It’s Been a While

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I’ve been waiting to update this until I had something different to post and I’ve done a few different things recently so I figured I’d go ahead and do it.

A few weeks ago I went to the ballpark with my boss, a photographer and a reporter a few hours before the Rangers Twins game to see how a 1 on 1 interview (like 60minutes, etc.) goes down.

My boss produces a show on Fox Sports Southwest and this segment he is producing is on Jon Daniels, the Rangers General Manager who is also the youngest GM in the MLB and has been since 2005.

I learned a lot about Daniels life in the baseball industry, what it’s like to have that kind of responsibility (being involved in draft decisions, trade deadlines, etc.) and his family life which was pretty cool.

I also learned how to use a green screen which I’ve been wanting to learn for a while (mainly to be able to make better videos for Mizzou Baseball next season) and really how the sit down interview process works with multiple cameras running.

It’s a little different than I expected.. not so uptight.

We shot the 1 on 1 interview in the press conference room then went up to JD’s suite during the game to ask him a few more questions and get broll (kind of like candid- everyday shots) of him watching the game.

It’ll be cool to see the whole project pan out when his show airs this Sunday.

I could elaborate on this but this would turn into a novel….

 

So….

A few days later I went back to the ballpark with the same photographer, Dave, to get some scenic shots to go where the green screen was. I also got to shoot a standup while we were out there and ended up making my own package on JD which I’ll post later this week.

I made my video using Avid and it actually didn’t take too long to make because the majority of the broll was already loaded by my boss because he is also putting together his show in Avid.

I found the parts of the interview of JD that I wanted to use, laid my standup at the end of the timeline and started laying clips of broll over and between the clips. As I was doing this I was thinking of the voice over I was going to say over each part to complete the story line of JD managing the Rangers and his family of five.

Once I finished laying it all down I recorded my vo old school style on a tape deck in the “Green Room” and ingested it in the ingest room which basically records the tape into the computer system as it plays back so I can find it in any Avid at Fox.

After that, I laid the vo down, rendered and exported it through FlipFactory so I could copy it to my flash drive on a different computer.

 

This week I went to one of the Big XII media days at the Westin Hotel and this morning I went to the Dallas Cowboys training camp.

Big XII media day was pretty cool besides the fact that Mizzou wasn’t there!

My uncle was staying at that hotel so I got to have breakfast with him before media day started which was fun. Then, I logged the interviews of the players and coaches on my laptop as they went on. Some of the interviews I logged were Bob Stoops, Landry Jones and Bill Snyder.

Once again, I saw more of how a green screen works and how 1 on 1 interviews go down.

After a few hours, my hand was about to fall off and another intern, Paige came in to take over.

 

My boss called me last night and asked me if I could make it to Cowboys training camp this morning so, today marked probably the 10th day in a row I’ve woken up.. what I consider super early.

I got up around 6 and was at the office in Irving around 7:30am to head to Valley Ranch (which is pretty sweet) for day 2 of Cowboys training camp.

There were mainly rookies doing drills and conditioning along with a few veterans.

I was pumped to see Morris Claiborne, CB, and Kyle Orten, QB. Romo wasn’t there and neither was former right tackle/ current left tackle, Tyron Smith (and a bunch of other vets). Rookie, Darrell Scott actually got waived before we got there and was replaced by TCU RB, Ed Wesely… kind of sad.

Anyways…. Once I got over that sad situation I did a standup about Morris Claiborne and watched the rest of the conditioning.

After the drills some of the players and coaches came and talked with the media. The photographer, Chris, that I was with helped me come up with another story line about Tyron Smith and I was planning on asking Offensive Coordinator, Bill Callahan, some questions about the solidity/ lack of solidity of the O line.

He said they aren’t talking about it until Saturday when they check into training camp in Oxnard, California.

After we got some sound bites from other guys, we packed up and headed out.

I’ve also been working on a video for the Voice of Hope teenage boys basketball team. I did some interviews with the guys today and i’m filming it all on my iPhone sooo… I used a camera tripod, velcro-ed my phone to it and bought an iPhone microphone.

 

If you just read all that… woah and thank you!

SGL

 

Triple Play Banquet and other updates!

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I was typing another post the other day and realized it is probably getting a little redundant posting about logging games, running teleprompter and shadowing pre/post game interviews at the ballpark so.. I decided I’ll do an update every once in a while from now on!

