The Rewarding Chaos of Live Broadcasting (Rerun)

You’ve only got one chance to get it right when the broadcast is live. In this episode, host Candice Bloch talks with Remote Operations Manager, Pam Chvotkin all about the fast-paced and intense world of live event coverage. Pam has years of broadcast production experience ranging from professional sports, to concerts, competitions, awards shows, and more. In the conversation, Pam shares her knowledge about the often chaotic but rewarding lifestyle that keeps one adaptable and ready for anything. After listening to what it takes, you’ll watch live programming with a better understanding and more respect for what goes on behind the scenes to make it happen.

To learn more about Pam and her work, visit www.pamchvotkin.com and to see some great behind-the-scenes content, follow Pam @reddusfoximus on the socials.

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Transcript

00:01 - Voiceover
Quiet on the set, all together, please, and action. 

00:11 - Voiceover 
Welcome to Media Monuments presented by Women in Film Video in Washington DC. Media Monuments features conversations with industry professionals speaking on a range of topics of interest to screen-based media makers. 

00:26 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Thanks for joining us. I'm your host, candace Block, and today I'm joined by remote operations manager, pam Schvotkin, here to talk all about the world of live event production. Pam has built a successful track record working with a number of global sports organizations, media rights holders and brands, while also coordinating sports event production across both college sports and professional sports, with the NFL, nba, mlb, mls, nhl, pga and the list goes on as well as entertainment-focused shows including music, concerts, pageant competitions, award shows, comedy specials and reality shows. She also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama, teaching classes in sports marketing and event production, and digital and social media. She's a graduate of the University of Tennessee and has a background in marketing and communications, specializing in sports and entertainment. She focuses on media relations, event operations, global marketing, public relations, social media promotion and branding, in addition to the onsite duties within the broadcast production realm. Welcome to the show, pam. 

01:27 - Guest 
Oh, thanks for having me. I got tired just listening to all that Sounds like it's a lot. 

01:32 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Happy to be here. You're a very accomplished lady, so I like to start most conversations with some more background on our guests, and we heard in your intro that you studied sports and entertainment communication in college, so has your entire career, right out of the gate, been focused on live event production? 

01:50 - Guest 
I kind of fell into it. I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I graduated, when I got down to University of Tennessee, I kind of interacted with a lot of the Southern girls, very stereotypical, exactly what you would think of outside of growing outside of the Maryland DC area. They were all broadcast journalism majors. Nearly every single one of them it could be raining sideways and the hair was perfect, the pearls, the all the works. And when I think I want to go into broadcast journalism, initially I wanted to be on the air and then, after seeing all those girls, I was like, well, maybe there's a different option for me. So I actually got involved with the athletic department and showed up and said I really have no idea what all of this entails, but I'm really anxious to learn. If there's a spot for me, just shadow or do whatever. 

02:44
The athletic director at the time but Ford, who was an amazing person through me into the mix just said we need envelope stuff and we need to do all these things prior to even the game happening. So if you're really interested, this is the skeletal situation of what kind of we do to build into it and I found that I really liked that side of building what the experience that I had hoped being as a fan could be, and I just ran with it and loved it so much more than the mindset of being in front of the camera as opposed to being behind the camera and I'm like, wait, I can do this in jeans and a t-shirt and put my hair in a messy bun and I'll have to worry about what I look like. This is awesome. So I just stuck with it and I've been ever since. 

03:29 - Candice Bloch (Host)
That's awesome. Have there been some especially memorable milestones or crucial steps along your journey to get you to where you are now? 

03:37 - Guest 
I had toured with being staff at a lot of places for a while and when I had moved back to the DC area I had applied a couple places, went through a series of interviews. One company I went through nine months of an interview process only for them to go on a hiring freeze and completely cut the position. So I ended up getting into freelancing a little bit and this is great. I ran it almost 20 years ago now, so thinking about that back then wasn't really what are we doing? How is that going to be substantial enough to do this and do this? As often I feel like you have to hustle really hard to build whatever kind of personal brand that you want to build for yourself. But the networking aspect for me really set the tone of having the experience of my background in musical theater and wanting to be on camera. I was comfortable with talking to people, which is the basis of what this industry is. It's a lot of networking and I built up and made some connections in the DC area, started freelancing. They referred me to somebody else who was working on an event with a different network and as that continued happening, there were more networks and then more networks and the beauty about the DC area or really any major city is that you have just a plethora of just opportunity both on the sports and entertainment and music side. You've got multiple networks, multiple teams, multiple events going through that. Just they need production people and you just find out where your niche is and where you can fit in and where you really can just be the most helpful to put on this type of event. 

