Two weeks ago we saw an in depth walkthrough of the on-site production for a Syracuse sporting event at the JMA dome. The work done there can be compared to any other world class venue or program that hosts sporting events. There are hundreds of pieces of equipment that are used simultaneously to create a feed to use for a Broadcast. Every piece of audio/visual equipment generates a signal that is then transmitted to a control room studio in the world renowned NewHouse school of communication which also doubles as a fully operable Tv/News/Broadcast station.
In this control room lies state of the art facilities that make it possible to watch Syracuse sports broadcasts from anywhere with an internet connection. The studio consists of 4 different sections. First, The main floor, where the technical director, producer, teleprompter controller, graphics engineer and stats caller sit. This section is basically composed of 4 different desks with computers programmed for each respective position. From there, each team member is tasked with a specific role in production. Laura Bailey, one of the technical directors and producers explained,”every computer and console in here is routed so that we get the signal to the main program monitor, the program feed is what viewers at home are watching.”
In the back of the main room sits the replay station. This is where the instant replay is generated and sent to the feed. It happens almost instantly and the operators are constantly watching the game to pick out shots to replay. With that, they are able to manipulate the Frames per second of the previous clip so that it can be played back in slow motion for the viewers for that iconic instant replay feeling. Next to this station is the Shade room. The shade room is arguably the most in depth and crucial part of this operation. Every single camera that is used to film a sports game on site sends a signal to the computer in the shade room where the video can be manually color corrected and white balanced. It’s much more complicated than it seems because the engineer has to take into account many different factors and edit the shot as the game progresses.
Right next to the shade room is the audio room. Much like the camera signal being directly sent to the shade room first, all audio is sent to the audio room first. In here, sits a state of the art audio console which controls all audio on the entire feed. Engineer Patrick Mcdougall argues,”audio is probably the most important part of this whole broadcast. Nobody wants to watch silent sports. Audio without video is just radio or a podcast, but video without audio is just a silent movie, and that’s just boring.” Not to get too deep into it but this certain audio console allows the engineer to create different scene mixes, which allows for the audio levels to change as the director switches each camera scene. This is useful so that there is never a time where the audio is lagging because it routes the outgoing signal to the microphone of the respective camera each time the shot switches.
It’s needless to say these individuals have their hands full on gameday. They get to the control room 5 hours before the start and don’t leave till 2 hours after. They are dedicated to making sure everything runs smooth and even when it’s a huge production like an ESPN Broadcast they always deliver a seamless and clean production.