SPECIAL | SPORTS CAPTURE
IMAGES Wimbledon’s 18 courts each has its own individual direction, depending on who is playing
Fletcher has cameras that track the players by recognising distinguishing features, like their logos
grounds are fully dressed in flowers, the courts are marked and nets are up. We did that with ACS, and we got some amazing views of the centre court,” says Davies. For ACS and NEP, ES Broadcast supplied the majority of kit, consisting of Canon HJ40, Canon CJ45, Canon UJ90, Sony HDC-P43, Sony HDC-P45 and Sony PXW-Z450 cameras. Davies sums up: “For the last two years, AELTC has taken responsibility for delivering the host broadcast of Wimbledon in-house. The BBC used to do it, and it was my responsibility to deliver the host broadcast while I was at the BBC. But now I’m at the club officially as head of broadcast – it just means we’ve got greater control of what the world is seeing from a match perspective.” He adds: “We’re able to finance it in a way that we think is going to deliver the best broadcast output to all our different markets. For us, that absolutely means televising all 18 championships courts – ranging from centre court, which can have an excess of 30 cameras, all the way down to the outside courts, which can have as few as five cameras – effectively.”
opponent and the front of the other. “Then, you tend to have two side-on personality cameras, which cover each player during singles matches,” he adds. These cameras are the basic ingredients for creating the live broadcast of The Championships; cameras at lower angles are added end-on to offer slomo replays of the action; ultra slomo cameras with long 86:1 lenses capture the beads of sweat dripping off the players’ faces; and beauty cameras dotted around the grounds recreate the impression of being at Wimbledon for viewers at home. “The beauty cameras are often automated and placed into certain structures where camera personnel aren’t able to go because of space or capacity,” Davies explains. “But we work a lot with ACS to find workarounds for this. For example, on the centre court, we have two rail cameras that are integrated into the canvas hide and operate at the back of the court. There’s a sort of slit in the canvas, which means the cameras are able to track from one side of the court to the other and offer stunning images with ever- changing perspectives of the players in the foreground and crowd behind.” As with the Henley Royal Regatta, Wimbledon also utilises the umpire’s seat for a shot of the action, which allows you to see right into the heart of the game. This year, AELTC also introduced a 380m, point-to-point wire cam, positioned on the adjacent golf course which, says Davies, offered “a fantastic tracking shot of the grounds that we later integrated into all the match coverage”. But unlike the regatta, there is a strict no-fly policy during The Championships, so drones are not allowed. “We try to do a drone shoot the week before, where the
Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), tells Definition that its relationship with IBM has developed on the basis of “always looking for new ways to integrate IBM’s technology with what we’re trying to unveil at the championships”. He adds: “Now, we can immediately publish highlights from every match without having a human do all the logging and editing. It’s very cool.” Other technology at Wimbledon includes the workings of a fellow named Fletcher: a camera tracking system used on seven of its courts to track the action. Davies explains: “We used to use Hawkeye, which uses a similar technology, to track the ball. Fletcher, which is owned by NEP, has cameras that are able to track the players by recognising distinguishing features on a player, like a logo on a headband. It locks on to that feature as a memory and tracks the player accordingly. “We don’t have camera personnel on these courts, because they’re for lower- level matches – they still get coverage, but it just goes to show the different types of technology we’re using to capture all aspects of The Championships.” ALL COURTS COVERED Wimbledon has 18 courts, and on the other 11 courts, cameras are manned. There is a basic tennis camera set-up these courts follow, though each has their own individual direction depending on who is playing and which audience it is being broadcast out to. “The master camera – camera one – has a wide-angle lens and is currently, and has been for many years, end-on. And this is the same for every single court,” says Davies. This perspective enables TV audiences to see the action from one end of the court, looking at the rear of one
90 DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 9
Powered by FlippingBook