05:15
Because it takes generations of just people and bodies just to make anything look as seamless as it does on television or any type of event. That's just a high end production. I don't call them games really anymore. They're not really events, they're productions to us. I think the milestone that I hit with my first Super Bowl, that was pretty cool because I felt like that was just like the highest level, because I've done a lot of college sports. But until you hit the major four first Stanley Cup, first Final Four, really anything that's like a nationally televised thing for me was any milestones and I feel like I'm still crossing off things off my list. But things I used to watch as a kid or that any of us would watch would be something that I would consider a cool milestone to hit. 

06:05 - Candice Bloch (Host)
That's really cool that you've gotten to do that. Can you tell us what some of those bucket list items are that you want to cross off? 

06:10 - Guest 
There's a couple things that I haven't done. I haven't done an F1 race that I really would love to get involved with, or NASCAR, so no, auto racing. I haven't done that yet. I haven't done a college world series. That's been on my bucket list. I've done the Little League World Series, multiple MLB World Serieses, but never a collegiate World Series in Omaha, so that's been on my bucket list. Would love to do the Olympics one of these days. Horse racing is on the list. It's just like random things that I just want to. I'd love to do a Tony Awards. Let's just keep going. There's just so many that I haven't had the chance to do yet. And why not? Let's just keep it going. 

06:50 - Candice Bloch (Host)
You've done so much, you've also done so many different roles. Can you just educate our audience a little bit on some of the differences and maybe some of the similarities between some of those different roles? For example, some differences between a booth coordinator and a line producer? 

07:05 - Guest 
A booth coordinator is basically somebody. There's a lot of sales elements that goes into games or events, a lot of promos that will happen. Traditionally and again pre-COVID, there was a lot more traditional style of having promo cards on a sheet that is given to talent at any given time throughout the game. You have to hit certain ad sales elements per game. It's in the contracts within the broadcast networks of whatever game that you're producing. For example, in baseball you need to have these promos done by a second or third inning. It can be anything ranging from Taco Bell to a promotion for the next game coming up right after the broadcast, to getting fans or listeners to download an app Things like that that go into what a booth coordinator is the liaison between the production truck and the talent. 

08:06
They're coordinating what is happening up in the broadcast booth. Because the people in the trucks are always down either in a studio in New York or LA or wherever they're based, or they're physically on site in this big mobile unit down by the dumpsters. They're all connected through audio and video capabilities in the truck. They are making sure that the elements that need to go through are hearing from the directors and producers of what needs to be accomplished. That can get dicey sometimes. 

08:41
Line producing is taking a huge script on the entertainment side and making sure all those elements are hitting correctly. You're going through and reading here's what's coming up next. Let's make sure that all the cameras are aligned with wherever they need to be. You're queuing the stage managers in the wings to make sure that the guests are coming on or they're waiting for the next element in the script to come up. You're just making sure that everything is running as smoothly and as seamlessly as possible. That is true of any coordinator broadcast production operations. They're all the same and every network has their own terminology. With that. It's basically what it does. 

09:23 - Candice Bloch (Host)
That's very cool. Obviously, it's live and some people think of movies and TV shows that are pre-recorded. There's all this prep and all this pre-production, but there's pre-production and research and everything that goes into making a live production seamless. How much research and prep goes into a lot of what we see and what are some of the ones? Since you've worked in a wide variety Versus something like a game, versus a big live entertainment show, what's the prep look like for those? 

09:54 - Guest 
I think it depends on what point in the season for games, specifically, what you're doing. The best way I can explain pre-production for, let's say, a football game In a regular season game, you've got two teams and I look at broadcasting as telling a story. Media production and how that works on producing games is the art of visual storytelling, essentially through film and sound. What we know in advance of a game are two teams. Hear the matchups, hear what their records are going into the game, hear the statistics of what the quarterback and all the different positions have. This is how we think the game is going to go. We've got highlight packages, traditionally against this team. Here's how we think it's going to happen. Does it happen? 99 percent of the time, no, which makes it fun for us because we set up the viewer to say this is how we think that the team is going to perform, based on the statistics. Previously they build packages just based around the quarterback or the defense of the team. We think on the network side and research side, that team A is going to do exponentially better than team B because their defense is just better. Their numbers that they've put up in this venue is better. Then you get into the really obscure, crazy, awesome researchers in baseball, like Sarah Lange, who's just, she can read off things at the top of her head and say on a Tuesday when it rains, this team is nine to three. You never know where half of this stuff comes from. But that's all research. You go back and look at all the statistics books. That's why they keep game notes and they come out with trends or things that might be coming up. That's how you prep for games. As it gets closer in the season you look at the records and how traditionally they've done where they are projected to go in a bracket. You'll see it a lot for college basketball, for March Madness. 

