Coming out of the cold

Press, 21 July 1982, Page 26

Coming out of the cold

The making of three 30min sports documentaries on each of the three disciplines in the Europa FIS series — downhill, slalom, and giant slalom — will involve Television New Zealand’s most ambitious use of its outside broadcast unit and production crew so far.

Planning for the mammoth exercise of bringing the unit and its crew to Mount Hutt has been underway for ten months, and yet, when the first skier bursts through the gate at the start of the downhill, there will have been no rehearsal for the run.

“The top skier in the downhill always goes first, and that's probably the racer who will win and whose race will be a major part of the programme. There’s absolutely no room for error on foul-ups - it's got to be filmed dead right the first time,” says the producer, Doug McCammon, of Dunedin. Such is the scale of the coverage that equipment and

crew will be called in from all four main centres to make the programmes.

The downhill will be covered by five cameras, including a back-pack camera, and will be one of the few in the world to be filmed from top to bottom with no gaps in the coverage. The first priority was to ensure that all the outside broadcast cameras and associated. equipment would work in the below-zero temperatures expected on the mountain.

“We put everything into a cool store for a week at minus twenty degrees and it all survived,” said Mr McCammon.

Camera placements for the downhill were worked out during the summer in consultation with Mr John Morris, a member of the Europa FIS organising committee. Snowcats will be used to set up and bring down the cameras each day i because of the risk of possible snowfalls burying them, but the cables — some of them nearly Ikm in length — will be left out at night. Because Mount Hutt’s generator has no spare capacity to run the broadcast unit, three generators will come up with the van. A bulldozer and grader will be available to shepherd the lOm-long vehicle along the road, and if the road is icy they will be attached to the van for extra safety.

"The outside broadcast van is irreplaceable,” says Mr McCammon. Once on the field and in position, the cables will be laid out from the van to the camera placements and all systems checked ready for work to begin. The opening ceremony will be the first item filmed, on Wednesday, August 4,

“This is the hardest outside broadcast assignment we have been given,” said Mr McCammon.

“It’s not only the logistics involved in filming, but also the hardest for the crew. It’s no fun standing around on a ski-field all day in freezing temperatures.”

The television commentary will be provided by the former professional ski racer, Scott Callaway, and the presenter for the programmes will be Phillip Leishman, from Auckland. They are scheduled for broacast in late August and early September.