Never did equate it to good racing, I equated it to staying out of
bankruptcy and attracting an audience.
I've seen mid-season superbike races with better camera coverage than an IRL
or CART race. And Speedvision didn't do it with a fleet of Cameramen and
support people. I met the crew. One cameraman roaming around and 30 fixed
cameras (fixed includes bike cams and the ones down low in fast turns where
everything goes by like whoom, whoom, whoom, whoom) feeding a ProFile and a
producer picking streams. No tape, and the producer was a really cute
blonde.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Dave Riddle
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 3:19 PM
To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Newsflash From Ferrari-Now CART
While there is no denying the "entertainment" value of NASCAR I would not
equate the presence of cameras to "good" racing. While the abundance of
cameras certainly raise the visual appeal which in turn helps with the
casual fan at home who will watch a race on TV and thereby help with the
ability to draw in sponsors it is not as simple for a road/street course.
It is always easier to cover an stadium track with cameras compared to a
Road or street course. Put cameras around the edge of the stadium and shoot
down into the fishbowl. To get that kind of coverage on a road course would
be astronomical in cost and not even Boy George with all of Mom's money
could afford to do that even if he takes IRL road racing to two or three
places next year. Heck, he has lousy coverage on his current events and they
are run at the same place NASCAR runs what makes you think he will put on a
better show running at places he doesn't really want to be at.
The size and shape of the venue dictates how "easy" it is to cover and event
and how expensive it will be. When I was in college one of my jobs was
working as a cameraman for sports events. To cover a basic college football
game took four cameramen and four grips to work the field and five mounted
cameras in the stands. To do basketball and baseball the floor/field cameras
dropped to two and the mounted cameras dropped to three.
One of my other jobs was working as a Master Control Director. With each
increase in cameras the number of producers, assistant directors and tape
operators increases too. That means that to produce road and street courses
to the level that you (and I) would like to see are going to demand vastly
more resources than are required for an Oval race.
I think the only reason Boy George is even talking about running road
courses is due to pressure from Penske and Gannasi as part of the deal to
get them to jump ship with their sponsors that wanted to run the Indy 500.
A Race that barely had a full grid last year and according to reports will
not have a full grid this year due to a lack of engines along with other
issues.
The closest thing to what you are talking about is F1 (watched by a quantum
number - equal to the population of the entire United States - that watch
NASCAR). They have multiple camera angles (top of the roll bar facing front
and rear, inside the mirrors looking at the driver, along side the nose
looking at the track down low plus lots of trackside cameras. However, even
with them, if it is raining or foggy the number of camera shots is
drastically reduced since the airplanes and helicopters used to bounce the
video from the cars are unable to fly. NASCAR of course does not run in the
rain so they don't have this problem. But even the cost to produce those
shots for F1 where so expensive that Bernie reserved their use for his
"pay-per-view" which has since folded and why we are now seeing some of
those camera angles on Speed's coverage.
I think the new cars that are taking over CART will be addressing this
issue. They seem to be much more "media" savvy with what looks like making
the entire an event a "festival" with music etc... Plus don't forget CARTS
pioneering use of the "inside the helmet" camera on Paul Tracy - that is a
cool shot as long as it is not overused.
For another camera angle that CART could use, in addition to the ones that
F1 uses, would be right above the diffuser looking back. That would be a
much more interesting shot than the one they currently have looking at the
gear lever.
Dave Riddle
Former Sports TV Cameraman
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