The one sport army moves in for final rumble at Pukekohe
13/4/2005 22:36 (Press Release) -
Along side the many drivers and the teams lining up in the “Final Rumble” this weekend another dedicated team lines up along side them at Pukeohe Park Raceway. It’s the behind the scenes world of television that brings the event to the screen around the world.
ONE Sport returns to continue its relationship with New Zealand’s high profile Motorsport event and the second round of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship on April 16th and 17th the PlaceMakers V8 International.
“Just mentioning that we are going racing again really gets all the operational teams very excited” says Shell Helix Motorsport Producer David Turner. “It’s fantastic to know all the team want to be at these types of events and it really refects on the hard work that they all put in to work on an event of this size, not only over the race weekend but also in the many weeks leading up to something like this.
"We really have to hit the ground with a good solid game plan just like a race team does, work done well early on can make life a bit easier a little later on if the unexpected should happen. No one will ever forget how the team got together last year and recovered from the major overnight flooding at the track that nearly saw many millions of dollars of television equipment get damaged”.
“ONE Sport are 100% behind this event as always and are very grateful be the Host Broadcaster as well as the Sole Broadcaster in New Zealand of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship and enjoy working along side Australia’s Network Ten to bring this coverage to fans in both countries, as we all join together to keep this great race and event alive” said Turner. “We all focus very hard to give the fans and viewers something to cheer for and reflect the race weekend for those at home”.
Geoff Bryan will once again anchor the two days of LIVE coverage on Shell Helix Motorsport, beginning on Saturday April 16th from 2pm to 6pm and then again on Sunday April 17th from 12 noon to 6pm. Regular MotorSport reporters Lavina Good and Bob McMurray will be in the field reporting on the weekends events and all the colour and entertainment of the event while Wayne Murno and Greg Brinck call all the nail bitting action of the New Zealand Support events as their season comes to a close.
The experienced commentary team from Australia’s Network Ten will again call the V8 Supercar Races across the weekend for both countries.
For ONE Sport planning began almost as soon as last years event ended. “People often ask me what do all you guys do,” Turner commented. “We always look at how the previous years event worked and areas to which we can improve on, pretty much as soon as we finish an event. It takes a great deal of planning and staff to bring the standard that is now expected in Motorsport coverage to viewers at home”.
“To give you an idea we will have thirteen cameras around the track covering the race action, including a specialist crane camera at the hairpin and even one mounted directly into the ground, along with three cameras working in the pit lane. Seven cars in the main V8 Supercar Class will be carrying on- board camera systems from ABC MiniCam and in the New Zealand V8 Touring Car class three cars will also carry on boards from ICAM a leader in miniature camera technology. Each car will carry three or four separate cameras within it making a massive total of cameras bringing you this year’s race.
Thirty-eight microphones around the circuit alone will feed a 72 channel audio mixer controlled by sound director David Cooke. He will bring the excitement of the race to the viewer all in stereo to give you the feel that you are actually there at the race track”. For highlights and slow motion replays there is a team of eight videotape editors producing everything from Lavina and Bob’s stories to those slow motion replays that the drivers often go “oh no it wasn’t me” too.
They work with a total of ten videotape machines each worth around $80,000 - slightly more than your average home VCR and the very latest in specialist videodisc recorders. All of these things are feed back to the main production control truck supplied by TVNZ’s Outside Broadcast division and parked in the main television compound.
Within this compound apart from the Host Broadcaster there are separate Outside Broadcast trucks for TVNZ’s ONE Sport and Network Ten from Australia as well as a team from TAB Sports Production that will be looking after the on course big screens for fans at the track working also with new company Txt Station in adding to the fans on track experience.
Also within the giant TV Compound there is a team of graphics personal producing everything from race timing displays to results information. Engineering and maintenance support for the TV compound is also based there along with production offices and also from Australia the internet team from Big Pond, it is like a complete TV Centre but it’s all on location.
For the Outside Broadcast team there is an excess of eight kilometres of video camera cable linking cameras back to the trucks along with thousands of metres of additional audio and video cable. To cover for any of those unseen moments Outside Broadcast have a team of fifteen to twenty fulltime technicians on the job maintaining the van and the feeds back to the TVNZ base in Auckland and also the feed to Australia and all around the world for the countries either talking the telecast LIVE of delayed. It is truly a great showcase for New Zealand.
“As you can see it does end up being a true small army of 165 people that will descend on Pukekohe Park Raceway to cover the event and just like the teams completing in the race we work as a team with the goal to bring you the very best we can, which for us is just like winning the race” explained Turner.
“Live television is great, but you have to have good highly skilled professional crews to do the job there is no second chance as it’s all-LIVE”.
Motorsport continues to get great viewing support and the V8 International is another part of the Shell Helix Motorsport line up in 2005. Long may it continue.
Release Date: 11/04/2005
TV NZ
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