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the folks in the TV truckLISTEN. The sounds of a live television broadcast, the constant chatter from microphones to headphones among the three trucks and six cameras, and handfuls and handfuls of people, each doing something or several somethings important, this all seems vaguely, chaotically familiar somehow.
That's it! It is like the sound, if you've ever heard it, of air traffic controllers and pilots and co-pilots and ground crews and who knows who else, that lone station on airplanes (Channel one) that sometimes lets you listen in on the cockpit.
And in this scene, watching from KFVE's control truck, darkness warmed by the glow of 24 monitors, countless buttons and knobs, and a giant red digital clock, with the headsets, and adjustments, the constant keeping on course, it looks like someone flying a plane.
No. Wait.
Pilots know where they're going before they take off.
Well, maybe television directors do, too. But it seems like they have turbulence on every play, a new decision to make every three seconds or so. Or sooner. It looks like juggling. With chain saws.
I wanted to see this, wanted to see behind the scenes of KFVE's UH live broadcasts, to climb inside those magical trucks in the parking lot, to see how those roughly 100 Hawaii games and matches a year make it to our television sets.
And now I'm exhausted. My adrenaline is overstressed, my senses are overstimulated, and I've heard a rehearsing Jim Leahey say, "Check, check ... Czechoslovakia," before launching into a humorous lecture on the fall of Communism.
This is the best way to watch a game on television, because you get four "action" angles at once, like picture in picture in picture in picture. There's Mark Campbell, coming at you, and running away from you. It's almost too much information for the brain to handle, but you have to, because the director chooses which of these four angles makes it to the screen ("Ready 1 ... take! Ready 3 and effects ... dissolve!") as it happens. There are also four replay machines, each recording from the four manned cameras, and voices in your ear telling you that they've got a great angle for the replay of that last play.
Voices. Everywhere, voices. To and from everyone who needs to know or needs you to know. "I've got a great look on (replay) delta." "Artie, this will be the dunk." "You've got a logo in the upper left, you're covering Haim." "We don't have the foul, it was out of the frame." "Come on, turn around, look at the camera."
And of course, they're all Rainbow fans. "Come on, Mike." Mike McIntyre is still looking for his first point. He finally sinks a free throw, and does a little dance.
"Yeah, baby!" a voice says.
"That's great, that's great," adds another.
The name of each photographer, graphics person, replay guy, etc., is labeled under the appropriate monitor, so you know who is doing what and who to ask to do what. "Mindaugas Burneika, white 21, he's on the bench, look for him."
Of course the announcers don't hear the voices, not unless they need to. You need to press a special button to have them hear you: "And we'll be right back."
"And we'll be right back," Artie Wilson says.
There is even communication courtside from someone looking over the shoulder of the official scorer to the truck where graphics are typed up on the fly to be inserted on your screen with a "Ready 2 and effects ... take!" This audio can also go straight to Leahey for instant announcement, because, as they say, Jim is good, but he's not that good.
Replays have to be rewound and ready and so sometimes they stall going into commercial breaks to get it set up. "This is the steal, Artie. Roll baker. Music. Close their mikes. We're out."
Deadlines are instantaneous. Actually, they say the pressure is less once the action finally starts. Then it's mostly instinct. It's the moments in between that can be stressful, like getting through the opening sequence, or getting the halftime interview to sit down, or getting the halftime interview to stop talking. And then there is the matter of the national anthem.
"They need to sing fast!"
But of course they don't, and the anthem drags on, and commercial time is running out, and it's time to start the broadcast. "Have a promo standing by, I don't know how long these guys are going to sing."
And now we're on the air. "You must have heard at least one note of that," Leahey says smoothly, and the voices exhale in admiration. That was pretty good.
It was pretty good. The whole thing was, and this, from a team that had already done a baseball game earlier in the day. In fact the longer you sit in the control truck, the more normal it all becomes. This isn't so stressful, this is exhilarating. This is powerful. I get it now:
No, no, camera 1! Roll Charlie, and effects. Slide it up!
Dissolve.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com