Thanks for your tips with Gymnastics, Courtney; it was almost as if BTN had read your e-mail. Iowa turned out better then expected, and the show wasn't nearly as chaotic as feared. Our producer/director combo worked the 1996 Olympics together -- for gymnastics -- so they were fairly well informed with how things flowed, where to put cameras and how to cover them. Additionally, we got lucky because our scores didn't come until waaaaaaay late, so graphically speaking, I didn't have much besides replay on and off, and cuts and dissolves. The show was fast paced and there was A LOT of emphasis put on the clean feeds. My one little clean feed was the back-up, should something go awry, so we had the DVCPro decks routed into the monitor wall (one had clean program, one had dirty), then we had an EVS fired up taking in clean and dirty as a back-up to the back-up, as well. I've never cared so much about a clean feed in my life. By the end of it all, I think I was the only one with overtime (they wanted the TD in an hour earlier). I'm still not sure why, but the check clears and I'm happy with that. I know I'm also excited I'm not editing our show back in the office. Blech. -- Kristopher

Your right, as far as being a TD, gymnastics is one of the more laid back sports as long as you can get past the caos around you. I just finished up round 2, MSU v. UM and it went a lot better. the judges and the university were a lot more cooperative then last week. We had a little post fixing to do but most of it was taken care of through EVS. I figure by our 4th go around in March we will have it down pat.

hey courtney -- i worked the UM-PSU meet the same saturday as your PSU-UM meet. Wow. That was something. We had Mobile 9 so I had a kalypso to sit behind but our luck ran out there. Our duet also had problems. I guess there was some sort of virus in the drive. They kept having to reboot the chyron throughout the night. Fun. And then that new olympic scoring system takes so long for the judges to get the score out that the coaches did in fact mutiny. So it wasn't us, it was the judges. We were trying to get the coaches to wait but they lost their patience. So we just stopped putting the score in. I think Chicago was going to do it in post. So it was fun. Lots of yelling (not really.) It was easy for me though. I just sat back and enjoyed the show. As for the conference championships in April... I'm not looking forward to it. At least BTN knows they can't broadcast a meet live. There's just no way.

Hey Courtney, It's Scott down here in Toledo... worked with you a few times (football). I know it's not your deal, but the coaches will come around. When the local cablesystem first started a high school sports channel, all the ADs, coaches, etc gave them a real hard time. They were just not use to TV. The station ended up taking breaks where they could as they had no control over most of the events. Anyway, after some time they all saw the good side of TV,putting non-popular sports on the air. Kids talked, parents & grandparents talked. They are now three years in and although the coverage is nothing to write home about, the schools came around and now are happy to help out. I know in Michigan that may be tough since BTN is not on the local cable. Hang in there. Scott S.

It was all in the coordination with event management. It didn't help that we had major Duet issues as well. I heard that at the Penn State meet there was total mutiny from the coaches and judges and they decided to screw BTN because things were taking so long. I am waiting to hear how things went in Iowa last night. I think they finally got the bugs worked out, or so it seems. I am on another event at Michigan right now and things seem to be much smoother. I am very interested in hearing about the other meets that are happening across the Big Ten.

I got a call about one of these events but it was canceled shortly thereafter. Sorry to hear your show was a hassle. So what was the issue with the event mgmt folks? Getting data? Cam pos? Cabling?