WWE

A few pictures of my brief walk around the arena today with WWE in the house.

View from "The Office"

From the floor.

TV Truck

In loading dock, looking toward the arena bowl.

Quick Post with Pictures

You know things are busy when I do not even have ten minutes to post even a quick update about how things are going here. I wanted to post something quick to get back into it.



Here are some pictures from pre-season.  I know it's been a while now, but this is what I've got, so you'll have to deal with it.

View from the back of the Control Room looking at the Monitor Wall

The Director and Technical Director

Producer's position, overlooking the ice

Audio Room

Video Shading and Engineering

A closer view of the monitor wall from behind EVS replay

One down...

I had every intention of writing yesterday or today letting everyone know that we were amping up for our first HD event.  But, I'm sure most of you knew that was coming.

So, now it's over :)  If you were at the game, I hope you enjoyed what you saw.  I know there were a few glitches and unsightlies, but hey, it's pre-season!  If you weren't at the game, everything went perfect and we're up for an award ;)

This was the first real stress test for the control room and we've got some issues to work out, certainly.  There are several issues just with the Megatron computers getting things synced up.  Other issues circle around our graphics computers.   And then there's our cameras...  There are plenty of things to keep us busy.  It's funny, though...  it seems like we have quite a bit of work just to get us back to the point we thought we should be at at the beginning of this night ;)

Such is the nature of the beast.

I did ask one of our interns to take some pictures of the production...  here's some of the better ones I got...

 

Nice...

Maybe some day I'll get some pics in-game.  Until then, keep imagining ;)

Now, it's time to shake it all off and focus on a football game tomorrow.  After that, the Caniac Carnival and back to the long hours next week.

A Hard Day's Night

Less than one week away from NHL pre-season hockey!  Cheers from the fans, urgent screams from the production crew.  Certainly, time is against us, but there is good news...  ready or not, our first hockey game (and our first true HD game) will be over a week from now!

We barely had time to wrap the commercial shoot before we were thinking about the next shoot, which is tomorrow [Saturday] AM.  NHL Training Camp officially starts tomorrow (see the Canes roster here).  With that, tomorrow is physical day.  From 7 AM - noon (or a little later), the players will file through the doctor's office getting blood drawn, eyes examined, the works.  In addition, all of the guys get their official league headshot taken tomorrow, and CanesVision even converts one of the patient rooms into a make-shift studio.  We will be shooting video headshots for all 40-plus guys tomorrow, even the ones that will be spending much of their time in the AHL.  This way, if someone is called up during the season, we have the footage already.

For the astute observer, you'll realize that tomorrow is also an NC State football home game, as well.  When it rains, it pours!  Three of the five CanesVision full-timers (plus an intern) already set up the "studio" in the doctor's office today, and the four of them will be meeting up at 6 AM so they're ready to go when the guys start coming through.  After all the guys come through, it's time to strike and get the last-minute stuff together for the football game.

The other two of us (yours truly included) will be holding down the fort at the arena for the game-day preparation of the football game.  Thankfully we have one under our belt.  Hopefully things will go smoothly in both locations!

Sunday is technically an off day, and really the only one in sight until after the start of the regular season.  There's still so much to do and so little time to do it!  Building the show from the ground up is certainly a daunting task.  Having to do that while juggling football (and the pre-season hockey games) and looking ahead to basketball is quite overwhelming!

So, those who need their hockey fix... it's coming!  For those of you going to the State game tomorrow, have fun!  We're working hard to make sure it's an enjoyable time for you wherever you may be :)

And....

RIP victims of the 9/11 attacks.  God bless the families of the lost and continue to comfort the survivors.

That's A Wrap

An interesting point about the photo shoot: we're using a high-speed camera on the jib to create ultra-slow motion capture.  We've got some cool surprises up our sleeve for it's use, as well :)

On that note, here are a few more photos from the commercial shoot.  Enjoy!

Tuomo Ruutu standing by.

Cam Ward reviewing his shot.

Cam Ward picking a fight with the jib.

Action!

Yesterday and today were the "commercial shoot" days, where we get many one-on-one elemental shots of the players to use for ticketing commercials or videos or whatever.

We utilized the services of Trailblazer Studios to shoot the footage.  We don't have the budget to have the cool toys like a full-out production studio has (like the big lights and the jib).  CanesVision did have a station on the ice for a green screen shoot for our in-game presentation production.

Thanks to Gregg Forwerck, the team photographer, we have some behind-the-scenes looks at what's been going on.  My thanks to Gregg for helping me out with this!

Ray Whitney mugging for the jib.

Erik Cole getting some direction.

Erik Cole in action.

Staal's turn.

CanesVision's location on the ice.

Staal's on fire!  Well... at least his stick...

Released

So, I just noticed that this press release was out... a week later ;)  Many of you may have seen it, but it's the "official" release from the RBC Center about the Megatron.

Also, ncsu1 shrewdly deciphered that we're doing our commercial shoots on the ice.  The look from above:

Have a good one everybody.  If you see my wife, tell her hi for me ;)