About a week ago I went to the Rangers Triple Play Banquet which is a fundraising event to make a positive difference in our community in a lot of different ways but at the banquet I noticed a lot of time and fundraising goes to youth baseball leagues which is pretty cool. There was an awesome video about these kids with to the song Count On Me by Mat Kearney (which took a lot of googling during the video to find out)

Anyways, during the banquet I saw how live shots are set that people watch during the event- like the big screens on either side of the stage that you can watch for close up views and I also saw a lot of Rangers personality. It was hilarious!

We weren’t aloud to take pictures or videos of the funny stuff that went on but basically: Ross, Snyder and Darvish did a ‘Man I Feel Like a Woman’ gig dressed all up like girls with boas, etc., and there was a lot of baseball trivia games with the team split up into… teams which was also pretty funny.

My goal for the night was to shoot a clip of Kinsler congratulating the Mizzou baseball team on their first and

Mizzou Baseball: Big XII Champs!

last Big XII championship and long story short, he left soon after it ended and I didn’t get it. But- Jeff Irwin, the photog/ director of the night that I was shadowing did me a HUGE favor, along with Clark Rowe, another FSSW employee and helped me get the footage the next day before the Rangers game!

So, when I got off work the next day, I had the video finished and needed WiFi to publish it on YouTube so Siri showed me where the closest Starbucks was, I went there and within about an hour I was able to post the video!

I was pretty pumped but still bummed I had to leave before they became champs!

Also- I want to say congrats to all the Mizzou baseball seniors and good luck in what they do from now- and all the drafted Tigers like Blake Brown and Eric Garcia AKA Bleric both being drafted by the Braves

Anyways… Last night I logged the Rangers game from 9 p.m.- 12:30 a.m. because of the California time change and tonight I’ll be logging the Thunder/ Spurs game 6.

Thank y’all for still reading my rambling after all the redundant posts!

SGL

Internship Day 5- Rangers vs Blue Jays

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Yesterday was my second time working at the ballpark and it was just as fun as the first. I had left last Wednesday to watch Mizzou play in the Big XII baseball

Watching the sunrise leaving OKC

tourney in Oklahoma City- which they are now BIG XII CHAMPIONS for the first and only time in program history WOOOHOOO!!!!

But I was actually pretty upset I couldn’t stay through out the weekend…

Anyways… I drove back at 6 a.m. and got to the ballpark at 10:30 a.m. to be ready for pregame interviews at 11.

another side note- now that I have an iPhone, I’ll be taking thousands more pictures so I decided I’d just put them all at the bottom.

Hamilton pregame

I did basically the same stuff I did the first time- watching Emily Jones do pre and post game interviews in the club house-but I did go on the field after pre game interviews and watch Elvis Andrus talk with his “idol”, Omar Vizquel which was pretty cool.

Andrus actually joked that I was Emily’s daughter which was funny but these kinds of things make me realize the importance of her credability and repore with the team.

Washington pregame

I was talking with another cameraman about this and I know now that in the future I’d rather work with a single team than travel around for a company so I have the ability to earn their respect like Emily has over her years with the Rangers.

If you watch interviews on TV, it’s obvious by the answers to the questions, whether or not the players trust the person asking them questions.

Omar Vizquel and Elvis Andrus

My Dad was at the game so I actually ended up getting to sit and watch some of it with him then wandered around and watched some from the press box and center field.

After shadowing at the ballpark and running prompter for FSSW shows, I’m starting to get the feel for the day-in-the-life of a sports reporter.

They’re always on their feet doing something fun, sometimes sitting in the office- but still doing something cool. So fortunately, I know this (or something like this) is what I really do want to do in the future.

I went to the Rangers Triple Play banquet last night so I’ll write that in a little bit.

 

SGL

Internship Day 4

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I waited to do this one until today because I went back this morning to finish what I worked on yesterday.

So, yesterday I ran the teleprompter for the show, SportsDay on Air and then logged track and field.

I’ve run prompter once or twice at school with MUTV but never for a nationally televised show- so even though it’s just running the prompter… I was kind of nervous to mess up because if i mess up, it’s likely that the reporter will mess up and that’s bad.

Running teleprompter in Control Room

The prompter is what the on- air talent reads off of and it’s controlled by someone either scrolling with a mouse or using a knob (I used a knob) in the control room.

If you’re watching SportsCenter or any other show and the reporter is looking straight into the camera and they may seem like they’re reading off something it’s because the camera is typically in the middle of the prompter screen they’re reading off of (behind the words they’re reading). Click Teleprompter for photos.. it’s pretty cool.

