Over the past few months I have been Freelancing for a company called Loop Productions. Loop combine cutting edge technology, innovative workflows and strategic staffing, resulting in industry-standard live productions at a fraction of traditional broadcasting costs. They have supply the coverage for all Matchroom.live events, which includes Boxing, Snooker and Darts.
I have been fortunate to be directing live streams for them for three different events over the period of three weeks. In October I travelled to Barnsley to cover the PDC Women's Series in Darts. I was responsible for the live direction of the stream, this included ensuring the camera shots were correct and representative of the live action, the graphics were on screen at the correct moment and that the graphics were correct itself.
Following my success in Barnsley they asked me to join them for two consecutive events in Milton Keynes, in a Covid Bubble. The events were the German Masters Qualifiers and the Northern Ireland Open, both Snooker events. My responsibilities were to direct the live stream for Table 2 throughout both events. Similarly to Barnsley the coverage was covered by PTZ cameras and they were remotely controlled by me. I had to ensure the players names were correct on the graphics and manually change them if not, ensure the came up on time and also ensured that the refs mic was on throughout the match. I didn't have any commentators with the Snooker therefore was solely responsible for the footage and coverage that was being shown. I had to visually tell the story of the game through images alone.
During the Northern Ireland Open my footage was shown live on Eurosport.
I continue to work with Loop as a switcher for different events, most recently I worked on the Champions League snooker, where I was directing live on Freesports. The week following I was working on the British Open, where I was directing frames live on ITV4, and the Northern Ireland Qualifiers.
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