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Bowl Game Goes Techno with Very Candid Cam
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Some of the most interesting shots of next Sunday's big Super Bowl game could come from a small camera.
A very small camera.
Fox Sports has planted so-called Turf Cams around Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. -- including four on the field where the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles will play Super Bowl XXXIX. Eight more of the Turf Cams aren't in the turf at all -- they'll be mounted at the end zones.
"They're so tiny, they're effectively the size of an eraser on a pencil," says David Hill, chairman of Fox Sports and a driving force behind his network's use of technology during sporting events.
Turf Cam is the direct descendant of the mini cameras that Fox Sports uses for NASCAR races, says Bill Brown, senior producer of Fox Sports. Those cameras are mounted, for instance, on the hoods of the race cars looking back through the windshield at the driver. Around this time last year, Fox Sports began working with the camera provider, Broadcast Sports Technology, to develop similar cameras to provide a bug's-eye view during the All-Star Game.
The teeny Diamond Cams, mounted in front of home plate and the pitcher's mound, worked so well that the angles became an occasional but memorable part of postseason baseball.
For the Super Bowl, Fox got the NFL's approval. When the new turf was being placed onto the field after the Florida Panthers' last game, technicians laid devices about half the size of a cigar box and cable underneath the field. They'll place the eraser-sized cameras this week.
Two of the Turf Cams will be placed around each 20-yard line facing the end zone, and the other two at the three-yard lines where snaps are done for extra points. The cameras will be placed at 45-degree angles prior to the game. Video will be fed to Fox's production truck and, if it's good, they'll put it on the air.
"We're hoping we get four, five, maybe six plays that we can take a shot, prior to snap, as to what it looks like looking up at these huge players," Brown says.
One baseball shot showed a ball coming toward the camera following a bunt, with the catcher jumping out from behind the plate, throwing his face mask and pouncing on the ball.
"It was a fun little shot, a shot the viewers don't normally see in a typical baseball game," Brown says.
Fox says there's no chance that players could be hurt by landing on the cameras. But the same can't be said about the Turf Cams.
"There's definitely that concern," Brown says about the possibility of damage, although if a player steps on a Turf Cam there's a chance it will bounce back and remain usable. Plus, a football field is pretty big.
"We're hoping that the odds are with us that nobody will step on these four little-size cameras," Brown says.
Fox says there's no expectation about the Turf Cams, which might pick up action and it might not. Brown says it's about giving the viewers something different.
Hill says the whole thing's a gamble and figures there's a 100 to 1 chance of getting something useful.
"If you see something, it's great. If not, it's no big whup," he says.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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