The "guys in the truck" let us down each and every night

[Spex]

Amen brother.

I remember this was brought up and sent directly to the whoever the head of the crew was years ago, and their reply was basically shut up, I'm 'telling a story' here as the game isn't interesting enough as it is.

[Weird Fishes]

Best 1st post ever? *handshake*

[vexen]

/signed

Someone needs to be fired.

[Mike Hunt]

It's funny that this comes up today. Last game, my roomate, who has never watched a basketball game before this season, asked me "what's with the weird camera angles? I can't tell what's happening when they do that" and later on in the same game he said something like "why'd they focus on the coaches face for so long". It surprised me how a non-sports (especially basketball) fan could notice these things.

Then, today, in the fourth quarter, I had my own moment. I think it was after Kleiza hit a 3 to make it a 9 point game. The ball was brought into the Raps' zone quickly and they switched to a camera in the corner of the Denver end of the court while someone layed it in. I screamed: "What the hell are they doing? Who in their right mind would think that fans at home would prefer to see the game from 250 feet away from the action rather than the sideline?". Basketball's a game with athletic freaks of nature doing unbelievable things but the camera crew prefers experimenting with making them look like ants.

[J-Roc]

Can someone explain why the Delivery of the GAME (ie. best pass) is shown in the first half??

And the camera angles, etc.....all those guys in the truck ought to be embarrassed to have their names mentioned. No one, not fans nor possibly a bigtime US producer....would watch these and think they were good.

[GCougar]

Then, today, in the fourth quarter, I had my own moment. I think it was after Kleiza hit a 3 to make it a 9 point game. The ball was brought into the Raps' zone quickly and they switched to a camera in the corner of the Denver end of the court while someone layed it in. I screamed: "What the hell are they doing? Who in their right mind would think that fans at home would prefer to see the game from 250 feet away from the action rather than the sideline?". Basketball's a game with athletic freaks of nature doing unbelievable things but the camera crew prefers experimenting with making them look like ants.

That one had me yelling at the TV, it was the binoculars shot, what the? who the?

The clowns who produce the show are breaking a cardinal rule, never, ever miss the action. It is ridiculous how often we miss plays because the camera lingers on the bench / the coach looking to see if someone is pouting, looking guilty whatever ... they almost NEVER are. They're busy watching the god damn game (I wish I was).

[MEDIC]

Totally approve of this post.

I started a post on the same thing a couple of years ago. Not quite as well written, but yeah......

I have yelled at my TV screen on many occasions because of the camera crew.

There have been a few posters on here that have written to the Raps about it as well.

It is a big problem.

Have some damn pride people! Make a conscious effort to get better. Don't just blow smoke up the fans asses & make excuses when they bring it to your attention.

They've been horrible for years. They need retraining or a new crew or new management............ something's gotta change.

[Piecake]

Wow, now I'm morbidly curious to watch a Toronto feed game(wolves fan). I'm expecting epically hilarious camera views and inane, more-suited-for-baseball style commentators. It better not disappoint!

[JYD]

Yep, they suck and suck hard, and never seem to improve.

[sanity]

I think its intentional, to detract from just how terrible the team actually is. Its kind of why you never see Jack or Leo spout off on how poor this team is defensively and how its players lack awareness and IQ. THey throw terms like 'effort' every which way and about, and to me, its gotten old about 3 years ago.


Then again... its still a hockey town and the major networks can't even be arsed to televise Raptor games anymore so why improve? The production on sportsnet one streams is laughable. Its like taking a timemachine back to the late 80s

[DanBootleg]

Can someone explain why the Delivery of the GAME (ie. best pass) is shown in the first half??

And the camera angles, etc.....all those guys in the truck ought to be embarrassed to have their names mentioned. No one, not fans nor possibly a bigtime US producer....would watch these and think they were good.

I counter this with Stanley Kubrick would.

[lolwut]

There have been many, many games over the last couple of years during which the highly revered "guys in the truck" imposed a cruel ultimatum on me and anybody else interested in the game itself: turn off the TV now, or suffer the consequences of a major psychotic break. The problems with that broadcast team have become so abundant and glaring that I now expect to be annoyed on each and every possession.