12:08
On the entertainment side, research comes in with not so much reality shows but scripted television. You'll see a lot of TV shows or network TV shows that really work hard to do their research to make sure that things are accurate. Then they will see some shows and you'll be like that doesn't look anything like DC. Why would you think that the Metro would ever be that clean? Didn't you do research or haven't you gone to visit? You'll see some things. You're like continuity just doesn't work. 

12:39
How did you not look up and find out one little piece of information. It's funny I was just talking about this with somebody the other day about TV shows like the Simpsons. What's been on for X number of years? Are they historically accurate? How does this work? 

12:57
Sometimes the producers and researchers go as far as to reach out. When you look at when Bart does the chalkboard in the beginning, they have a bunch of math problems and apparently one of the producers and the directors of the show went and reached out to professors at MIT to make sure that those formulas were actually accurate. That, to me, goes above and beyond, because I'd never noticed it. A math nerd would absolutely notice it. But it shows the goal of what some research will go to to make sure that the show is accurate. I love that about the research and pre-production side. That most people don't even realize is a thing that is. The difference is, yeah, the website is all live, but there's a little bit here and there that again, you just want to make sure that things are as accurate and as well put together as possible. There's challenges with everything. Thank you. 

13:55 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, and it sounds like you have to be prepared for anything to happen, especially with live broadcasts. There's an understandably tricky animal. There's always a chance for things to go wrong. 

14:07 - Guest
There's no chance anymore. It will go wrong, it's all wrong, always. 

14:15 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, and then even in the world of sports, there's a chance that there might even be, like, a particularly gruesome injury or something on field, and you have to be aware of what you can show or not show. So what safeguards are in place in case something crazy should happen while you're doing a live broadcast? 

14:31 - Guest 
Well, when you're dealing with games it's a little bit different than being inside a venue just because you're protected. But we deal with everything that we can control right. We try to, and I think that goes for anyone in any industry and in our daily lives really. 

14:46
I like to apply it as much as I can to people's lives so they can get it a little bit more. We can prepare for years, weeks, whatever you want to, however you want to do it, and there's just things sometimes that are just beyond anybody's control. Weather is an issue that we always deal with a lot. That's just we don't know if it's going to be sunny. It could say 0% chance of rain and have a torrential downpour, and you just have to just roll with the punches that you have to be adaptable in those situations. You can't freaking out, it's just not an option. 

15:21
Travel is very similar the same way. That's why, if you know that there's major storms, maybe don't connect through Chicago or Denver. Or if you know that it's going to be bad, take an earlier flight. That if there is a delay you're going to show up and get to where you're going on time. Because if you're not there and the flight is canceled, people are like, what do we do? And there's really not much, unfortunately, in those instances and it's happened where you can really control it. 

15:49
But the best advice that I can always give is to try to utilize your resources, knowing that you're in the state of Florida, it's going to rain at some point, whether it's across the street or like in Orlando, every day from 3.30 to 4.30. 

16:07
So you just always are prepared with ponchos and you've got tarps on hand to latch down cameras or equipment. We just had to deal with that up in Annapolis for an avi game where there was just flash flooding and really bad storms and that we were prepared for rain but we weren't prepared for lightning delays and the way that broadcasts work is a little different from like the NCAA, who is the governing body of a lot of these collegiate sports, and they have different roles than what the network does. And so if there's lightning in the area within X number of miles, we're sitting on top of really heavy equipment and steel and metal and in a huge stadium that can attract a lot of lightning. And when you're in a camera position in like an all 22, which is the highest point of a stadium, and manning a camera, they don't want from a safety perspective, they don't want you to get struck by lightning, so you got to get off camera. There's like. 

