Crimson Production Team Braves the Elements During First Harvard Carnival Unpredictable weather played a factor in venue selection, tech execution By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Wednesday, February 5, 2020 - 2:32 pm
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Skiing down a hill at breakneck speeds is not for the faint of heart. Nor is producing a two-day, outdoor bonanza for Harvard University's alpine and Nordic teams in sub-zero temperatures. On Jan. 17-18, the production crew dodged both natural and logistical obstacles to showcase the talents of the 15 participating institutions at the inaugural Harvard Carnival in Craftsbury, VT, and Waterville Valley, NH, on ESPN+.
Videographer Andy Turne, Connor Clement, Charlie Bramhall, Austin Yayer, Zach Ostendorf, Ryan Saber, and SID Katie Habryle weather the storm for Harvard.
We were hoping for 28 degrees and sunny, but it was not like that at all, says Imry Halevi, assistant director of athletics, multimedia and production, Harvard University. Waterville Valley was in the double-digit negative, with negative-40-degree wind chill in the morning, so it was really rough. I felt so bad for my team, but they were troopers with the weather and came dressed accordingly.
Click HERE to register for SVG Webinar: Technology in Action on March 18, which will dive deeper into the production.
After 85 Years: The Genesis of Harvard's Winter Wonderland
Harvard is known for giving equal airtime to all sports, including Olympics sports like water polo, fencing, and rowing. Despite this effort, skiing is one of the school's 42 Division I programs that haven't received much televised attention. While many colleges in the Northeast struggle to produce large-scale events like skiing carnivals, Halevi has aspired to host such an event for a long time.
It has been a nugget in my head for quite a while, because Harvard has a very large athletic department, he says. Around October or November of 2019, I got wind that Harvard would be hosting its first-ever Harvard Carnival. We've had a ski program for 85 years and have never hosted a carnival. Our coaches were working very hard to make it happen. That's when we first started thinking about it.
With a blue-sky idea, the production team linked up with the necessary individuals, Nordic skiing head coach Chris City and Alpine skiing head coach Scott MacPherson, from the athletic side to discuss how both sides could get on the same page.
Up-to-date graphics highlighted data of each skier competing in the alpine event on Day 1.
By mid November, they came to my office to sit down and talk, and that's when [a plan] really started forming, says Halevi. They laid out what would be entailed, and their question was [whether] we could provide any kind of broadcast-video support.
As the skiing teams were at work sharpening their physical skills for the event, Harvard's technical team was putting in the mental reps to figure out the intricacies of the complicated production. The staff went to work inside their war room.
Based on what the coaches told us, we had to figure out how we would provide coverage for something like this, Halevi continues. How many cameras would we need? Where would we put them? Would we do a local production or an [at-home] production? Would we have talent onsite or [at home]? In our heads, we realized that we're not experts at this and it could all change, so we tried to figure out our plan with equipment vendors and equipment that we already have.
In determining the site, the university scouted out multiple courses and locations to decide the best fit. When Waterville Valley and Dublin were selected as the sites of the alpine and Nordic races, respectively, testing was done to guarantee streaming reliability and inefficiency.
We set up dates to go and visit Waterville and Dublin, he says. We stopped at several locations and talked about potential camera locations and sightlines. We brought a LiveU pack with us and did some transmission testing and communications back and forth with our controller to see if it was feasible that way, and it was great.
A Last-Second Switch: Warm Weather Drives Competition 168 Miles North
Anyone covering live sports events needs to be nimble enough to sidestep any mishaps. On most occasions, though, the event's environment isn't changed to another location, let alone a different state. For the Harvard Carnival, one of the two sites was affected by an odd day of warm weather in the Northeast during the dead of winter.
LiveU's HEVC solutions played a critical role during the live stream
We had 67-degree weather in Boston and in New Hampshire, so some of the snow just melted, and there was not enough snow to complete an entire course, says Halevi. The people at Waterville were extraordinary because they were committed to making snow for 48 hours straight in order for the course to be ready. The Dublin School did not have the capacity or the time to make enough snow for the races, and we had to move the [Nordic] races to Craftsbury. but we found that out four to five days before the carnival.
In a short window, Halevi and company had to reevaluate crew schedules, camera placement, and the event's cellular foundation. On the personnel side, the university adapted its plan of having two teams handle the two events. Given the lack of time and the counterproductivity of turning over an entire crew, the same team saw both events through to the finish.
When discussions with officials in Craftsbury began, the task of constructing connectivity turned into much more of an issue.
They said, We have Wi-Fi and wired internet, but the course is 5 km long, and they don't have cell reception,' Halevi says. I said, Well, we have four LiveU HEVC LU600 packs, they each have six or seven
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Crimson Production Team Braves the Elements During First Harvard Carnival Unpredictable weather played a factor in venue selection, tech execution By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
