Around The Grounds On Sky

[Stephen7]

Last season Sky introduced around the grounds with a reporter and camera man at other grounds, which I thought was a great idea especially if you were watching a race where you did not have strong allegiance it was great to get regular updates from other matches.

 

This season they seem to have dropped that, but did still give verbal updates of other matches being played that night, however they seem to have even dropped that for the last month or so. I wonder why?

[MattK]

Cost?

 

Sky seem to have cut back on their production. When they were at Swindon they had no camera up in the cherry picker and no bloke near the start line with the swingy camera on a crane type deal (sorry for non-techies, I have tried to use layman's terms where possible).

[The White Knight]

Cost?

 

Sky seem to have cut back on their production. When they were at Swindon they had no camera up in the cherry picker and no bloke near the start line with the swingy camera on a crane type deal (sorry for non-techies, I have tried to use layman's terms where possible).

I thought those were Technical Terms.

[flagrag]

There is a couple of questions there that I shall try to answer

 

1) I agree the around the tracks feature was a good idea and you will likely see it again as the season moves forward. It has not been used this season due to a combination of reasons we are currently not allowed to report from matches on bet365 so that will often rule out Wolves or Belle Vue on a Mon and when there has been Wed matches same applies plus the system used does not work at Kings Lynn due no 4G Mobile signal.

2) The aerial beauty shot does not work well at all tracks and at some tracks can get a high level camera position from top of the stand. The Swindon match mentioned was due to this and also the forecast was not favourable that day.

3) The Swingy camera is called a Jimmy Jib and is quite a specialised art and is done by only a limited amount of operators who also own all their own equipment. This year there has been a struggle to get them as many of the UK based ones have been out to Brazil for football World Cup and will move onto commonwealth games soon, Also many of these persons also took their holidays before this known busy period so hopefully availability should increase soon. Also last night at Leicester one could not be used due not enough clearance from fence to track,

 

Also it was known that Leicester city council H&S officers were going to be visiting and as usual were being very over cautious in fact one very funny thing mentioned was the camera operators on the scaffold towers they felt should have safety helmets on. Do they not realise theses guys can be 100-200ft up in a 4ft wide gantry in a football stadium with maybe 10,000 people below them ? They are just being picking as its Speedway. I understand the promotion had to give detailed plans to the counci beforehand about the broadcast I don't recall this happening when we do OBs at Leicester city or Tigers grounds

Edited July 15, 2014 by flagrag

[Stephen7]

Much appreciated flagrag.

[weatherwatcher]

The lorry was there at Leicester on saturday night. It was just behind the refs box. It gave some great shots from overhead on the races. I even passed it going home on the A50, they sure made a hasty exit after the racing finished. I also counted another 9 camera's around the track they may have been more. I have no idea of the cost of seeting up by Sky for filming a meeting but they must be huge. I was impresed by the way the backroom lads quickly got all the eqipment removed and packed away. But I supose it is just a job to them and they do it week in week out so it is easy for them.

They looked a great bunch of bloke to work with.