The Ultimate Setup—Sports Illustrated and the Final Four(Part II)
By Mike Tedesco,Saturday afternoon, the fans are buzzing at Centennial Olympic Park, and the four remaining teams are anxiously awaiting the start of the final run to the NCAA basketball title game. Inside the Georgia Dome, the photographers are laying out their floor gear and running through final composition and focus tests. Meanwhile, the technology team is running through connectivity tests to each of the laptops and remote cameras to ensure everything is set to go. Phil Jache uses a single laptop with Windows Virtual Server to connect to each remote laptop so he can run through the software processes. Each camera is connected to a Dell laptop via FireWire. Canon's Remote Capture is used to allow the camera to be controlled from the laptop and the laptop to be the storage mechanism for the captured images. "We have to put the wizards to sleep when connecting to the cameras with Remote Capture, otherwise the software thinks the camera is constantly being shot and won't connect" says Jache. After a few connectivity issues and a laptop battery that needed to be replaced, everything was ready to go for game time.
For each of the games, the photographers are positioned in the same location. At one end of the court are Bob Rosato and his assistant Adam Hunger, and at the other end are John McDonough and his assistant Nils Nilsen. These two photographers utilize the strobes and remote cameras as well as a couple of handheld, available light cameras.
When one of the photographers shoots an image from the tethered camera, all of the remote cameras for that photographer also fire, and with the precise setup of the flash wizards and Canon 1Ds bodies, all images are captured at the exact same time. "Anticipation and timing is key." says Rosato. "This is why a lot of people choose not to use the strobes, as you can only fire them off once every three seconds. If you miss the shot, by the time the lights recycle, the play is over.
The images from the tethered cameras are transferred to their respective laptop and are placed into a folder called Canon on the C:\ drive. All cameras are shooting RAW plus an M2 size JPEG with image rotation set to on. The RAW and JPEG images do not transfer simultaneously but rather one type comes in first and then the other. Time Inc.'s custom card reader software (written in Visual Studio .NET), called OPUS Card Reader, is installed on each laptop. As the images arrive in the Canon folder, this software renames the files and captions each image with basic information on the event, photographer, and so on, and then transfers the images to the server in the photo compound. The files are placed in three different folders: one folder contains all RAW files, and the other two folders house duplicate copies of the medium JPEGs. One folder is used for editing at the event, and the other is used to transfer back to New York for the editing staff to review. For the handheld images taken by Rosato and McDonough, those cards are run back to the photo compound by the assistants during timeouts, half-time, and post game, and they are offloaded using the same process. With multiple photographers' cards coming in, it is important to keep things in order. "We only download one photographer's cards at a time because no matter how efficient of a process you have, in crunch time it is very easy to mix photographer's cards up" says Sam Greenfield, Manager of Systems Development.
Standing up in the temporary stands are John Biever and his assistant Dave Heritsch. Biever is running solely on available light cameras. His assistant has a Dell laptop with a compact flash card reader attached so that he can download the images using the OPUS card reader software. Those images are sent back to the server in the same way that the remote camera laptops do.
During the first of the Final Four matchups, the photographers, editors, and IT staff are in full swing. As the images are coming into the server, Phil Jache is splitting the images into sets for Steve Fine, Director of Photography, and Porter Binks, Associate Picture Editor, to review. "The Saturday games aren't as big a deal for the magazine unless there's a huge upset. The news will be made on Monday" says Fine. "These games provide images for the web site, the commemorative issue, and also allow the photographers to test the system and adjust their camera angles before the championship game." The images for each editor are placed into a folder named Ready to Edit where both Fine and Binks use ACDSee 8 Photo Manager to review the images and mark the selects as needed. "Tonight, I'm looking for pictures that will fill up the web on a very tight deadline. We're trying to beat the wires at their own game and get our stuff on our web site. We're pulling action and emotion with an eye towards Monday night's matchup" says Fine. As the selects are made, those files are copied into the Selects folder. When each editor is done, they give Phil Jache a signal and he sends the images to the Done with Edit folder. Periodically, Jache takes the selects from both Binks and Fine and puts them into Fine's Selects folder for a final review. The selected images are copied to a Send to NYC folder where they are transferred to the servers in New York for the editors to begin reviewing and preparing images, and the web site team to get images on
si.com
Figure 3: Steve Fine reviews images from the Final Four
In fact, within 60 minutes of tipoff of the first Final Four game, the first Sports Illustrated (SI) image was placed on the homepage of the site. "This is a key reason why we go onsite and do this intricate setup" says Binks. Within the following hour, additional images from the SI photographers appear on the web and within 2 hours, a complete web gallery is created for the first game.
As the first game concludes, Bob Rosato, John McDonough, and John Biever come back to the photo compound to review some of their images and check-in to see if any adjustments need to be made. "I am picturing the stories in my mind as I watch the game" says Fine. "You have to be able to see what stories are developing and adjust as needed." The photographers are approaching things the same way. "What I'm trying to do is tell a story. One picture may or may not tell much, but it's often a compilation of images that come together to tell the story" says Rosato. It's during these breaks where the editors and photographers get together to validate their positions and setups to ensure they are capturing the angles they need to best portray the story they are looking to tell.
