The 2006 Smart Parts World Paintball Championships tournament was switched live. Live switching is the standard method for producing nationally televised professional sports.
Past national paintball television efforts have involved shooting with camcorder equipment and then editing together a program after the fact. Multi-camera editing makes it easier to make sure an important shot isn’t missed, but has a major drawback in that the director can’t see what all of the camera operators see while they are shooting, so he/she can’t anticipate the action and direct them into position.
In contrast, in live switching, each camera feeds to a production room (often a mobile production truck for sporting events) where the director sees all of the cameras on separate monitors and coordinates camera movements over an intercom system, and directs the technical director, who edits the program live, cutting from camera to camera on a production switcher. Live switching has the additional benefit of time savings in production. At the end of the game, the program is ready, with only some final touch-up editing or graphic overlays needed before broadcast.
For the 2006 Smart Parts World Paintball Championships event, sixteen cameras were wired into a 53-foot mobile broadcast production truck where the director called the shots.
Set up for video production took a single day, and a full production staff of more than 70 people. The tournament was played through 16-hour days.
Camera placement included 16 game cameras, three dedicated to wide coverage of specific zones, and one straight overhead encompassing the whole field. In addition to the switcher, all 16 cameras were recorded in isolation. If an amazing move or play was missed in the live switch, it could be edited in from the isolation recordings before the show went to air.
Two point-of-view (POV) cameras were goggle mounted.
A camera on a 30 foot jib was operated from a 6-foot platform where it could provide sweeping views from the scoreboard to the field and the 3-piece house band.
Two cameras operated under complete remote control, one in front of the commentator’s booth and one straight overhead. Due to the shape of the game field, and the limited height of the ceiling, a camera lens had to be flown in from New Zealand to get the perfect overhead view of the playing field.
Three handheld cameras were used to follow players up close. Goldberg comments on the choice of cameras shooting into the playing pits: "The casual fan who doesn't know paintball wants to feel the drama. They want to see the passion on the faces."
In addition to microphones for the announcers and coaches, 24 more microphones were used to pick up sound from isolated areas of the field.
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