Climbing the Gnarly Directing Mountain With Skiing Specialist Vera Bichler

Nothing but powder: Climbing the gnarly directing mountain with skiing specialist Vera Bichler By Heather McLean, Editor

Monday, September 9, 2019 - 12:40

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Vera Bichler at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018

Driven by ambition and a passion for sport, Vera Bichler, a freelance junior director, has become the first female director working in the sports department at Austrian national public broadcaster ORF.

In just a few years of pursuing her goal to becoming a full TV director, this native of Austria has been able to work at the London 2012 Olympics as an assistant director, the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2015 with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics with ORF and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) respectively, and much more.

Bichler comments: In the sport department at ORF I am the very first woman to cover live sport as director. We do have quite a few women, who TV direct news and magazines at the ORF, but not in sports.

Black run ambition

On how she has managed to achieve this feat, she says: I think it is good mixture of being ambitious and loving what you are doing, as well as having a boss who believes in you and gives you chances to prove yourself.

Bichler has also been shortlisted for the IBC 2019 Young Pioneer Award, which is running for the first time this year to recognise the brightest, newest talent in the industry.

She says on her career path: I am currently working with one other girl and three other guys in a team of young TV sports directors at the ORF and we are pushing each other a lot, which is great but there is still a long way to go to becoming a full TV director. I was recently at the Rowing World Championships, which were taking place in Linz, Upper Austria, to assist my boss and understand how rowing can be covered. I think it is a process and you have to be patient with yourself. Gaining practise as an assistant is key.

The need for education is aided by Bichler's colleagues at ORF: My boss helps by taking me, for instance, to camera inspections for ski races in summer months, so I get a better idea of how things are arranged for when we arrive in winter when everything is covered with snow. I do feel very privileged to get those chances and to still be able to learn a lot in this huge field.

She continues: I don't think there is a better way to learn TV directing other than assisting and finally getting the chance to jump into the cold water and give it a shot. And I think it is crucial to have a deep understanding of the sport you are covering; you have to be passionate about it and interested in the story that lies behind the obvious. It is definitely more about being passionate about sports than which gender you are.

However, you have to get the chance to prove yourself and I got this chance, which makes me very happy and I know that I am privileged. I won't say it was easy, because it means a lot of sacrifices too; sport events mainly take place in the evening and on weekends, which means crazy working hours and a lot of travelling - which I love - but this sort of lifestyle certainly has an influence on your private life. I would never ever want to change though, she says.

Vera Bichler was part of the huge team in charge of the OBS Olympic Transmission for Biathlon in Pyeongchang 2018

Avoiding a whiteout

Bichler's career path began at university, where she decided to study journalism. She explains: As I am a curious person, eager to learn and to make the most out of every new situation, journalism clearly was the field I wanted to become a professional in.

Bichler had decided to study journalism after finishing school because she had ambitions become an author. However, after discovering that even well-known authors such as Dan Brown make a pittance of around 10 cents per sale of a book, she came up with a plan B.

She notes that while studying journalism she also, focused on media management too, just to have a backup plan .

Yet just four months into her bachelor degree in 2009, she began working as a freelancer at ORF in the sport department. Her initial role was as an assistant director in the Vienna headquarters doing mainly administrative work. She still works at ORF as the TV director's assistant for the international feed for skiing.

She adds: My main focus is on skiing, but I have covered a lot of football over the last year as well as some biathlons, Judo and handball, as well as volleyball and beach volleyball. When ski races are taking place outside of Austria, I am often sent there to add national content as a TV director; we take the international feed from the Norwegians, Swiss, French, and add our national content on with our camera teams, commentators, anchors, experts etc.

I really love this work, because you can always bring in your own ideas, travel in a small team and get to know great places. I first travelled in this function in 2015. Before that I contributed to sports transmissions as a floor manager or graphic operator for handball, volleyball, football, table tennis and more, throughout Austria, she says.

As a former Jiu-Jitsu World Champion, ORF has taken note and makes use of Bichler's experience. She notes: With my special focus on martial arts, I also edited and still edit some stories on national tournaments in Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, and recently got the permission to speak on air. I added some promotional trailers for upcoming sports events as well.

As an assistant director at the ORF in the sport department, you can really do a lot of different things and I can clearly see my progress from the administrative side, as one of many assistants, making my way through several positions to now, where ORF has given me the chance to direct all matches from the Austrian Women's soccer league, and ev

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