As game two starts, the minor adjustments to cameras and positions have been made, and the process is run through again. During this game, however, the system runs into its first issue. A number of images coming in to the servers are dark, and Steve Fine relays the issue to Phil Jache. Immediately, because of the captioning and file naming, Jache is able to identify which camera, laptop, and wizard is having an issue, and the problem is relayed via radio to the tech crew in the compound along with the crew on the court. "We have the best crew in the business" says Jache. "Our team is able to identify and resolve any of a number of issues very quickly so that we don't lose critical moments.
At the end of the Final Four, the group gets together to discuss additional remote cameras needed and final adjustments to be made to cameras already placed in the arena. The decision is made to change the lens Rosato is using on one of his floor cameras from a 14mm to a 24mm because the images captured during the Final Four weren't giving the desired view. In addition to that, two cameras are placed in the third level and at the opposite end of the Georgia Dome from the court. "We're looking to capture a sense of place at the tipoff, give the reader a wide view of the environment so they can pretend they were there. At the end of the game, we're looking for tears and cheers" says Fine.
As the game tipped off, the upper remotes were triggered, via Pocket Wizards, and the NCAA Championship was under way. It wasn't long into the first half when it became clear that Florida was the more dominant team, and everyone began focusing on the story lines of Florida becoming not only back-to-back National Basketball Champions, but also the champions in two sports (basketball and football). It was during the first half that soon-to-become MVP Corey Brewer would get a breakaway dunk right above John McDonough. As the images started coming up on Fine's and Bink's screens, they knew it was going to be a good night. "McDonough made that picture every which way" says Fine. "I love the wizard system because you can get one play from about seven different angles. It reduces the chance that you get blocked on any one. We have one solid cover try and it's still the first half! This could be a good night."
The transmission of the images to New York is done using Aspera's SCP client running a proprietary protocol called FASP. The protocol uses UDP to transmit the files, and is very fast. During the championship game, Jache ran a query of the system, and at that point there had been 3,400 images taken and the New York servers were only 7 images behind. "That's fast" says Jache. "The images we are transmitting during the game are medium size JPEGs, and the system is keeping up." After the game is over, the entire collection of RAW and JPEG files will be transmitted to New York.
As halftime arrived, Steve Fine decided he wanted to make a change to John Biever's position in the temporary stands. "I've got an idea for Biever. We know Florida is going to win this thing, so I want to forget the middle of the court, and have him stand in the opposite corner from the Florida team bench so that we capture the team erupting in celebration. If it works, great!" says Fine. As the game ended, the Florida bench cleared, the streamers came down, and Corey Brewer jumped onto the scorer's table in celebration. "Please tell me we got Brewer on the table!" says Fine. As the images came in, it was clear that no one was in the right position to catch the fleeting moment. As Fine circulated the photo compound to see who did get the shot, he wasn't able to find anyone who had it. "I'm sort of in shock. No one has a good, tight picture of Corey Brewer jumping on the table. And I want to kill myself for moving Biever. That's what happens when you think too much" says Fine.
While reviewing the rest of the images from the game, the Corey Brewer dunk looked more and more like it was going to be the cover, and it wasn't long after that they got the call from the Managing Editor. "Good call in New York for the cover. It held up from the first half. This is a key guy, doing the right thing, with a good face. That's what we need." says Fine.
It was only about 30 minutes after the game when Fine and Binks were done reviewing all of the images. "It was a good show…A very good effort" says Fine. "I have no real complaints. This was one of our better Final Fours in recent years. Not a great, dramatic game, no buzzer beaters, but a nice collection of solid images. We told the story." Of course, the work wasn't quite done. The photographers and assistants began breaking down the camera gear and lights while the technology team began packing up the computers, cables, and servers. "It's going to be a long night, and an even earlier morning, but we need to get it all cleaned up as quickly as possible" says Nils Nilsen.
Figure 12: From left: McDonough, Nilsen, Loehman, and Rosato break down the camera gear
Sitting in the bar, back at the hotel, having a drink and celebrating one of the finest games and shooting results in recent Final Four memory, what is still at the forefront of Steve Fine's mind are the missed opportunities. "Not only are we competing against the incredible photographers of today, but we also stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and that is what makes Sports Illustrated what it is" says Fine. Over 10,700 images were taken in the championship game alone of which 812 were selected and eventually narrowed down to 253 images sent to New York for editing. Throughout the entire Final Four weekend, 26 cameras were used to capture over 30,000 images from the three SI photographers, and the one that is still nagging Steve Fine is the one that got away.
Esta é a ultima parte deste magnifico texto. É abismal os meios empregues por parte da comunicação social nos U.S.A. Simplesmente tenho muita pena que em Portugal nada disto aconteça, toda a comunicação social quer gastar pouco mas ao mesmo tempo exige resultados.....
