Thursday, July 8, 2010

A Different Look

I just arrived in Houston after our day game in Denver.
We came back from commercial today with a look I had never seen before.
Our Producer, Mike, came up with the idea and it was pretty cool.
The Cardinals' pitcher today was Chris Carpenter who is one of the elite pitchers in all of baseball. Chris is known for his outstanding command of all his pitches, especially his curveball and his cutter.
Mike had an EVS operator (replay room) cue up a super slo-mo look of Carpenter's curveball on one machine and a super slo-mo look at Carpenter's cutter on a another machine.
The super slo-mo camera in Coors Field is located at the tight centerfield position.
This camera angle from behind the pitcher shows the best angle in capturing the spin of the ball as it heads towards the plate.
(We aired some great looks at the ball action of the change-up in last night's telecast. Our most important look at the ball action of a change-up last night came on the walk-off homerun pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning.)
For today's game, however, at Mike's request, we tried something completely different. Something that we had never tried before.
Mike suggested that we half dissolve one EVS machine over the other and roll both machines at the same time.
Brilliant!
The viewer was able to see the difference in the ball action from Carpenter's curveball and his cutter as each pitch was delivered to the plate at the same time!
Rick Horton was our color analyst today and his commentary on this replay was spot on.
We did not doctor either replay angle. The super slo-mo camera was in the exact same location for each pitch. Because the camera did not move for each pitch, there was another interesting fact that was shown from this replay.
The release point for each pitch was different. The curveball release point was more overhand than the cutter release point.
This was a wonderful "look" during our telecast today.
This "look" was unique and memorable.
This different look made this telecast a success.
Every telecast I learn something new.
I am lucky and I am grateful.

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