Like I said before, the control room is the room with a bunch of TVs along the front wall and about a dozen computers that… control things going on during the broadcast. This is also where the graphics are all made are put into the broadcast.

When you’re watching a show and a little rectagle comes on the bottom of the screen with the peoples’ names in it- this is called a lower third or an L3 and is made and put into the broadcast in this room.

So I ran the prompter during the show about – I thankfully didn’t mess up and learned more of how shows are produced. The importance of timing that I have learned from different experiences in the past was reiterated and I also learned more of shows are all put together.

I thought this when I watched live broadcasts in the ESPN and FoxSports trucks when I was with Sporting Kansas City- but it’s so weird to see how much work goes into a broadcast that- before being behind the scenes and jsut watching TV at home, I had never notticed any of this.

Next time you’re watching a football game think of all the work put into the score box or the lower thirds that appear when people are speaking. It’s crazy.

Anyways… After an hour or so doing that, I went to one of the tape deck rooms to log UIL Track and Field.

Logging track and field on Avid

This is similar to what I did during the Rangers game a few days ago- selecting a point in the footage and basically typing what is going on in that point so it’s easier to go back and edit a show because you can find the exact clips you’re looking for without having to re- watch everything.

Apparently track and field is one of the most difficult things to log.. and I’m not complaining but, it was kind of difficult at first.

I had to log the begenning of each event and… this was a two day meet so there were hundreds of events.

At the beginning of each event I had to type something like – 3A BOYS 4x400M RELAY or 5A GIRLS POLE VAULT. But, the majority of the footage didn’t give any indicators of any of this. After about 30 minutes of brainstorming the easiest way to do this with Clark, the super helpful guy I was logging this for, I was given a booklet from the meet with all the schools in alphabetical order and the bib numbers of each competitor under their school.

Booklet with school’s and participants names/ bib numbers- very helpful!

Once I realized the numbers were in order too, I ended up just picking one of the competitors’ numbers, finding them in the booklet, seeing what school they go to and Googleing their UIL division.

This got kind of tedious but the hardest thing was the fact that two different people were filming the meet and the footage got mixed up when it was imported so even though I did have a list of the events in order, a lot of it was out of order. Once again… not complaining, I learn a lot from logging- if you want to know the UIL division of a school… try me.

So this took a few hours on Monday and I had logged 2/3 of meet by 9:30 p.m.- ish so I went home and went back this morning to do the rest. Now that I had got the hang of the Googleing thing I was on a role and finished in about an hour.

All the red dots are placed I logged something- times this picture by about 5

I wish I had someone to log all my footage.

Tomorrow I’m going to the Big XII baseball tourney in OKC until Friday then Saturday I’m covering for another intern at the ballpark for the game vs. the Blue Jays and Sunday I’m going to the Rangers Triple Play Banquet.

And right now.. I’m going to bed. Good night!

SGL

Internship Day 3

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I finally got an iPhone a few days ago so I was writing this through out the day on there and… it all deleted so I’ll try this again!

Yesterday was my first day actually working in the Fox Sports Southwest office logging the Rangers game. This is typically what I’ll vbe doing when I’m not at the ballpark.

It was a day game so I got to the office around 12:30 to watch the Fox pre game show in the control room which was pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of the ESPN and Fox Sports TV trucks I was in last summer when I interned with Sporting Kansas City (MLS team).

Watching pre- game in the Control Room

The control room is basically a room with hundreds of TVs on the front wall and about a dozen computers with people working on different things for the broadcast. (This is also the room that runs the teleprompter and broadcast stuff for in- studio shows like Rangers Live)

The guys on the computers have headsets along with the on- air people at the ballpark. So, they’re all able to communicate to make sure everything goes as planned. There are two huge, digital clocks on the wall above all the TVs so everyone can see the time and plan accordingly. After messing around a little, one guy counts down from about 1 minute and the on- camera talent start the broadcast.

Emily (the girl I shadowed at the ballpark interviewing players pre/ post game) was also on the field and a part of the pre game show.

About 15 minutes into the pre game show I went back to the Injest room where the game is logged. Like I explained in my last post, the cameramen are able to ‘feed’ or send the footage they’re shooting back to the office so it can be edited and put on air with only a short delay.

An awesome girl named Lauren (who is a free lancer) gave me the A’s roster and showed me everything I needed to do- I watched the game (on mute which made it a little difficult…) and had to log each thing that happened. So say Hamilton grounded out to short- I’d press Tab at the begenning of the pitch and type next to it- Hamilton grounds out to SS. Pretty easy.

