Winter Wraps Up

100% Pure New ZealandWinter GamesSkiingSnowboarding

Wow, what a huge couple of weeks it has been, actually three weeks as we kicked the winter productions off with the Burton New Zealand Open. The Burton Open is one of our favorite jobs of the year. A week of action culminating with the best snowboarders in the world throwing down on the Cardrona slopestyle and Halfpipe. Its interesting to feel the ebbs and flows of the various disciplines, this year it felt like the slopstyle was the main event. So many talented riders and a general good vibe made for a fun day. The Halfpipe is always huge but after two massive years where new tricks just kept popping out, this year felt like a plateau year. Even so, the highlight of the event, perhaps of the last few years came from the Pipe where we saw a 12 year old Japanese boy display a level of riding which must surely mark him as the biggest talent ever to emerge from snowboarding. Shaun White was talented at 12 but this kid is unbelievable. Against some of the biggest names in snowboarding he led the event after run one and then bettered himself in run two. It was only the third runs of the day that saw the older riders come through. If the event were decided on aggregate scores the kid would have cleaned up!

Videos will be coming up soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We rolled from the Burton New Zealand Open straight into the 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games and what an experience that has been. 17 days of competition and we produced a show every day for 15 days. With three crews covering Southern Lakes, Dunedin and Canterbury plus a postproduction team in Queenstown this has been far and away the biggest challenge we have ever undertaken. Fast turnarounds are nothing new, nor is covering winter sports action but covering multiple events on the same day, turning around the coverage in less than 24hrs and maintaining the quality and momentuum for 15 days straight has been a new experience. I'm proud to say that we delivered exactly what we promised and I'm also proud to say that the biggest success of the entire production was the team that we put together. I've never been so impressed by a team of people as I was by the Winter Games crew. It was a roller coaster ride at times with new hurdles popping up when they were least needed and plenty of points where the energy and enthusiasm were in short supply but throughout the whole period the crew kept delivering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All up, we have produced about 12 hours of broadcast TV in the past 3 weeks. 12 cameras covered over 1000 hours of competition. 3 Editors put in over 600 hours to produce 15 shows. Dozens of news stories distributed both here and overseas. Lots and lots of Latte's and a few celebratory beers at the end. Its been an interesting and exciting winter. No question.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shows are all online at www.wintergamesnz.com

Production Details

Shot on XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX and DVCPROHD

Edited in Final Cut Pro

Cameras: Scott Simper, Graham Ritchie, Matt Martini, Jeff Tocka, Chris Kirkham, Scott Mouat, Lyndsay Davidson, Adam Jones, Steve Ting, Ben Ruffell, Grant Johnson, Richard Sutcliffe.

Post Production; Mike Kelland, Dave Weston, Geoff Reid, Piers Fairclough-Harding, Trinity Ludlow, Lisa Hastie, Mike Kircher, Mike Boulden

Presenters: Rebecca Bailey, Mitch Tomlinson, Hugh Hutchison, Hamish Acland

Producers: Ingrid Larsen, Richard Sutcliffe