A Quick 60
The Challenge
MSGVarsity.com Sports Talk
High School SportsDesk
Monroe-Woodbury gets high-tech treatment
The damp air was woven with tension as two of the best football teams in the region were preparing to face off. Monroe-Woodbury in one corner—undefeated and playing on their home field—and Newburgh in the other. The crowd watching in the stands cheers, but what about the fans not at the game?
For those fans watching at home, MSG Varsity covered Friday's game live, with a slew of high-tech equipment—all of which was located only steps from the football field where the game took place.
The “brains” of the event was the editing van, which is where all the magic editing, graphics and audio took place. The interior looked like a small-scale mission control, with a number of switches, glowing buttons, huge knobs and radiant screens encasing the front wall.
All of the video and sound is carried to a single spot, the engineer control panel (ECP). The ECP is like the truck's outlet; audio and video goes into the van where it is edited, then it leaves through the ECP to a satellite truck. From there, it is shot up to space, back down and into your living room.
Inside of the editing van, the images are checked and adjusted so the colors look good—making sure the blues are blue and the reds red. The 'next step' is to prepare the clips (done by one person) then the clips are strung together (done by a different person). Some of these clips are predetermined by the director, while most of the time the clips can be strung together in any way the person doing them wishes. The program stringing together the clips is a lot like I-Movie, except a lot more advanced.
In addition to editing, a walled-off section of the van houses the graphics people. One is in charge of selecting graphics, while another is in charge of the small scoreboard at the bottom of the screen. This part of the van also houses two information people. Their jobs are to bring up information on players to add another layer of interest to the game.
"I'm glad MSG Varsity can come out to Monroe-Woodbury and put on a quality production," said Brian Butler, director of remote operations.
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