When most people think of TV production trucks - rampant orgies, poker games, and tequila shots instantly come to mind. Ok, maybe not. But they do wonder what goes on inside those trucks and "Why so many of 'em?" In this blog I will attempt to clear this up for you; all in a few paragraphs and without a chinstrap or safety harness!
Let's start at the back of the truck and work forward. Although floorplans vary, in many trucks the rear-most area is where the engineering stuff is - patch panels, routing devices, signal quality measuring stuff and other technical gizmos. Next up is the 'video shader.' Probably the most overlooked but important position on a live show, the video shader watches all of the cameras constantly and attempts to adjust the picture quality of each one before it goes on the air live. Adjustments are made rapidly since a camera may swing to a dark corner of an arena for a fan shot, then whip back to the playing surface where there are a million footcandles of light. The video shader has to keep every camera looking good at all times.
Moving forward through the truck we'll visit the tape room next. More and more of what you see in live sports is actually NOT tape but rather digital harddrive-based machines. We'll still call it the tape room for about the next hundred years I'm sure. The crew in this area records and plays back instant replays for your enjoyment - you know, like when Joe Theismann's leg got broken in forty-six places and you wanted to see it over, and over, and over. The tape room also handles "packages" which are little pre-produced vignettes about key players, storylines, or sponsors. Anyone in the business will tell you that if this team does great work, it's a great show. And if they don't...
Now let's leave the tape room and continue the tour by stopping in audio. The "A-1" is the person who mans the audio console and mixes all of the sounds in real-time. From ball whacks to helmet-to-helmet collisions, you want great audio work to immerse the viewers into the game. They also have the all-important job of entertaining the crew with a great music selection during the set-up process. You can easily spot the better audio people, because their iPod is full of classic rock, blues, rockabilly, or just about anything other than rap or hip-hop.
This will bring us to the front of the truck, where all of the cursing and swearing usually happens. This area has the producer, the director, the technical director, graphics, the font coordinator, the assistant director, and a few people who seem to be important but are usually just in the way. The producer is responsible for the overall content of the show - developing storylines, getting all of the sponsored stuff in (see previous blog entry), and what replay angles to show. The director determines the pace of the show and tells the camera operators what to shoot. The director tells the technical director ("T.D.") what to do and how to do it. "Take camera 2...dissolve to camera 3...add the graphic...dissolve it out...animate to replay...take camera 7...no no no, not 7! I said 4!!!" Graphics types up all of the stats and textual information you see on the screen during the game; the font coordinator helps keep this information organized. "Where did we put Shaq's free throw shooting stats?" "I don't know, they're in here somewhere, I remember watching you type them up."
Sometimes there is much discussion in this room, and it can get pretty boistrous. The way it works is, the producer yells at the director, the director screams at the T.D., the T.D. snaps back at the director, the director barks at graphics, and graphics discusses the director's ancestory or eternal destiny. Sometimes people weep uncontrollably from the pressure, and sometimes they all swear they're going to "settle this outside after the show." This all continues until the final whistle blows and all is forgotten and high-fives are awarded to everyone. "Great working with you again, man!"
In the venue itself there are camera operators, additional audio people, stage managers to help keep the announcers on track, stats people to crunch numbers, "utilities" who do a lot of the physical cabling and set-up work, and a few more of those folks who look important but are just in the way. Other trucks you see at stadiums sometimes carry additional cargo. These trucks are called the "B units" and roll out for bigger shows. There are also international networks covering major events, and they rent trucks to produce their own shows too. Each "country" might have its own rental truck - which means the television compound where they all park can get pretty congested. Kind of like the tower of Babel, there are sometimes a gazillion languages being spoken, with $#%^$!! about the only word everyone knows in common. And that's what it takes to televise your favorite sport or live event.
Poker: I'm sorry, but anything you can play while you've got a martini in one hand, and a cigarette dangling from your lips is just simply not a sport. Call it a game, call it strategic, call it competitive if you must - but face it people, POKER IS NOT A SPORT. So why is it all over my SPORTS channel?
