Column: There’s more to sports that you don’t know
The director of the New Orleans Saints in-stadium production sits in front of her switcher board. Photo credit: Albert Dupont
January 28, 2019
How would you like to do your job with tens of thousands of people watching what you produce? And get this, you don’t know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next, and it happens really, really fast. That’s what the in-house video production team at the Superdome faces every Saints and Pelicans game.
Yes, an incredible amount of time is spent scripting and planning the pregame, timeouts, halftime and post game shows, but the meat of the show — the actual game — has no script. When the ball is snapped it could be a sack, a run, a pass, a touchdown or the biggest non-call in the history of football. You just don’t know.
To add to the pressure, the content created is on two 333-foot wide and 38-feet tall video boards, along with countless monitors in the suites and concourse areas to make it pretty easy for your audience to see your show — and your mistakes.
It may sound like a lot of pressure. It is. But it’s a lot of fun, and three hours of adrenaline. You may be wondering, how do you break into this business that hires on average 200-300 people every football game-day? You can do that right here at Loyola with Wolf Pack Productions.
Wolf Pack Productions is a student-run production enterprise that produces volleyball and basketball games for Loyola Athletics, as well as other events around campus. By volunteering for Wolf Pack Productions you get hands-on experience working cameras, directing, rolling instant replays and learning the technical side of broadcast production. This is where you can get that valuable experience to break into the exciting world of live, multicam video production.
If you would like to get involved or see what goes on behind the scenes of a broadcast, contact Albert Dupont at [email protected] or stop by CM 408. You can also follow Wolf Pack Productions on Twitter, @WolfPackVIDEO, and Instagram, @wolfpack_video.
Standby… and we are live in 3, 2, 1, roll the show open!