17:07
X number of miles, right, and the OSHA rules. You have to wait 30 minutes from the last lightning strike and for the NCAA, the games could be going on and the broadcast is down to four cameras out of 12. And there's just nothing anyone can do about it. They had to just rearrange and say hey, if you're wondering why there's just one camera on the game, this is why and it's again becomes being preempted with safety and there's always something with when you're dealing with major events, whether it's sports, entertainment or music, especially because they're so public, there's always a celebrity factor that's involved. There's a security issue. We always have safety checks. We always they have to have things like rally points where, if there is an emergency situation, here are the three places that we need to break out into groups and meet at or just get the heck out of dodge, or here's the closest hospital if something happens, because, again, for things like that, it's out of anyone's control, but you got to make sure that you're prepared for crisis A, b, c, d, e and F and sometimes G to happen. So, as long as you can be as possible right. 

18:24
It's kind of taking out insurance when you go on a vacation. Things happen and our insurance is our livelihoods. If someone says it's going to be a monsoon right and a hurricane, oh I'm just going to just travel to the place, maybe I'm going to change my plans or maybe they should change their plans. So on the event side, there's so much rearranging when it comes to that and I just I feel for travel coordinators the most because God bless them, especially anyone that is on a phone with any airline company ever during the holiday season. If you can only imagine what they have to deal with. Yeah, it's like a hundredfold. 

19:04 - Guest
Yeah. 

19:06 - Candice Bloch (Host)
It sounds like adaptability and preparedness is a great trait and a necessary trait for the world of live production. Are there any other traits that you think are crucial to this line of work, besides just adaptability? Patience? 

19:20 - Guest 
It takes time to build the career. It won't happen overnight. That a lot of people assume that it does. These industries the sports entertainment, music industries are, and fashion too can add fashion to the mix. You really have to have this sort of thick skin beyond a you know, hearing no or not getting a particular gig that you want. Fortunately, the way that my brain works is so outside of the box I couldn't even imagine myself being in like a studio every day. And there's some people that love that. They love the consistency of it. They love to be able to show up and see the same people every day. They like to have you know everything with their fingertips, the office that just has you know, the printer and the headphones and the equipment, all that stuff readily available. So as soon as they get in to work they are ready to go, whereas for me that, I think, would drive me insane. I would get very bored. Very cool. 

20:21 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, so you thrive on the variety. I like variety. 

20:25 - Guest 
I like the chaos, I like the challenges that come with. What mess are we going to get in today? Because that kind of makes me harbor those skills a little bit more. And I really liked that challenge of things, because not every game is the same. Yeah, I try to treat the CBS sports network game like a Super Bowl. Every single time the audience that's watching it expects a level of perfection, right, and when we get into the situations where we are doing things live, there's no room for error. Why don't we just make sure that we get it right the first time and we don't have to worry about going back? And of course, there's always those instances with live to tape and not being live. You have that flexibility to go back and edit and change things, which is great. But my mindset is very much like a manual car. Let's just put it into gear and drive and have some sailing. It's great. 

21:17 - Candice Bloch (Host)
You're always kept on your toes and you've got that creativity to work with whatever gets thrown at you, and it sounds like you also. That kind of mentality tends to go well with people that enjoy travel. It seems like you're on the road quite a lot. How much of the year are you traveling About? 

21:33 - Guest 
60 to 65 percent, yeah, and it can get very tedious and tiring just the travel aspect alone, because you hope and pray that the flights are uneventful really and that when you check a bag on a non-stop flight that the bags are actually going to show up yeah. 

21:55
When you're going to different places after two or three days. You just hope that there's not going to be any issues with it, but that can get exhausting. It's fun because I like to explore new cities and new places and a lot's changed for sure since COVID, definitely, and it's just being comfortable with being around a lot of people, a lot, and that's not for everybody. People can get flustered really quickly, especially when it comes to things out of their control, and I happen to love it and I just I. It's nice to take the break, but I'd rather a hundred percent be on site where the crazy action is than watching it at home on TV. 

22:36 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Do you watch stuff on TV now with a different lens than you used to growing up, when you're watching like a big sports game, or are you almost always there? 

22:45 - Guest 
You know it's funny, yeah it's. I'm there a lot, but for the games that I watch at home or with friends, I it's hard for me to just watch it just as a basic thing. I can't do it and I usually ruin it for other people too, because I'm like that shouldn't be this way and the the cord should be behind the ear, behind the shoulder, like it's, and there's little things, that you become a perfectionist and you have this level of developing OCD. 

