NBA Global Games Rio de Janeiro

On the weekend of 17 October the HSBC Arena in Rio hosted the NBA Global Games. The match between Orlando Magic and Flamengo. We started our preparations on the Friday prior to the match by checking all the videos to be played out the day after and organizing ourselves. I’ve been working on the UFC events in Brazil and so I have some experience in working with Americans. Although this event was produced and directed by a Brazilian crew, the event is American and was broadcasted live around the world with as most important countries the USA and Brazil.

When working in Brazil for a national basketball match, no replay-wipe, or other videos are involved. The commercials are played out by and at the network as well as graphics, at the location there is only a small truck, 6-8 camera’s most, and about 15 crew members. No script is involved, nothing is pre-produced and almost everything is improvised. But, and that’s unfortunate, this might be the only way to broadcast basketball live in Brazil. Only if you keep the production costs that low it might be possible. As well as broadcasting a third division soccer match on a monday afternoon, yes that happens! Brazil is crazy about sports, and especially soccer.

Comparing this to an event like the NBA Global Games, which is a friendly match, is pretty different. On Friday, we got a script with all commercial breaks, and special clips coming from EVS, all sponsored of course. We played the sponsor videos out from EVS and not from the video mixer, which is normal in the US. This may be done this way because the director is also switching himself. So, there is no technical director (TD) to do that for him. Then we had some rehearsals, meetings, and checks until the end of the afternoon.

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On the match day we had the last rehearsals and meetings about changes in the format and we got ready for the match. Basketball in the U.S. You can’t compare it to basketball anywhere else in the world. I’ve worked on several American productions and always some things surprised me, the attention to detail, the size of the production, how much money there is involved in American entertainment and that people are paying the amounts of money to watch matches. That’s just incredible! I watch it jealously and wished Brazil would have this same sports climate, because the culture they already have.

THE game Orlando Magic vs Flamengo:

Tags: Column, EFP, EVS

Guest Columnist Roeland van der Manden

Introduction:

Roeland van der Manden is a Dutch EVS-operator living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Roeland started working in the television business in 2008 for Eyeworks sports as an EVS-operator, responsible for live replays, live highlight edits, rollouts and other play outs. Later, that year productions of the national Dutch league went to Endemol sports. After working a year for Endemol sports Roeland moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Finding a hard time entering the local market in Rio, he got some propositions to work in Saudi-Arabia on the Saudi soccer league.

The first Brazilian job Roeland got himself into was the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in Brazil. The first contact in Brazil was Daniel Littwin, founder of New York Digital, a São Paulo based production company. That was the first step of the start of his career in Brazil. Throughout that event Roeland got to know many people and “that’s the way it works in Brazil”. In 2014, Roeland worked on the FIFA 2014 World Cup Brasil for Univision USA and later that year he founded his own production company “Amsterdam productions” where he produces videos for the Dutch Consulate in Rio de Janeiro and LS Concursos among others.

Roeland still works on the UFC events in Brazil, as well as on the Brazilian national soccer league, Rio Open tennis, Basketball matches (National and NBA Global Games) and will be working on the 2016 Olympic Games Rio.

We need more Guest Columnists at Broadcast Brazil, if you want to share your thoughts, join us.

Roeland van der Manden
More info you can find on his LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/roeland-van-der-manden , Check his website or follow him on Twitter AmsterdamProductions

Tags: Column