Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Great Game, Bad Camera Placement

There were so many good things about tonight's telecast.
First of all, we are in San Diego.
LOVE San Diego!
I had lunch at the Tin Fish which serves the best fish tacos anywhere.
LOVE the Tin Fish!
The score was 1-0 and the well-pitched, well-played game was completed in 2:30.
LOVE these games!
The San Diego crew is great. They identify the visiting team players better than any other road crew in the National League. This crew listens, works hard, and works together so wonderfully that they epitomize teamwork.
Early in the afternoon, the high home camera operator visited in the truck and gave me a scouting report on the San Diego Padres pitchers.
"This guy works fast......this guy works slow.....this guy does this and that guy does that."
I was so thankful for the scouting report from this camera operator and fellow TV teammate. This teamwork was a great help in my preparation for the telecast and the series.
LOVE the San Diego Crew!
Pitchers control the pace of the game and EVERY TV baseball crew member can identify the fast workers and the slow workers.
This does not in any way insinuate that TV baseball crews are lazy or do not want to work. Every crew member knows the value of a well-pitched, well-played game. The value is a wonderful flow to the show. The value comes from the wonderful viewing experience a baseball fan enjoys during this type of game/telecast.
However, my placement of cameras for the telecast was the reason for some mistakes made during the show.
I did not use a tight centerfield camera for the show. This camera can be the main batter shot camera during a telecast.
Instead, I did something that I don't normally do. I took a feed of the home show's tight centerfield camera and a feed of the home show's low firstbase dugout camera with the purpose of shooting right-handed batters. The only camera in which I controlled that could properly shoot a right-handed batter was high first - camera 3. This batter shot, however, was too high in my opinion to provide the best quality of shot of the batter.
Early in the telecast/game, I took the home shows cameras and was "whipped" on three times. I do not blame anyone but myself. We were in a side by side situation, not a dual situation, and therefore the home camera operators never knew that they were being used on the visitor's feed. During a dual feed, the camera ops have a dual "tally" and know when they are on the air for the visitor's feed.
This was not the case tonight.
For the last six innings of the game I used my high first camera for the batter and this mediocre shot blemished the show.
There will be a tight centerfield camera on our telecast tomorrow.
Too bad my poor decision ruined a telecast that was set up from the beginning to be a great show.

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