photo by Jim Beyer Sarah Lenoch, Megan McFarland and Trent Gary wait for game to begin. photo by Jim Beyer Jace Christensen and Monte work the Griz Men's semi-final game from the floor. photo by Jim Beyer Kevin Farmer works the control board

photo by Jim Beyer

Steve Abatiell heads to the contol room with 20 pound camera.

photo by Jim Beyer

GrizVision crew call it a day after the control board shorts out.

photo by David Erickson

Jace Christensen coordinates three different camera angles of the Lady Griz game. The shots Jace picks are broad-cast on a giant screen that hangs over the court.

photo by David Erickson

Travis Gregg, a broadcast major, runs the sound effects during the Lady Griz game.

GrizVision — ESPN 101

Videotaping sports for credit and profit

By Jim Beyer
J-School Web reporter

The Athletics Department’s GrizVision gives students hands-on experience in TV sports reporting and production — and sometimes a lesson in Murphy’s Law: “What can go wrong will go wrong.”

The GrizVision crew takes video of University of Montana Grizzly football and basketball games and broadcasts it to the stadium audience in real time. The TV show is played on the billboard-sized screen in Washington Grizzly Stadium or in Dahlberg Arena. The junior and senior students are responsible for the camera, technical and production work, generally without “adult” supervision. They are quick-witted and irreverent — and very funny.

During the Griz men’s basketball playoff game on March 5, senior Megan McFarland oversaw production director Trent Gary and Kevin Farmer, the technical director, or “switcher.”

While McFarland sat in the back of the room and made gentle suggestions, Gary spoke rapidly into the microphone.

“1 — center on the floor. No — 2, don’t follow him. Find me something cooler.  Ready 2 — take 2, Ready 3 — take 3. Whoa 3 — don’t do that! You’re live. Ready 2 — take 2.”

As Gary barked orders and watched five TV screens at the same time, Farmer pushed one of three important buttons that switch camera signals to the program screen. Switching is fairly easy, Farmer said: “You can relax, but you can never become complacent.”

McFarland, 24, said she has two job offers directing live TV news programs, but she’s hoping to land a job with “a big football team, operating the Jumbotron.” She has already worked for KECI-TV on weekends.

Farmer, 27, who grew up in Great Falls, is majoring in broadcast production and minoring in media arts. “If you want to be good at TV, you have to be good at the original Nintendo,” he said. “You know, with the big joy stick and two buttons.”

The afternoon camera crew included seniors Sarah Lenoch and Steve Abatiell, and junior Jace Christensen.

Christensen describes himself as the only “Lord of the Rings” action figure on the crew. Short, round, red and strong, he swings his camera like Gimli the Dwarf’s battle axe. Raised in Stanford, Mont., Christensen will graduate next year with a degree in business marketing and R-TV production.

Lenoch returned to the control booth at halftime covered with sweat. It was hot on the floor, surrounded by screaming fans, overheated players and gyrating cheer squads, and cooked by the overhead lights. The camera she carried weighed 20 pounds. Lenoch likes running the camera, but she is majoring in broadcasting and has spent more time in front of the camera as a TV news reporter and anchor.

McFarland said GrizVision isn’t that important at basketball games. “There is nothing you can see on GrizVision that you can’t see better on the floor,” she said. The crew doesn’t offer replays because the game action is too fast. It can’t offer much in the way of close-ups, for the same reason. Winter offers hands-on training for the all-important football season.

“It’s a time for the juniors to run it, to make mistakes and learn how to do it for football.” McFarland said. 

The junior class is trained to run the board and run the cameras during the basketball season, so that they can cover the football games as seniors. Then they train the next class of juniors during the following winter. The juniors learn how to anticipate the game and to watch crucial players. During football, they can run replays, sometimes in slow-motion, learn to integrate movie clips into the show, and even play announcements and commercials.

Essentially, the GrizVision team learns to produce a football or basketball game for television. And that includes learning how to work around technical difficulties.

About 15 minutes into the second half of the March 5 men's game, the control board shorted out and the TV screens went dead. Crew members carried their cameras up the two flights of stairs to the control room. There, the students cursed the equipment and called for backup. The control board was up and running by the time the Lady Griz hosted the women’s post-season basketball play-offs at 6 p.m.

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