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SD Endurance

May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Story and photos by Bill Miller

How live TV coverage keeps pace with the Boston Marathon.

Pushing past the wall

The production is also unusual in the sense that there are really two production centers. At the start line is a television truck provided by CSP Mobile Productions, where there are six camera positions — three fixed, one on a jib, and two handheld. Two hours before the race, signals are put online for anyone on the network who wants a live feed — including the one local Boston station, WBZ-TV, that still covers the race live. Green Line director Shawn Jensen handles the start of the race — including the wheelchair, men's, and women's divisions. Signals are sent to production headquarters at the finish line in Boston via single-mode fiber-optic cable provided by Verizon.

Once the race is underway, the directorial duties are picked up by the show's main director, Treut, who is at the finish line in a truck provided by New Century Productions (NCP). Treut has 10 cameras to work with at the finish line — seven at fixed positions to capture the dramatic finish, one handheld, and two in the booth covering race announcers Al Trautwig and Larry Rawson. There are two other announcers: Lewis Johnson in the men's lead truck and Ed Eyestone riding on the women's lead truck.

Nick Marchetta is the technical director in the big truck at the finish line. At his fingertips is a Grass Valley Kalypso digital video production switcher, which offers mix/effects capabilities with keying and compositing and an open, networked architecture for robust operational integration. The switcher features 80 inputs, three mix/effects busses, 24 aux busses, chroma key, borderline key edge, color corrector, and a Sony digital-video router. What more could a TD want?

All of the audio is also mixed by Phil Adler at the finish line on a Yamaha PM1D digital audio console. The audio engineer controls 96 inputs, two 360 Systems Digicart/E Ethernet audio recorders, and a Sony MiniDisc player.

It's a grueling day for the athletes and the TV crew. Crowded at the start, the thousands of runners soon spread apart across the 26-mile course. To track the runners, one technical advance in recent years has been the advent of chips in the running shoes. As they pass strategic mile markers, electronic chip readers send the information back to race officials and the television truck where they are displayed on the lower third of the screen.

The final kick

The elite runners cover the course in just more than two hours — and normally, the television coverage ends shortly thereafter. This year, however, champion bicycle racer Lance Armstrong is running for charity. Given the high human-interest value, Treut sends the motocams back onto the course to pick up this special participant. Armstrong finishes the race in just less than three hours, and it makes for great television.

In the truck, there's a sigh of relief: another race in the can. It was a great day for television and digital broadcasting. All of the RF signals made it through the maze, and there were no crashes on the course. After a few days' rest, Treut and Amy Scheller, the production manager who keeps this well-oiled machine running smoothly, will begin anew, preparing for Boston Marathon 2009.

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Bill Miller, owner of Bill Miller Video Productions, has been producing films and video for more than four decades. Reach him at bill@billmillerfilm.com.

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Marathon Memories

I covered my first Boston Marathon as an intern in the news department at WBZ radio in 1963 — and I literally covered the event. My job was to drive the remote news vehicle with a radio personality giving live reports along the way. It was a much smaller event in those days, with much less crowd control and no live television coverage. It was extremely nerve-wracking back then maneuvering the news wagon through the cheering crowds. I can still feel my heart racing as I drove through the narrowing roads careful to avoid runners, baby strollers, or drunks who might stumble in front of my vehicle. So I tip my hat to the modern-day drivers and the hearty cameramen getting those exceptional pictures. Next time you watch an event like this, you will be able to appreciate to a greater extent the dedication and courage needed to capture these moments in time.

On a lighter note, during the 1950s, some high-school student friends of mine were covering the Boston Marathon for local radio stations. They had no remote equipment then, so the day before the race, they would visit phone booths along the route and put “out of order” signs on the payphones. Then they would hopscotch along the with the runners, phoning in their reports as the lead races passed their telephone vantage points. Coverage has come a long way since then. Hooray for RF.
— B.M.

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© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.