I don't understand the lack of 'behind' shots either. That's one thing we quickly figured out two years ago and is evident on the 2005 DVD - a lot of shots either over the player's shoulder, or from cameramen in the middle of the field with paint going over their heads so you can see the paint coming IN to a player's bunker (well, you can see eit bouncing off th bunker, going past the bunker, and then hitting the player.) Made for some GREAT shots. But, I have to dmit we had some balsy camera guys that year, and the next year our camera guys wern't so balsy and it definitly affected the quality of the footage.
One thing I was noticing when I watched the match last night on ESPN2 is that when Marshall says things like "he's in snake 2", I know EXACTLY what he's talking about, but anybody who didn't play TOURNAMENT paintball would be lost. I think the smart parts show does do an EXCELLENT job of capturing important MOVEMENT from those two cameras elevated above teh 30 yard line on each side of the field, but is missing shots that could explain what the players are doing when they're not moving. In addition to shots from behind players, what I'd like to see is when it goes through the editting process that they add highlight graphics to the footage so when matty says something like "He's in snake 2, and really pinning in the dorito on the opposite side of the field", you mamybe see a highlight circle on snake 2 and then maybe an arrow pointing towards what he's shooting at.
I'd like to try some of these things myself but one thing I have not had to date is access to a significant editting budget.
I question two more things about the whole paintball on TV approach as well. Our show has fairly limitted dstribution (igital tier sports), BUT, we do make a little money at it, and the distribution is proportional to the investment/profit. We also only put 30% to 50% of the matches we film on the air. As weve done this, each year we've attracted more sponsors so we have more money available to produce the show and fund the league, and the network we are on grows so we get more distribution.
Contrast this with NXL/NPPL/Smart Parts. I think the whole 'let's get on ESPN' thing is a mistake. When you have new camera people and you start filming your event, you should film some matches that you never plan on letting see the light of day. I think the Smart Parts show has been hurt by the fact that the first few matches were the maches where everyone was figuring out what they were doing and are not as good as the recent ones - but the matches everyone saw first were the first ones. So after a couple weeks, they stop watching, and never get to see the shows that are better.
This is bad because we only get so many chances to attract an audience. When we havn't figured out how to broadcast this right yet (and we havn't), trying to get to the biggest audience possible is a mistake. It's expensive to do, and all you're doing is turning off a larger audience with a product you havn't worked out yet.
Hopefully, paintball has spent itself out on TV shows. What we need to do is put a moratorium on producing programming at a loss. If we can't get on the big networks without paying a lot of money, then we need to just not do it. There are plenty of small networks out there where we can do scaled-back programs and make some money at it. Develop some camera people with experience. Figure out the best way to edit and show the footage. Find a color commentator from outside the industry. (No offense to Bill Gardner, but just because you're the producer of the show doesn't mean you should be the announcer. Hire a pro.)
Each year, we'll get a little more money than the last year, we'll produce programming that is better than the last year, and we'll gradually, and healthily, move up the TV ladder. Paintball people in general seem to have a tough time understanding this - nobody wants to build somthing up, they just want to jump to the finish line, and it just doesn't work that way.
And Missy:
Over the past couple months I've been telling you that NPPL/Smart Parts are screwing up some very basic things they need to do to be successful at teh whole TV thing. The biggest one is you have no sponsors for your league. Before anyone even thinks ONE SECOND about trying to be on television, you need to establish a group of out-of-industry sponsors who are sponsoring your league on a non-televised basis. Once yo have that, then you have a group of ready-sponsors you can draw on when it comes time to do the television, so you can have sponsors BEFORE you film the show. (Another big failing of both the NPPL and NXL and Smart Parts shows iis they were all filmed first, and sponsors were sought second. That's silly. Most of the value of your program is in integrated content (on bunkers field, dasher boards, etc), and once you've filmed the show you can' tsell any of that anymore.) The biggest reason my show is profitable is we have a title sponsor BEFORE we film one second of the show, and that sponsor (and other sponsors) are integrated into the rogramming - they're on the bunkers, on the dashrboards, on the starting stations. That's the most valuable asset your program has and you throw it away when you film first.
