“Because we are programming for multiple channels, the scope of this thing is huge,” explains Jerry Steinberg, senior VP of field operations at Fox Sports. “It is no longer simply preparing for a huge game on Sunday.”
Saturday, February 01, 2014
The Tech Behind Super Bowl XLVIII
“Because we are programming for multiple channels, the scope of this thing is huge,” explains Jerry Steinberg, senior VP of field operations at Fox Sports. “It is no longer simply preparing for a huge game on Sunday.”
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8 comments:
I'm not surprised at all at the amount of tech going into this show. The Superbowl is a massive event that requires a massive amount of gear. Most of the information about the cameras went a bit over my head but the one thing that stuck out to me was when they said that most of the changes they made tech-wise were more "evolutionary than revolutionary" which totally makes sense. You wouldn't want to be using new equipment that you haven't had time to test and be sure it can do the job. It would has also been nice if they had talked about the tech going into the half time show as well.
I knew a lot went into big sports games, especially the super bowl, but I just never realized just how big it is. Wow! They are definitely going all out. I would to help run it one day. One thing that definitely makes sense is the fact that they aren't using new, untested/barely used technology. Because of they did and something failed, the world or at least the USA might just end.
As Phillip stated, I'm not surprised at all with the increase in tech for this show. Our society is demanding more and more spectacle. Each year it seems as if the super bowl and all of its various things that go with it get bigger and more elaborate. However, I do not think that this means it is getting better necessarily. Take the super bowl halftime show for example. In my humble opinion each year the tech has gotten bigger and better, at the same time it seems like they bring on the latest most popular artist to perform. Funny thing about that...Every time I watch a youtube clip from the super bowl halftime show its been filled with comments from people saying the artist was terrible. These "pop artists" are so stuck in auto tune technology that they sound terrible live. Instead I would like to see a solid band perform, one that sounds awesome and has a great show LIVE. Despite how terrible many of the past halftime shows have been and the large number of people I hear bash the show, there are still many people who seemed to have thought the show was amazing. To bring this full circle, I wonder if this is because technology has created such a dynamic experience that people are almost tricked into thinking they have seen a quality show. When in reality the basis of a good show which tech should help ramp up has been completely lost.
That's possible the most impressive setup in the world. It's interesting to get an inside look at all the tech that makes an event that is as large as the super bowl happen. I can only imagine how much time and energy is put in to making sure that all of these elements go off smoothly and work together. It often feels like we in the theatre world are dealing with a crazy challenge attempting to pull a live show together, but I tend to forget that the sports world has many of the same problems on a much larger scale. The last number in the article really stood out to me. "more than 5,000 hours of video content will be acquired" I find that number really outrageous. Just watching all of that would take forever, and that's just for 1 couple hour football game. Although I think I enjoy the super bowl more as a result of all of the tech that they talk about in this article, I still find some of the things listed a little crazy. For example the work they are doing to display wind patterns in the stadium is really crazy. I guess that might be interesting to some viewers, but I find it hard to not think that they are putting a little to much work in to this event. On the other hand, people seem to like it and they (fox) make a very large amount of money on all of this.
There is a TON of equipment going into the Superbowl this year just like there always has been. Hopefully this year they have adequately prepared for the power draw that all this equipment will have on the grid. I have heard from various sources that last year they knew that the power failure was a possibility and they did not take preventative measures anyway. If you're going to put this much work into setting up all this equipment the least you could do is make sure that its going to work.
I think its great that they are increasing the tech for this and I think it will be a much better viewing experience for the audience, but I would have much rather had this article talking about the live production tech rather than the quality of the cameras. I was hoping to find out what type of gear they were using at the superbowl event itself and for like the halftime show. I care considerably less about the cameras and booms. I do like the little section about the automated/robotic cameras though and I wish they elaborated on this idea even further. Coming off a week of navigator training, I wonder exactly how the cameras are controlled. Is it some advanced interface? Preprogrammed? Jogging? I would be interested to know.
Similar to almost all of the comments on this post I am not surprised with the high tech equipment going into this show. Like Aamer had said, a lot of sports games need heavy tech support but seeing that the Super Bowl is essentially both a sports game and a concert I can see why it has so much. Although this is more on the broadcast end of the spectrum the company that I worked at over the summer is the house sound company for Metlife Stadium and I have spoken to the Manager over break regarding the massive amount of equipment that needs to be used and how many companies are involved and overlapped in responsibility creating a too many chefs in the kitchen situation.
Last semester, there was an article about the large scale tech that happens on a regular football game so I am not surprised that the tech for this has to be so massive. I'm really interested in how different the new camera stuff they are doing is from how they shoot a regular game. Of course the halftime show will need a multitude of extra things and the process of streaming the show to several places will be different, but what in the actual taping of the game will be different?
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