Today, judo enthusiasts from around the world enjoy full coverage and highlights of such events thanks to Fighting Films. Everyone appreciates the quality of these productions but few have a real sense of how much work goes into them.
“The days are full on,” says Danny. “We aim to be at the venue two hours before the preliminaries start. This is to give us time to do final checks with our equipment, to go through our list of fighters to focus on and to film players in the warm-up area. We like to get behind-the-scenes clips of judokas arriving and their different warming up methods. Some of the best shots make it into the introduction of that particular IJF highlights programme or for the daily news edits we produce for the IJF.
For the Grand Prix and Grand Slam events, Fighting Films has a crew of four to five people. For the World Championships, it’s seven to eight. The core team, however, consists of four persons: a director, a head camera operator, a data manager and a stills photographer.
The director’s main role is to work with the broadcast team from the host country, which comprises up to 12 camera operators, replay operators, and video and sound technicians, as well as graphic operators. The director is in charge of all cameras, the replays and the picture that is broadcast on both TV and the Internet.
The head camera operator is responsible for filming all additional content throughout the day. This includes filming key judokas, their warm-up routines, their contests, and their post contest interviews.
“There are lots of other features we produce for the IJF,” Danny says. “This includes news edits that go out at the end of the day for TV and also edits for social media. The head camera operator is largely responsible for these.”
The data manager is responsible for
monitoring and recording all sources.
This includes feeds from the local host broadcasters and all additional content that the Fighting Film crew shoots.
The photographer meanwhile, takes contest pictures as well as behind-the-scenes shots, which are used on IJF news releases and social media postings. The photographer also sometimes assists the head camera operator with interviews and other features.
“We have to react to live events and as judo is so unpredictable, it makes for a big and exciting challenge each time,” says Danny. “We are usually some of the last people to leave the venue, due to the news edits we produce after the final block and the award ceremonies.”
As tiring as these Grand Prix and Grand Slam events may be, the World Championships takes it to a whole different level. “We have a bigger team but we also have to generate a lot more output: more edits, longer edits, more news – this is not only on a daily basis but in the highlights we produce post-event,” says Danny. The broadcast team is significantly bigger too, with nearly 100 staff and over 30 cameras involved.