[Tech1] MOTD

[paul at pgtmedia.co.uk]

One of the 'new' ways to do this is to have Camera's, vision control, sound on the pitch & a sound guarantee, with a small truck at the ground, then bring all the individual cameras, mics etc back to a 'fixed ' control room /PCR. Typically you use 2 x UHD uplinks to bring back 8 (HD) cameras , with 32 audios.

Producer, Director, VM, SS and all the EVS ops, along with the off tube comms are all 'back at the main Facilities'  and do not go to site (Saving on travel, hotels etc)
Delays, comms and tallies are the big issues as you might imagin.

Paul

Paul Thackray
PGT Media Consulting Ltd.
07802 243979
Mail; paul at pgtmedia.co.uk 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Tech1 <tech1-bounces at tech-ops.co.uk> On Behalf Of Alan Taylor via Tech1
Sent: 09 July 2021 08:06
To: tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Tech1] MOTD

The standard way to cover a typical football match these days is to use two scanners, one for the match ( including commentary ) and one for presentation ( consisting of on-site studio if applicable, pitchside reports and post match interviews ). There would be  vehicles as big as large scanners for VT / slo-mo, together with vehicles for graphics and other specialised roles. When it comes to massive games, additional scanners are used to handle the presentation facilities for other broadcasters. They all take the same feed from the match scanner, but add their own commentary. Some trucks might handle more than one commentary in multiple languages. 

I’m not interested in football, so haven’t kept in touch with how these matches are being covered, but I remember the news story about the player who collapsed and needed defibrillation.  One member of my family was getting worked up on social media because the BBC didn’t have the sensitivity to cut away while the player was treated on the pitch. I hadn’t been watching, but told him that the BBC were most likely supplied with a feed from the host broadcaster and have had no alternative shot to cut to, therefore the choice of camera shots would be beyond their control.  Newspaper stories subsequently explained that the match feed was under the control of UEFA, which was pretty well what I guessed.  I would assume that similar arrangements apply to the match coverage for the final as well.

Incidentally, there are companies specialising in off-tube commentaries.  Matches are fed live from anywhere in the world to their studio complex and they might have a dozen commentary booths, some with two commentators.  They all get fed with the pictures and do their individual commentary, often pretending they were at the event.  It’s not a bad gig for a freelancer.  You only turn up a couple of hours before the match and clear off soon after the final whistle. There is virtually nothing to rig or de-rig beyond taking headphones and lip mics to and from a cupboard. Occasionally there are not even any production people nearby, just a commentator and a sound guy. Best of all, no crowds delaying your journey home.

Years ago I did one of these off-tube commentaries with a commentator I had worked with on many occasions.  He was incredulous to discover during our previous small talk that I had no knowledge of, nor interest in football, but we always chatted happily about loads of other stuff. This particular occasion, we were getting a live feed from somewhere like South America during the early hours of the morning, but just before kick off, both of his monitors developed a fault making the colours go weird. My monitors in the control room were fine.  While the engineers tried to sort the feed, he asked me to describe over talkback the colours of the shirts and shorts during the anthems.

While the radio camera slowly panned along the players one by one, the commentator was treated to my expert observations.  “First team: Blue shirts, white shorts.  Second team: Black shirts, black shorts …. Oh hang on …. There’s only four of them”. Since then, he has never let me forget that I didn’t even know the difference between the players and the match officials.

Alan Taylor



> On 8 Jul 2021, at 23:53, Geoffrey Hawkes via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> The final will be shown by both BBC and ITV, so who does the cameras 
> in a case like that as they won’t each have their own crews, will 
> they? ITV I noticed were using the same wipes as the BBC, so perhaps 
> the share the same facilities company to produce the pictures? You 
> former OB people would know how it works on big matches and I’d be 
> interested to hear, Geoff Hawkes
> 
>> 
>> 
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