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MillimeterBig Move
Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Cynthia Wisehart
On July 7, when Barack Obama confirmed the rumor that he was moving his acceptance speech from Denver's Pepsi Center to Invesco Field, the first thing that crossed my mind was, “This is bad news for broadcasters.”
I'm sure that thought was already occurring to producers who had long ago committed budget and engineering to the infrastructure at the Pepsi Center. The plans were made; the money was spent. Of course, you can rarely count on news to follow the business plan, but conventions are less news and more part of the televised event machine — scarcely more spontaneous than the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards. As one engineer put it to me, “Why don't we just move the Olympics across the street while we're at it?”
In past years, broadcasters might have factored into such a decision. This time, the Democratic Party had history on its side and the leverage that goes with it. At one of the most newsworthy conventions in decades, the cameras would follow the candidate.
And follow they did, in the middle of the night with only a few hours to work with in a situation that was security-driven, not broadcast-driven. This seemed like a good story to report. A lot of video and news people were affected, but we decided to pursue the story through the eyes of two particular teams. It seemed likely that the local-market outlets — cable and local affiliates — would have the toughest adjustment because their budgets and teams were small, but their responsibilities relatively large.
In addition to the convention story, which involved spending a full week in Denver, this issue also contains two other articles that represent long hours of effort. D. W. Leitner used the Kino Flo VistaBeam 300 on his sets over a period of time until he felt confident that his initial good impression was true to life. Jan Ozer and Franklin McMahon brought their years of Adobe-related expertise, and their distinct perspectives, to a very first look at CS4 Production Premium — the NDA lifts the day we mail. You'll see they both spent quite a bit of time with the beta version; this first analysis will be followed by full reviews.
Editor's Note: As we go to press, Ascent Media Sound Engineer Mike Kloster is fighting for his life and future at UCLA Medical Center, seriously injured in the Metrolink crash in Los Angeles. Our thoughts are with him and his family.
