Home TV Crew/Road Director

I was thinking during today's telecast between the Cardinals and the Brewers at Miller park about how a road director and a home crew adjust during a telecast.

The "home" crew for the visiting feed will know the ballpark better than a director who maybe cuts 6 to 9 shows a season at a road ballpark. The Milwaukee crew is a great example of a crew that almost always takes the "best shot". The "best shot" consists of a concise, well-framed look of the play on the field.

I believe that there is too much movement by camera operators after their tally light comes on. A common example is a batter shot from the dugout. Many camera operators start head to toe and when they are on the air they push to a waist shot - almost every time!

I am not saying that they are wrong with this approach to shooting the batter. I personally prefer shots with little or no movement. However, I will start wide and push tight many times throughout a show to mix up my shot sequences.

The road director must adjust to the skill levels of each operator. Some camera operators are just better than others. These skillful ops will see more tally lights than the less skillful ops.

This is in no way disparaging the Milwaukee camera crew because they are all very, very good.

It is more important for the "home" crew to adjust to the road director. Every TV baseball director has a certain rhythm that he/she tries to get into during a game/telecast. The best camera operators figure out this "rhythm" quickly and get the shot in a concise manner. For example, as soon as a play is completed on the field, I immediately set up the next one on one battle between the pitcher and the batter. This means that I have camera 6 (tight centerfield) shoot the next batter as soon as camera 6 shoots this player. Today's camera 6 operator in Milwaukee, Trent, was great at figuring out my rhythm and as soon as I was ready to put the batter on the air Trent was always there!

There is nothing that disrupts a director's rhythm more than when he/she has to say "6, give me the batter".

Fortunately, home TV crews for the road director are very talented in baseball. I am speaking of the National League crews because we have worked together for many years and therefore are able to develop a rhythm fairly quickly.

This will prove to be interesting during our next roadtrip when we travel to two American League cities - Baltimore and Tampa Bay. I have never televised out of Camden Yards and have been to Tropicana Field once before in 2005.

Off tomorrow here in Washington DC and then three games with the DC crew.

I enjoy this crew and look forward to the telecasts.