21-June-2012
We have been on field for the final challenge of the European International Fencing held in Italy, Lombardy, in Legnano, and Castellanza, around 25 km from Milan, from 18-20 June 2012.
The locations were two, all the system used for shooting, recording and delivering were in HD, with brand names engaged like Grass Valley Group , Philips, Sony, Panasonic and others.
Two separate locations, one in Castellanza, right on the border of the Province of Varese where all the selections took place and SKY, the broadcaster engaged, made use of light ENG cameras. Here the light troupes were shooting the tournaments in order to create mostly news stories through portable camcorder and some contributions shot on P2 cameras.
All stories shot there were afterwards delivered via FTP to the main site in Legnano and partly sent to Milan SKY headquarter in Santa Giulia.
The second but main location in Legnano was settled within the picturesque Visconteo Castle and centered on an on purpose assembled huge covered stage housing all seats, the fencing finals a small news desk for live broadcast and everything needed.
We talked to the director of the event Angelo Carosi who normally takes care of all control room management of all SKY Italy sports channels and in charge for all assembling of SKY sports programs. He declared that nine broadcast cameras were used, two fixed with no operator, in the upper front part of the stage placed one near the other. The former engaged in shooting long and very long shots, the latter producing details and close up images. Another camera was placed to follow the athletes preparing for the race, and preparing swords for fight. Two cameras span the field and the surroundings, looking for particular images from backstage, one shooting the referee in case of dispute; one was placed centrally on main stage, in upper position near the referee, plus two lateral cameras, “supermotion” cameras connected to EVS equipments which also describe the close ups of the athletes on right and left side of stage. These same cameras are also used to create some highlights of the main events, 30/40” stories each to be used wherever useful.
The events also saw a steadycam traveling the whole active area of the “parterre” following the athletes, trainers, describing the teams, with very close ups and prize givings sections.
All broadcasts were live in HD for the five days on SKY Sport 2 from 17,30 to 21,30 PM.
The program signal was also fed to several foreign televisions and the whole “circus” was organized using Euroscena facilities, a service company with base in Rome who also is very active on Milan area. Euroscena service brought here in Legnano three OB-Vans of medium size, the main control room, plus a supply track and the electricity generating van, parked just on the back yard of said castle. The generator van was feeding electricity to all tv equipments plus all lightings placed on the main stage grids holding lighting equipments mainly of DeSisti.
On the right part of central stage a small but proper tv set for live broadcasts and comments of the competitions was assembled, to host a presenter and two commentators simultaneously.
The final comment of the director, Angelo Carosi: “It is an important international event we've followed in the most appropriate way possible, it's the last challenge before the Olympics, another event seeing SKY massively engaged. Everyting is recorded tapeless on servers and only twenty people engaged for five days.”
