Rock Me, Amedeus!

Today is the day!

Grab a Sanka and your blankie, cuddle up on the couch for the FIFAFrauen-WM,
known outside Deutschland as the Women's World Cup Final.

US vs Japan for the all the marbles TODAY (Sunday) at 11:45a PT on ESPN. We start on ESPN2 at 10a for a SportsCenter Special, switching back to the mutating monster mothership at 11a.  Okey dokey smokey?


This will be a game of contrasting styles.  Japan brings a disciplined, focused, passing game that can wear out opponents.  As you've seen, the US brings power and attitude.  With recent tragedies, Japan has the sympathy of the world on their side.  The US has been trying to shed the shadow of the '99 legacy on their road to RockStardom.  On paper, US should win, they are ranked #1, lead the head-to-head series 22-0-3 and have defeated Japan three times this year.  Japan counters with momentum and a wonderful underdog story.  And, oh, by the way, they beat Defending Champion Germany.  Japan features 32 yr old Homare Sawa, in her FIFTH World Cup.  Christie Rampone leads Team USA in her 4th Cup, the only player on either team who has won a World Cup-as part of the '99 champions.  They also have Mr Roboto on their side, but we have Abby Wambach.  Hmmmph! so there!

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhoff- main trainstation- our daily transportation.    Photo ©Das German

oh, did I tell you I'm using a Euro Keyboard? Z&Y are transposed.

I realize that throughout this blogathon, I have neglected to tell some of you exactly what I'm doing here.  Other aspects of my career have been as a camera operator and more recently, a Director.  The vast majority of the time, I am an Editor for live sports, mostly running a device called 'Elvis'. That's EVS to the sales dudes.  Basically, it's a high end Tivo, just with more buttons. The standard config is 4 inputs and 2 outputs with about 60 Hours of HD storage each.  We have 5 of those.  Recording video on this massive hard drive, we are able to replay stuff that just happened seconds ago. Some of what you see at home is not always 'live'.  We fake it. We 'turn around' or 'time shift' a camera angle that was not able to be shown live. Not only does the director have to watch everything live, he/she also has to keep Continuity in mind.  This is walking a fine line that looks great when it's right, it's really confusing when it goes wrong.  In this setup, I am responsible for editing all the in-game highlights, while my co-pilot Erick plays back all pre-produced stuff.  We both 'turn around' interviews and and reactions.  It can get quite chaotic pre-game and halftime. Post game is a Ted Nugent Free-For-All of ad-lib, off-the-rundown, live TV three ring circus. oy!

Team Tape! behind our Notes & Quotes glass wall. Thanks Peeps! you rock.

Overall, we have 4 EVS XT2s with over 4 Terabytes of storage, all tied together in a Matrix type of network. We have 13 IP Director stations where Producers and PAs can scan every video clip on the our entire net.  This includes 2 IPs in ESPN HQ in Bristol, Ct.  Three Avid suites here and one in Bristol round out the arsenal.  We can transfer video as data via our fiber optic lines to Bristol or one of our 4 Return Video lines.

To make it more interesting, we added another EVS yesterday. Yes Yesterday. With the US doing so well, the need grew to have a third operator, since we will be 'turning around' live shots from Japan, Afghanistan, Times Square, San Diego, The British Open and Wambach's Bro's Bar in Rochester.   Oh, this is going to be fun ;-)           (was that the right Sarc Mark, Shaw?)

 

 
IPSWICHTOWN Stat-of-the-Day

During WWC 2011 Hope Solo's Twitter account has grown from 10,000 Followers to more than 170,000! 
Yep,  that's One Hundred and SEVENTEEN Thousand. (got that, Bro?)
 
This has been the IPTNStatOday, sponsored by Onesies, progressive fashion for toddlers and Bristol Teleprompter Operators.

 The Frankfurt Opera House.
The Alte Oper was built in 1880 by the architect Richard Lucae. It was one of the major opera houses in Germany until it was heavily damaged in World War II. Until the late 1970s it was a ruin, nicknamed "Germany's Most Beautiful Ruin". There were even efforts to just blow it up. Former Frankfurt Lord Mayor Rudi Arndt called for blowing it up in the 1960s, which earned him the nicknamed "Dynamite-Rudi". 
Due to public pressure, it was finally fully reconstructed and reopened in 1981. Today it functions as a concert hall.  The fountain out front makes me us all hum the theme to Married With Children. Not far from here is a statue in honor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, although Frankfurt was not one of his regular hangouts.  He spent some time here a year before his death trying unsuccessfully to recover some of his earlier fame and finances.



Meanwhile, back to South Sudan.

A little under 24 hours after South Sudan became the newest country on earth after declaring its independence from Khartoum -- a bloody battle it had waged intermittently since the 1950s -- the first true test of the fledgling republic took place.  On July 10, South Sudan played its very first international football match, becoming not just the youngest nation on earth, but the youngest national football team too.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/football/07/14/football.sudan.nation.south/index.html


Daily Døpplégångér Doubleshot.
What is it like when you meet your Doppleganger?  Wouldn't that just be weird? Well, the inevitable happened. In a unique Parallel Universe type of experience, that actually happened here.  Remember one of our earliest DDD, where we paired our ESPN PA Jorge Bustamante with Australia's Sally Shipard because of their similar hair?  A few days ago, hanging at our local watering hole of O'Reilly's Pub, Team Aussie showed up.  Sally wasn't convinced, but played along nicely.  Not convinced?  What the?  just look at these two! even better when you see the hair.


This just in_
Prez Barry Obama Tweeted- "To the women of our national soccer team: Sorry I can't be there to see you play, but I'll be cheering you on from here. Let's go. -BO" 

FrankFurt Random
BO can't come, but we get Prez Bartlett- Martin Sheen voices our Opening Tease airing about 10:30a.
YAY- My Shelby made to Frankfurt! get some rest, let's start another adventure tomorrow.
Also, on site today- ESPN King of Soccer John Skipper. His prediction- US 2-1. good call.

Our double-decker Big Blue Production Studio rolled into town a few days ago and set up in the Fan Zone overlooking the Commerzebank Arena, site of today's Final.
Our TV Compound at the IBC has grown from 3 trucks to 21, resembling backstage at a DMB tour.


I hope to send out one last short victory blog tomorrow, but I make no promises. With multiple SportsCenter hits following our game and who know what else, this could be a late, late night.


Tschüss amigos!