When considering all of their problems, what comes to mind first is the multiplicity of inane camera angles they seem to be obligated to work into each and every broadcast. First, there's the low baseline angle that they routinely switch to on all breakaways, often at the worst possible time. Second, there's the recent tendency (yes, they're getting worse) of showing the floor-level sideline angle that they go to for about a second and a half every time a player pushes the ball up the near sideline. Sometimes this results in us seeing the entire possesion from this vantage point. Third, there's the above-the-basket angle that affords the viewer no valuable scope of the play whatsoever. Why not have an upside-down camera angle, too? Fourth, there's the angle from the corner at floor-level. This prohibits any unobstructed view of the entire weak side of the court. Fifth, there's the behind-the-basket remote controlled camera that there's just no reason or use for. My theory is that they are obligated to use all the camera angles they have in order to justify employing all of these camera operators.

That just about covers all the camera angles that serve no constructive purpose. But the problems pervade to a far deeper extent than just the placement of cameras. What they do with them is just as disturbing. I can't remember the last time I saw back-court pressure during a televised game. That's because the idiots in the truck want to show us a close up of the guy who just scored, the player who passed him the ball, a coach on the sideline, somebody in the crowd, or whoever the commentators are talking about at that point during the game. Often, these close-ups last beyond half-court and make us miss the first pass or two of a possession, and sometimes the entire possession. Last week there was a sequence in which a Raptor scored a basket, so they showed a close-up of him running back while Jose Calderon was stealing the inbound pass and making a layup. Of course, we couldn't see any of this. Then, they show a close-up of Jose sprinting back down the court because, guess what, the other team was on a fast break. We didn't see that play either.

There are so many other things they do wrong that it just boggles the brain. On a baseline inbounds play, they keep the camera tight on the passer so you can't see anybody else. They show extended shots of the commentators DURING THE PLAY sometimes. They show a shot of anybody in the building whose name is mentioned by a commentator (also during the play). They switch to a baseline angle whenever they identify a post-up, often resulting in the whole play being shown from this awful angle. They zoom in on the ball when it's in the air on certain camera angles, as if we can't tell if it goes in. They frequently zoom in on a player who just blocked a shot or dove for a loose ball instead of showing the resultant fast-break. I'm positive that I'm missing a lot of important stuff, but I can't sit here all night.

Unforunately, many of these problems are ubiquitous in the NBA, the policies of zooming in for several seconds on a player who just scored and switching to the baseline camera angle on each and every fast break being two examples. There is certainly a contagious effect throughout the league, and it generaly starts with ABC and ESPN. I hope nobody thinks they do a good job, because they commit many of the same mistakes that the Raptors' crew does. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who remembers Demar DeRozan getting screwed out of a dunk contest title because the morons in the truck over at ESPN or wherever decided to show a shot of Gerald Wallace while Demar was approaching the hoop for his final dunk. This camera work is just too outstandingly terrible to be the result of misplaced enthusiasm. The only theory that I can come up with is that these are the machinations of a league desparate to boost ticket demand by ruining televised games. I wish I had another one, but these guys put too much effort into ruining the game to ascribe it to laziness or apathy.

Good post. I agree 100%.

I've missed enough plays due to the camera panning on someone celebrating a basket that I'm about to boil over any moment now.

[StopitLeo]

Can someone explain why the Delivery of the GAME (ie. best pass) is shown in the first half??

Nope, but I wondered the same thing myself the first time I saw it this season. I would think that is also a director's decision. F'ing Troy Clara.

Another production move that I can't stand is when they do the split screen with a pre-recorded interview while the game is going live. I don't care about seeing the person being interviewed. Rather than doing picture-in-picture or something both windows are so small you can't see the play at all!

[J-Roc]

They actually do seem like they're trying to win an award for being "different". Crazy camera angles, split screens, trying to perfectly time highlights for the first 6sec of the shot clock. Just give us the damn game. Go back to being a cheap network with a couple of cameras and a director who only uses one camera to be safe.

