Entry 5: Descent Into Hell
(January 31, 1997)

DISCLAIMER: The people working on the X Games are some of the best producers in sports television and did a great job of bringing the day's action to TV. Also, this is not a technical manual for the TV production.In his farewell speech on the Today Show, host Bryant Gumbel said that television "is not medical research." But after spending the afternoon in the Winter X Games edit bay I'd say it's pretty close.

Conrad Piccirillo ruling the edit bay, during the edit down for Big Air.

Our Big Air production day started late because the Snow Mountain Bikes were way behind. Why snow bikes mattered to us is a bit complicated. The Winter X Games take place on three different "venues." West Ridge is where the slopestyle, BoarderX, and halfpipe take place. Miracle Mile hosts the snow mountain bikes, modified shovel racing, and Big Air. And the third venue is the Ice Tower, where the ice climbing and vert skate, bike, and inline take place for the cross-over competition.

Each venue has it's own set of cameras, camera people, stage managers, mobile production unit, and edit bays. The events taking place on a particular venue must share all the resources. Because of this, we had to wait until all the cameras and announcers were out of their positions before we could start with the Big Air. When the bikes got behind, we got behind. And even though our Big Air coverage didn't air on ESPN2 until 5 PM, the time the bikes put us back made getting the segments done a bit of a thrill ride.

We had a pretty rough day. A lot of things that were supposed to happen didn't. We were supposed to get our camera's switched over from bikes to Big Air by 10:30. Riders were supposed to show up for Big Air practice at 10:00 AM. Bart and I were supposed to use this time to practice rolling through our calls (which we would have done one Tuesday if the jump had been okay), and I was supposed to get used to having Conrad the producer talking in my ear. Well, forget all supposed stuff.

By the time the cameras we're switched over and Bob Beattie and Jeff Hamilton had vacated our announcer seats it was 11:30, or half an hour into the scheduled preliminary runs. We also discovered that only three of the women and 12 of the scheduled 35 people were going to compete. Apparently, the jump was too big and a lot of people wussed.

So, we were late,we had half the field and we had no practice. So we charged it. There were some glitches but it worked. Bart introduced the riders and I talked about the jumps. A bunch of guys jumped and then it was over. Really, that was how it felt. I was watching people roll into the launch area, then I looked over to the monitors to see the action from the camera angles, and call the replay. We did 29 times and called it a day.

We were done, but our part of the day is nothing compared to what the production people go through. The hour and a half of tapes we made while in the announcer booth were logged by people who sit, watch, and listen. There are seven tape machines and a laser disk recording the action while Bart and I are talking. When we're done with the live-to-tape stuff there are two dirty programs (with graphics), and one clean program. The tapes and logs are taken to edit and cut down into the four six minute segments Big Air Prelims were given on the first night of the games.

That means an hour and a half of Big Air jumping gets melted into 24 minutes of TV. This should have been a simple task, however, things being behind made everything more stressed. The first segment took about an hour and a half to edit down. By 4:40 the producers were starting to get worried. Big Air was supposed to kick off the Winter X Games. If the tape didn't get edited down we'd lose our spot on the show, get bumped, and mess up the entire plan for the nights broadcast.

The producers and editors prevailed. With six minutes to spare the first segment tape was jogged down to the broadcast truck and rolled into the show. I ran directly from the edit bay to the catering tent and watched Mike Adamle and Chris McKendry launch the First Inaugural Winter X Games. They did a show overview and rolled right into the Big Air competition.

Okay, I'll admit it. I got chills. For a minute I didn't care about all my screw-ups or how late we were, or how hard the entire production crew had worked to get those six minutes on air. The production people made it to air, they were successful with the first segment, and they had to do the whole thing over three more times during the evening's broadcast. Each time getting the tapes into the broadcast truck only minutes before air time.

Now I get to watch two days of competition before Bart and I get to do it all over again for the finals on Sunday. Hopefully, we will have all the wrinkles ironed out before we jump behind the mics again. However, I think diving into the depths of hell and flying back out on a wing and a prayer are what TV is all about. And I think that's half the reason most of the production people do what they do.

Later.

Especially For Us
Tell SOL and the world how you feel about the Winter X Games.

Entry Four: T Minus One Day and Counting (1-31-97)