This past weekend I worked for Telemundo and had a great time. I love bi-lingual crews, it gives me a chance to brush up on the 30 or so spanish words that I know.
Early in the day running the jib arm
We were broadcasting the Olympic soccer trials. Apparently, soccer is huge outside of the USA. For me, It was like working out of the country. The Director was bi-lingual and would direct in English, except when he got frustrated, then he would divert to his native language where he could express himself more fully. I enjoyed trying to translate and got excited when I recognized something. I felt like a dog listening for a specific command. It sounded something like “blah blah blah camera 3 blah blah” Luckily, I wascamera three, and since I can count to 6 in Spanish, I could recognize my number.
Livestrong Park, Kansas City, Kansas
The other twist was that my camera was being fed to two broadcast trucks. I found I needed to keep an eye on my program monitor, because while I could not hear the other director, he would take me quite a bit. This was fairly fun. Even if I screwed up, I never got yelled at, or if I did get yelled at, I was unaware.
Hour 5 on Jib Arm
We went on headsets at 5 and went straight thru till 10:30 shooting two games and a postgame show. Towards the end, I was in autopilot. During the entire second game, some guy in the first row was screaming at me the whole time to put him on the jumbotron. I explained I had nothing to due with that feed but he did not understand. I hope he has a sore throat today.
Soccer is interesting to me. A player can get bumped and fall down and he will writhe in horrible pain, until he realizes that the officials are not going to call a penalty. Then he jumps up and runs back to the game. The also have magic spray, that when applied to the hurt area, heals said area instantly. To judge how badly a player is hurt, watch their hands. A very serious injury will be indicated by one very fast jazz hand. Mortal injury requires two fast jazz hands. Also in Soccer they try and kick a ball into a net, and it is much harder than it sounds.
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