[name_discrep]

Great post! There have been SOOO many times this year where we're saying "what just happened/is the play back on/can't see what just happened'. Not that there are too many, but every steal/deflection off the opponents inbounds play after the Rap's score this whole year never actually gets shown on TV - because the camera's are either back on defense already or close-up on a player.

The point too about the close-up of the Jack/Leo/Matt or of someone on either team's bench while the play is live drives me crazy. Especially guys on the bench - why does it take them 30-45 seconds close-up of a player sitting and watching - its not exactly riveting TV. They also seem to love to keep going back to the expression of a guy that is injured and in street clothes a lot too.

The Denver game especially seem to use every camera angle possible and it was hard to follow.

Glad other people feel my frustration about the camera guys.

[C Court]

I totally agree with the OP. Raptor production crews are the worst.

They use unique camera angles which essentially result in us missing most of what happened in the play. Then they cut to a needless replay or focus the camera on a coach while we miss another made bucket or two. Awful.

[Double Helix]

Good post. I think a lot of fans feel your pain. I'm actually a fan of instant reply but only when it's cued up and ready to go quickly. A good example of this is an And1. By all means, show me the play again in slow motion while everybody is getting set to shoot a free throw or during a break but how often have you been hyped to see the replay of something spectacular (an alleyoop or a nicely thrown dime in through traffic) and then when they cut to the replay it's actually something that happened much earlier and Matt's left surprised because he, too, thought we'd be seeing a replay of the spectacular play.

I also get the impression that they're cutting together stuff for the breaks and the plays of the game far too early and are unwilling to go back to the drawing board and adjust them if something spectacular happens after they started editing and the story in the game has shifted a little. For example, they might have a few layups and a first quarter dunk that they've stitched together into a montage they will later use to lead into half-time. I get the impression that even if Bargnani hit 10 straight 3 pointers the moment they started cutting that montage and took us from a defecit to putting the team up nobody in the truck would have the work ethic or desire to say, "I know we already cut the montage but the story's now changed. Let's get some three pointers in there now so Matt can hint at what happened for those tuning into the game late." And it's the same thing heading into the end of the game. You might need some last minute shots in there to tell the whole story. The best crews hustle around and are able to stitch together memorable slow-motion highlight reel montages that tell stories quickly. It's a real weakness of this crew IMO.

Video editing should feel cerebral and natural. Overall, our brains probably crave the following things in the following order:

1) Never miss anything live that was worth seeing.
2) A replay of something spectacular shortly after it happened and cued up quickly and played at the right time and cut back to the game quickly so we don't mess with rule #1
3) Advanced camera angles should be used to enhance the experience not detract from it. A good example of this is the hand held coach's shot in the huddle or the overhead of the coaches talking to the players. Those are good camera angles that feel natural and add a level of intimacy to the huddle.
4) Show us close ups quickly and cut away back to the play quickly.
5) Use montages to tell a visual story of the game so far up until that moment. This means that you might have to be hustling to cut into some late 2nd quarter stuff during the final commercial break into the montage or some late 4th quarter stuff into the finale in order to properly tell the story of the game.

It's not rocket science.

I do feel like the CBC broadcasts were the best Raptors broadcasts though. I don't know if it's because the CBC insisted on using their own staff but every Sunday afternoon game just seemed to have that extra level of polish and fewer of the gripes listed above.

[J-Roc]

DH you mention CBC. Perhaps it's because they weren't trying to be special. They'd just show the damn game. Turns out that's what we want.

As for determining the replay too early.... Let's say Amir throw down an alley oop. But then a few plays later, the other team scores a big bucket, maybe forcing us to take a timeout. Or maybe it's a close play where the other team scores an And1. I'll be wanting to see that replay, which is more important at the time, than an inconsequential Amir dunk a few plays before. But surely, they'll cue up the useless dunk for us. I don't know, maybe some fans just want to see our dunks.

[theSkinny]

I totally agree with the OP. Raptor production crews are the worst.

They use unique camera angles which essentially result in us missing most of what happened in the play. Then they cut to a needless replay or focus the camera on a coach while we miss another made bucket or two. Awful.

I look forward to the day, where we can choose our own angles ala blu rays..
That would be the ish!

[Compton_Killa10]

Were you high when you wrote all this?