Close-up shots of pole vaulters contorting their bodies over bars, and sprinters stretching for the finish line may be grabbing the attention of viewers during this weekend’s World Athletics Indoor Championships, but it’s the audio enhancements that are really getting the team on the ground excited.
While athletes aren’t miked at this event, due to the nature of the sport and the speed at which the broadcast jumps between events and attempts, coaches’ comments are being captured by boom mics.
Joris Wauman, executive producer at World Athletics host broadcast partner Host Broadcast Services (HBS), explains: “Editorially, it gives enormous depth. With the long jump, for example, you can be looking at the replay, but with that, you can hear the conversation between the athlete and their coach. And it doesn’t really matter what language it is, you get the emotion that goes with the attempt. And so we decided to keep the audio open under the slow motion package and we’re trying it more and more.”
Fred Sanchez, World Athletics head of broadcast operations, continues: “It’s part of the storytelling, because it’s a very noisy place and you can see people shouting, but you can’t really hear it. Basically it’s the same thing as with the camera shot giving the best seat in the house, here you can also be with them, listening to what they are saying, and it helps us tell the story of the athletes. It’s not just the athletes performing, it’s the athletes in relation to their coach, listening to indications and so on. If you just take the performance of the athletes in isolation, it doesn’t give you as much emotion as when you link it to something that people can relate to.”
This content is also a benefit to World Athletics’ global rights holders. Content is captured in the language of the athletes, so while not everyone might understand it, for those who can it adds to the broadcast in a natural way.
Much time and effort has also gone into mic placement this year too, with Audio-Technica devices everywhere, including under the sand in the jump pit, inside the pole vault bar and along runways.
Martin Ahnelov, technical producer at HBS production partner NCP, says: “We want to make sure we have the actual sound for the attempts. We dig the microphones into the sand pits, we place them under the mats. It’s a lot of creativity, but the result is paying off.”
Sanchez continues: “In the past there have been occurrences where you can see someone on the triple jump runway, for example, you can see microphones, but you can’t really hear what’s going on. This creates a disconnect with the TV audiences. But actually that work in such a noisy environment is really hard, so you have to be clever. The picture needs to match with the audio, and this is really difficult to do in this setup.”
Wauman enthuses: “We feel that now we’re at the level where if you watch the athletics even without commentary, you feel very connected, because the audio is close, and it makes you get involved and engaged in what you see.”
Of course, the team has also given careful consideration to the visual aspect of the production too, with 38 cameras capturing the action in the purpose-built Kujawsko-Pomorska Arena in Toruń. The majority of these are supplied by TV Skyline, with the exception of a new 1D point-to-point cablecam from Polish company LineCam. Again, much thought went into the positioning of the camera, which runs at an angle across the arena so it can capture incredible shots of the pole vault attempts at one end of the space and the 60m sprinters as they lean for the finish line at the other, as well as providing accurate shots of the stagger in longer races such as the 1500m.
TV Skyline, which is onsite as a service provider to HBS and TATA Communications, was chosen because of its long track record working on other sports with HBS.
Read more TV Skyline meets the technical challenge at the World Athletics Indoor Championships
Ahnelov explains: “They proposed a very good solution to supply all the services for us in what is a quite technically complex setup.”
That setup involves four different galleries that all work together. Wauman adds: “The number of cameras might not be huge, but it’s very much the interconnection of all the galleries that is complex. And you need that gallery space, and you need four galleries that can seamlessly work with each other, talk to each other, exchange clips, exchange intercom, exchange lines. It requires a very specific setup, and they came up with a solution that is actually very smart.”
That solution is to have one OB truck powering three galleries, which means it’s the same routers, switchers, intercom and so on, which in turn makes it very fast to integrate.
Indoor events create their own challenges when it comes to coverage, however. Sanchez says: “It’s an intricate setup in the venue, so you don’t have the same luxury to install rail cams and so on as you would on other championships. That also dictates a little bit that it’s a scaled down production somehow. But the difficulty here lies mainly in having your basic setup correct. Once you do that, you see that there aren’t so many other layers that you can fill in with extra specialised cameras.”
The combination of great audio and video works to direct fans during what has been a fast-paced championship. “Sometimes we have three events happening at the same time, so we need to tell the audience what’s important and where to focus,” says Sanchez. “But it’s very difficult. You need to pay real attention and actually what this team, and the extended team, does is know the sport. You can’t just cover an event like this without having an intricate knowledge of the sport – that’s key. Some of the directors have known the sports for maybe 40 years.”
“We also have some young guys her and it’s fantastic having these crew differences and sharing knowledge and experience, sometimes we’re like, ‘Wow, these guys are amazing, and they’re our colleagues’.”
