cool editor. “He is behind Litemotions’ first cinema commercial – a campaign we produced for SDU, which is now being shown in cinemas in Kolding,” Jibril concludes with a big smile.