Logging the game in the Injest Room

I also logged ISO and replay shots- if they showed a close of up Kinsler for a few seconds I’d press Tab at the beginning of the shot and type ISO Kinsler or if it was a replay of a strike out I’d type REPLAY Harrison K Weeks, etc.

It was a super long game and ended up going into the 10th inning but it was cool to see how all the footage is saved.

Logging games seems super convenient because if I’m trying to make a Mizzou baseball video or really anything else- it’s really time consuming to go back and watch footage of an entire game just to find the short clip you’re looking for.

Anyways… It was tedious but fun to be watching the game and actually feeling like I was helping with something.

Next week I work Monday, Saturday and Sunday.

Monday I’ll be running the teleprompter for SportsDay on Air and then logging track and field.

Saturday I’m going to the ballpark.

Sunday I’m going to the Rangers Triple Play Banquet.

SGL

Internship Day 2- First day at the ballpark

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Woah. I’m going to try and keep this short.

Today was my first day at the Rangers’ Ballpark in Arlington as an intern. The Fox Sports Southwest photographer, Chris (who is awesome), who I was with asked me as we were leaving the ballpark (after the game) if it was what I’d expected or more. It was definitely more.

I’ll start from the beginning. Sorry if I ramble..

The game started at 7:05 p.m. and media arrives 3 1/2 hrs before the game for pre- game interviews before they take batting practice. So, I met up with Chris at the FSSW office around 2 p.m. and we got to the ballpark around 3:15 p.m.

We went in the media entrance, picked up my credential, headed down to the club house, met up with another photog, Jeff (who is also awesome and extremely helpful), and Emily Jones who is the on- air talent actually doing the interviews and on- camera work.

We stayed mostly in the basement which- the last time I was down there was last summer when there were tornado warnings in Arlington and we were sitting down the first base line so we all had to evacuate through the bullpens it was awesome.

Colby Lewis (P) pre- game interview

My boss told me the amazed feeling that I would have going into the press conference room and club house will go away towards the end of the season once it all becomes normal… don’t think this is going to happen.

Josh Hamilton (LF) pre- game interview

So, we go into the club house with some other reporters and Emily had an idea of her story line going into it so she knew who she wanted to talk to and what she wanted to ask. The guys were hanging out, coming in and out of the club house and she spoke with Colby Lewis (P), Josh Hamilton (LF), Adrian Beltre (3B), Yu Darvish (P) and later Ron Washington (Manager) in his office. It’s pretty cool how cool the players are with the media. They seemed to be really comfortable with/ know most all the reporters in there pretty well.

Ian Kinsler (2B) pre- game interview

Emily didn’t talk to former Missouri Tiger, Ian Kinsler (2B), but he and Michael Young (1B) were there for a while before bp. and got interviews from other reporters.

Yu Darvish (P) pre-game interview

Once we left the club house, we went back to the press conference room where all our stuff was and I learned something awesome. In my last post I said how they can log/ edit game footage at the office as the game is going on… well, this is how:

They have a SID cable which hooks up to the camera- that can feed both audio and video to the office. The cable plugs in, we call the office to make sure they see what we’re seeing on the camera and they start to log/ capture

the footage. I’ll explain more later.

Right before the game started, we went up to the press box to eat and watched some of the game from up there then went back down to the press conference room to watch the rest.

During the game I went with Jeff and Chris to film a couple clips of broll with FSSW

Chris and Jim Knox shooting Hamilton bat broll.

reporter, Jim Knox (who seems awesome also), of people taking pictures with Hamilton’s 4 HR bat that is going to be shipped to the Hall of Fame soon. Then, we just watched the

game. It was awesome watching it on FSSW, seeing the shots Chris and Jeff got and pre- game interviews Emily did play through out the game. They was like mini packages and sound bites spliced though out the game.

After the game, (Rangers lost 3-1) Washington came in for a post- game conference, which FSSW filmed and immideatly fed back to the office. This is the cool part. Jeff plugged the SID cable into the camera, fed the footage to the office and we watched the edited clips on TV no more than 30 minutes later. Nuts.

Scott Feldman (P) post- game interview

After Washington left, we went back to the club house to get post game interviews. Players wern’t too excited to talk after the loss- Emily talked with Scott Feldman (P) and we called it a night.

Now I’m off until Thursday.

 

 

I might edit this some tomorrow mainly because I’m super tired, probably rambling and not noticing it and spelling things wrong.

SGL