Brian Murray, who in the past, carried camera bodies of 16mm for NFL Films, lowers the camera onto my right shoulder. "This is exactly the same size, weight and weight of a camera as I would Madden 23 coins  shoot if I was on an edge again," says Murray, Madden NFL 23's creative director of presentation. It's not even remotely it's camera.

Metal tubes mimic the skeleton and a few dials on the front of the device control things like zoom and focus, however it's mostly open space attached to a fairly large platform. The viewfinder on the iPad, and at least I'm not looking at it with my eyes. But on that viewing screen you can see head coach Sean McVay and four or five Los Angeles Rams, coming off the field at the game as rendered in Madden. And when I move the camera, I'm recording through virtual realities, walking close to Jalen Martinez or Sebastian Joseph-Day and taking pictures of their faces, similar to an outfit for photographers and a field pass.

"You may have heard of a very small film called Avatar," Murray jokes. "James Cameron invented a system that allowed him to utilize a small, wired kind of pad and move around in his digital scene in that movie, to get real-feeling photographs as well as frame the digital images in the film."

Murray has joined EA Sports from NFL Films the league's Emmy-winning documentary division, to start work on the 2014 edition of Madden NFL 25. Murray was brought aboard specifically to adjust Madden's live broadcasts to be more akin to the kind of rich cinematography football fans have come to expect from the big games and events of the league and also from the dramatic NFL Films. Shortly after moving into Florida, Murray began implementing the VR recording system Cameron developed and patented. Since that time, Madden's programs have been able film what is essentially the identical sequence using a variety of camera angles in various styles, all of which are true to life -- to add some variety the game's presentation.

The biggest difference? "My most recent room that I had to do this in was the size of this carpet," Murray says, gesturing at a rug marked by gridiron lines and the EA Sports logo. It's at best the size of a closet floor. Today, he's working in a significantly larger and modern motion capture studio in EA's downtown Orlando studio, which is where EA Tiburon moved in 2019 in the days before the pandemic. The room for capture actually was built just a day prior to our interview, Murray said.

The extra space means that "thousands" of brand-new shots are already being filmed on the eve of Madden NFL 23 -- 700 during the week leading up to the studio tour in late May, Murray says -- which is in addition to over 12.000 shots filmed in the seven years this technology has been used. Murray is right to say that previous Maddens have served up varied animated sequences after the whistle or the halftime gun, to keep its cinematics from becoming dull and predictable. When I think about the new environment he's got to work with I'm compelled to think that he could more efficiently frame a scene Mut 23 coins  from an off-screen camera now that it is possible to literally move away from the line, in virtual reality.