23:12
When you see and I tend to ruin it for other people when I reveal what I'm looking at and it's really hard to watch things the same way If you see a studio desk, whether it's on site or in a studio, and all the mug ends are not facing the same way and the logos aren't right, you're like, guys, this is just why can't we just turn it to make it look uniform? It look it's supposed to look perfect and when it comes to it drives you insane. It's like the water spots and the lens. That's fascinating. 

23:45 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, it's fascinating that you love that perfection and yet you thrive in a world where you can't expect perfection and things can go wrong all the time. So you're preparing for that. It's so fine, it's a fascinating ride. So, that said, also because you have those experiences and you were saying when you watch sports you ruin it for other people Do you ever watch shows like sports night or movies that portray this role, or even things like the morning show that have live broadcast? Do you watch those and also critique those for people and say what they're getting right and what they're getting wrong? 

24:16 - Guest 
100% all the time, all the time. So are they pumping up the drama? Let's just be clear. They're always pumping up the drama because if it was boring, nobody would watch my guilty especially. 

24:27 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, I mean, that is their job. 

24:29 - Guest 
Bravo TV right, and I know that a lot of it's exaggerated, but shows like the morning show really give this dark view into what producing is like and how stressful it really can get. And when you're dealing with specific brands or companies, you've got this reputation to uphold. And what's interesting on the social media side that's changing, like the landscape. Or these influencers that have become so big, like a Kardashian type, that have to push out content all the time. I don't think a lot of people realize that was exhausting. It is. You have to put out videos that everyone is going to like all the time and you have to be creative every single day. And if you just think about what, if they want to take a break or like a week off and just disappear, that just is not something that could happen, because there's such a demand for what their content is, you want to see them all the time. And what's interesting about a family like the Kardashians? They've built their brand on being public, so to turn back on that is almost like turning back on what your brand is. And they do a lot more on the PR side that people might not realize. They feed a lot of that stuff to the tabloids. All of a sudden, your hair and makeup are perfectly done and you're going to the Garshi Star like, hmm, I don't know if you're that way all the time. Yeah, you're outfit was awesome and you just went happen to decide to go to the bank that day. No, that's all strategic. 

26:10
So I feel like that's very similar on the television side too. Is we have this mindset of what we think it's going to be and it need from a viewer perspective, it needs to uphold that kind of decree of what it should be, and it can put a lot of pressure on getting the right guests or making sure that you're not messing up any of your predictions or any of that stuff. So it can get dicey, but I always like to watch and try to critique and see how I could make. Oh yeah, they did a really cool job. Or I like the way they did that. I love to see X, y and Z. I just I always want somebody to do like a behind the scenes production show. They never do it because I don't think anyone would give consent to let them see the craziness of our lives. 

27:03 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, you got to keep some of that secret sauce secret. Yeah, but it sounds like there is still that competition and all of that like you're mentioning, and there's sometimes like one network might get exclusive rights to something, but often there's more than one that is covering an event. So, for example, in the case of maybe even sports and games, is there like competition for getting the best camera angles and all of that, or is there a general respectful camaraderie between everyone who's covering it? 

27:31 - Guest 
Yeah, I think there's always going to be friendly competition because everybody ultimately wants that award, that actually that recognition that they're the best sports show or event show that comes in with the sports Emmys. It's always pretty competitive or putting, pushing out that content, but again, at the end of the day, it's telling the story and who's telling the best story with the team that they have. They want the best camera guys, but it's not necessarily. There's always this sense of community with everybody. From my perspective, and I work with a bunch of different networks and everybody is friendly, everybody. All the camera guys from many different networks know each other, have worked seamlessly with one another at one point in time and there's always I'm going to get the best view and you just really want on the broadcast side, to have the best. I'm trying to think of the best way to explain this, the best type of chemistry that you can with the director and producer. For example, if you're going in with camera guys that have never worked with the director, you're not really sure of his style, of how he wants to ultimately tell the story, and the best kind of way I can describe it is if you're watching a college basketball game, because it's a little bit more intimate because you're up close. You can see the players faces or football hockey. It's a little bit more removed, the cameras are a little bit higher up and you're not really seeing a lot of the emotion you would with soccer or more face guards. Right, exactly so the next time you watch a college basketball game, any point in time once the season starts. 

