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MillimeterSD Endurance
May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Story and photos by Bill Miller
How live TV coverage keeps pace with the Boston Marathon.
Dick Garrett rides backwardson a motorcycle to capture the 2008 Boston Marathon with a Panasonic AJ-SDX900 equipped with a Fujinon A10X4.8BEVM-28 lens.
The year is 490 B.C. Television is several millenniums away, and little does the populace know, but the first-ever marathon is about to begin. The objective is simple: a lone runner sprints 26 miles, starting in Marathon, Greece, to deliver news to the awaiting throngs in Athens. Pheidippides runs, tells the story of the Greek victory over the Persians, and dies.
Today's modern marathon is run for speed, endurance, and sport — but there's still the challenge of getting information from point A to point B across a 26-mile span without killing the messenger. Bridging those miles with unabated digital audio and video signals is what keeps television director Bruce Treut awake at nights. His company, Green Line Group, provides live television coverage for major sporting events including the Boston Marathon. He has been directing the Boston event since 1989 — and each year, it presents new hurdles.
Receiving units designed and manufactured by Total RF Productions sit atop 120ft. snorkel lifts—some on municipal lots and some on private driveways—to transmit signals from the trucks and motorcycles on the ground to the production truck at the finish line.
First held in 1897 with 15 runners, the Boston Marathon has grown into one of America's most acclaimed and prestigious road races. And year by year, as the Boston Marathon grows, so does the television coverage. This year, nearly 25,000 runners covered the course on April 21. The television show, which is broadcast worldwide and domestically on Versus, is produced by BEST (Blue Entertainment Sports Television) for the Boston Athletic Association. The logistics of putting on and directing the television show is handled by Treut and his troops. Presently, the television coverage is in standard definition. Treut says he hopes the show will be switching to HD in the coming years. “It's all a matter of budget,” he says. “It's a very expensive production to mount as is.”
So how do you cover a 26-mile course? Other sports — hockey, football, basketball — happen with-in a contained arena. Even golf has limited territory. At the start line of the marathon in Hopkinton, Mass., the signal can be sent to the production truck at the finish line over fiber-optic lines. And the finish line is fairly self-contained. It's those miles in between that cause sleepless nights for the production crew. In years past, helicopters were used as relay points for microwave signals beamed up from mobile television RF units. At first, a technician would sit in the back of a truck with a microwave dish, literally pointing the dish at the helicopter. Then as technology progressed, omnidirectional antennae were employed to send signals from the trucks and motorcycles to the helicopter for relay. That worked well until a few years ago, when fog shrouded the route and the FAA grounded the 'copters.
“After the start of the race, there were no pictures,” Treut says with a smile and a sigh. “We were in nowhere land, showing reruns of previous years. It was terrible. About halfway through the race, two brave pilots — daring guys, Vietnam vets — they took off and started flying. The ceiling was about 200ft. The FAA is telling them they have to land. Local housewives are calling police because the 'copters are flying under the clouds right over their homes. But these pilots said there's a show going on and they had to fly. So about halfway through the race, we started getting live pictures again. Two pilots had licenses suspended for six months, but the show must go on.”