29:09
There's two types of directors, right. There's the type that will focus on the agony of defeat. You'll see, at the end of a buzzer beater game, you got the player on the bench with his hands in his head and they're just, they're defeated. Or the girls are crying in the stands or the chillers, whatever. And then, on the other hand, you'll see another director chooses to focus on the thrill of victory and the celebration and the fans cheering. 

29:37
And there are very different styles of direction. You'll see that in movies with how people, how different directors, choose to be. Scorsese is different from Sutterberg and how all those different types, they have their particular way of doing things. The other style so you want to get camera guys that have the chemistry with the director. So they are the extension of how the director perceives is the way that he wants to tell the story. If the director is really comfortable with the camera guys, then they can be like hey, I want you to. I'm confident that you're going to get this replay and you know where to get follow the ball and you know where to get this particular thing. Do your thing, because I trust you. And when you don't have camera guys that know how to mesh well with the director, it can be very misjumbled or there's a lot of breakage. It's not as seamless as it could be. So there's competition there, but ultimately it's seamless and you just want to get the best product out there as you can. 

30:43 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Yeah, that's really interesting to think of it, with the director's orchestrating in a way. They're like conductors of these orchestras of people bringing this live production to audiences. I'm sure when people are watching they don't think how much goes into that and it's really nice to kind of shed a little light on that with talking to you now about all of that. I know that there's also, as you had mentioned before, there's requirements for ads and ads at certain times and everything. You have all these ad breaks that you have to take, but they don't always line up with a timeout or something where you want them to when you have to cut away. Is there just this tension about you hope nothing exciting happens when you're gone, or how does that feel in that world where you have to do something? 

31:25 - Guest 
Yeah, it can get really tense because these advertisers are paying a lot of money to do these quick little promos because they want to make sure, especially when it comes to things like Super Bowl. When they're paying $7 million an ad for 30 seconds, it's a lot of money. This is something that I teach in my classes, too is, if you look at how much money Super Bowl ads were 10 years ago, it's significantly different. Just because there's more viewership with the option of second screen now and social media and betting, it's just become so big that the eyes on these types of games, the reach, is infinitely worth that and more from a marketing perspective. I'll give you an example of the craziest advertising situation that was beyond anyone's control. 

32:15
2014 World Series Game one. Were in Kansas City versus the Mets and there was a severe rain delay, like torrential downpour, and the game was already delayed and what ended up happening was, once the game was about to come back on, the generator of the truck for the main broadcast blew up and the whole truck went down for about 45 minutes. When you're thinking about advertising elements and it's a black screen, it's chaos because it's not like you're just turning off a switch and turning it on again. When you're repowering a whole mobile unit, it's like shutting off generator power of a house. It takes time to go and turn everything on again. You've never seen chaos like you have seen executives in suits run around a truck with engineering guys trying to see what you can plug back in to make it work. They were all fair for 45 minutes at the beginning of a World Series game one, if you can imagine how many advertising dollars they lost. 

33:28
What ended up happening is this is where the other networks and having those relationships with other networks is. With any of those major events, there's usually a world feed. Example for MLB, fox has the rights broadcast to the United States and Canada. On the world feed side, mlb network produces the same broadcast. They have a different set of crew, camera guys, announcers, different booths, everything else a whole separate broadcast and they go out to every other country in the world. If you're watching it in Germany, you'll get the MLB broadcast and MLB network broadcast. If you're watching in the States, you'll get the Fox broadcast. What happened? The World Series is, the Fox broadcast went down and MLB's broadcast switched to. The people in the United States were able to watch that world feed, which was cool because at the time I was doing the world feed it was really neat to see a lot of my friends and family that were the heroes. 

34:31
We could see what we were doing. But again, in those situations we all want to get the product out there. It's completely out of anyone's control and you just have to just make it work and get those sales elements in and just say, hey, welcome back, we're back and here's what you missed. That's the craziest instance I can think of when that happens. But with technology, as we know, sometimes we check it, and check it three times to make sure it's perfectly working. 30 seconds before a show, everything is fine. We do what's called a fax. We test all the cameras right, audio isn't working, we have a backup, we all these things. And then you go on air and it's radio silence and you just don't know what happens. 

35:18 - Candice Bloch (Host)
Didn't expect a truck to blow up. Yeah, can you talk about how? The importance of the fact that some of the most watched live events in history things like weddings and Olympics and big sports finales there's this opportunity for everyone to be collectively doing something at the same time? Does that collective viewing experience add another layer to these? It makes it even more special, I would imagine, and that adds the pressure to get it out to people. 

35:49 - Guest 
Oh, absolutely. There's a definite sense of community with any team, and you'll see it if you go to any live event, that's at a music concert or, again, even a wedding. Everybody's there for one collective reason it's to have a good time, it's to see your team hopefully win, and you want to have the ultimate best experience with 95,000 strangers who's all rooting for the same thing. It's a whole different level of energy that shifts when there's people in the stands versus not Over COVID. 

36:25
There were a lot of times where a lot of these games were broadcast with no fans. Super Bowl and Tampa had no fans. We had cardboard faces and that was weird, honestly. There was definitely a level of energy that just wasn't there. If anyone's been early to an event, we're not. A lot of people are there. 

36:45
You look around and it's a very hollowed, odd sense of something grand is about to happen. It's just that cool feeling of excitement and anxiousness and nervousness and what have you. That just makes it so awesome that when you just hear the cheers or the booze or whatever, it just makes you be like, all right, let's get into war mode and just make this as cool and awesome as we can. I thrive off of it. That's the same thing that I wanted to get when I did musical theater when I was younger. You feed off of an audience and how they react to certain things right so much better than you would just doing it in darkness. I always love the camaraderie and the consistency of people and the community when everybody gets together for games and stuff. 

37:33 - Candice Bloch (Host)
It is so wonderful that, because there is now the live broadcasting capabilities, it can extend beyond that in-person crowd and the whole world, the whole globe, millions and millions of people can enjoy something at the same time. Before we wrap up, what kind of advice would you give to somebody who wanted to get into this field, other than, of course, maybe taking some of your classes? 

37:54 - Guest
I would say just try going from the local aspect. Go for things that might not necessarily be as popular as most people would maybe think of to look at. Instead of going for the football and basketball or major sports, look for something like a volleyball or track that might not be covered as much as you want to get in on that broadcast side of things. On the sports side, there's always something going on, whether it's weddings or bar mitzvahs or celebrations, kinsen years, whatever. That all takes a level of even getting involved with church. There are so many of these churches that have these amazing live productions that are streamed every week. It's tens of thousands of dollars that's costing them that equipment to be able to broadcast this thing. You can get involved on the local level a lot easier than people might think. Then, from the brand perspective, you're looking at those brands that are so heavily involved with advertising. 

38:59
Taco Bell's got a huge broadcast sports division tied. I mean they're one of the official sponsors of the NFL. Volkswagen they always have a Super Bowl spot. Those are certain things that most people would think, oh, I would never thought to get involved on that aspect. On the agency side, there's a whole world of opportunity that might be there that people can research. A lot of it's just reaching out to people like me and saying what do you like, what do you want to do? Seeing where they can fit, that's also fun for me. I really enjoy being able to connect people that way. 

39:34 - Candice Bloch (Host)
That's wonderful. Thank you so much. Speaking of connection, if anyone wanted to either connect with you or learn more about you and what you do, is there anywhere online where they can go to check you out? 

39:45 - Guest 
Absolutely. You can send me an email PamShavatkin at gmailcom it's a wordy last name, but you can Google me and find I'm on Twitter or X at RedisFoximus. It'll be in the show notes. Yeah, linkedin. Shoot me a note and if you're interested, we can talk more about it. 

40:02 - Candice Bloch (Host)
We didn't get a chance to touch on it, but if anyone does want to see a little bit more of what Pam does. All of the time you do keep your social media active and giving some nice fun little behind the scenes glances here and there, so we will make sure we put your handle in the show notes. Thank you so much again for talking with us and it's been wonderful learning so much more about this really fascinating, chaotic but so important part of production. 

40:24 - Guest 
Absolutely Thanks for having me. 

40:29 - Voiceover 
Thank you for listening to Media and Monuments, a service of women in film and video. Please remember to review, rate and subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast. For more information about WIF, please visit our website at wwwwifasenfrancvasenfictororg. Media and Monuments is produced by Sandra Abrams, candace Block, brandon Ferry and Tara Jabari and edited by Emma Klein, with Audio Production and Mix by Steve Lack Audio. For more information about our podcast, visit mediaandmonumentscom. 

41:12 - Voiceover
That's a wrap.