Inside the TV Truck Replay Room: Mark Pokedoff on Creating Slo-Mo Magic in Live Sports

On the episode of the ZoomPod, grab your fleece and some snacks! Mark Pokedoff, a Multi-Emmy Award-Winning Slo-Motion Replay Operator, talks about the recorded half of live TV, like golf at the Masters, wearing a parka in the truck, and having the chance to do his job from his basement.

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Transcript

TMac 0:11

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Zoom with Our Feet podcast, the pod about learning creative production. With me, your host T Mack, a professional photographer, videographer, and teacher. Our golf series continues this week on the Zoom Pod. Grab your fleece. We're going inside the cold and crazy world of the slow-mo replay crew. On this episode of the Zoom Pod, multi-Emmy Award-winning replay operator Mark Pokadoff joins me to talk about the recorded half of live TV and what it's like to work remotely from home on remote sports. Let's talk to a pro. Mark Pokedov, welcome to the Zoom with Our Feet Podcast. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'm doing great. It's great to see you, T Mac. It's been a long time.

TMac 1:15

It has indeed. There's a lot of people saying that when I get them together. So let's go back to the beginning. How did you start in this crazy broadcast business?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

It is an odyssey, T Mac, I gotta tell you. First of all, I started out as a radio guy in college. I wanted to do radio play by play. I didn't even touch a piece of TV equipment until my internship, my senior year. I won at Temple University, right there. Uh very underrated school.

TMac 1:48

Shout out to the Owls.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

That's right. Uh the Klein School of Communications is amazing. But uh when I went my senior year, I'd done the whole radio thing play-by-play and all that, sports director of the station. I went for my internship, my senior year, and the radio internship I really wanted was no longer available. And the gentleman who ran the intern program, he said, Well, we do have an opening at WPHL TV. They carry the Sixers games and they're looking for a production assistant to intern with them this fall. And I'm like, sure, sounds like fun. Sixers, NBA. Great. And I became not only a gopher, but a glorified what we would call today a fawn assistant, uh, the person who creates the graphics that the graphics operator types in, and you see those beautiful graphics come up on the screen. So uh that's what I did. And uh I learned a lot about that aspect of the business, but didn't really do much with remote sports productions for for about another decade. And I went around and did a bunch of different things on the production side. I worked at Major League Baseball Productions for three years, I worked in TV news for a couple of years. At one point I was unemployed and I got a job working for a sports memorabilia company that was looking to expand into TV. And I got to work with some athletes, I got to work with some uh celebrities from the worlds of Star Trek, et cetera. And that was a lot of fun. But it was it was a detour from what I was intending to do, which to me was I I always wanted to work in in sports communications. And ultimately we ended up using that TV show area of the sports memorabilia business to get into the possibility of doing mobile productions of this. And it was my job as the head of TV to go out and try and find production companies that could help us do this. While doing that, I learned about the world of mobile television production and realized, oh, this is probably something I could do with my background. And I just so happened to get laid off from that sports memorabilia company. And at the same time, I had already been in touch with a local crewer to say, hey, I think I might be some use to you. And sure enough, the day I get laid off from my job at the sports memorabilia company, I'm driving home saddened that my career is over. This is the end for me. And I get a phone call from the local crewer in Philly. Hey, uh, I'm I'm really in need for a tape operator for a couple of University of Delaware basketball games. And it's like, yes. And I walked into the truck not knowing anything. I didn't know how to operate the tape remote controller. I didn't know about setting levels, things that were second nature to us back in those analog days. I didn't know how to wrap cable at the end of the show. So I learned an awful lot on those two remotes. And the other credit I give for getting me that far and then onward in my career, uh, may he rest in peace, but uh uh a tape operator named Bruce Levin, who I took him out to lunch and he opened up his Rolodex to me and couldn't have been kinder. And I just got my name out there and it just started slowly, but built and built and built and built. And here I am 28 years later. And uh I've pretty much seen it all, done it all, and want to keep doing it for as long as I'm physically able because I really love being in this business and I love working with people like you and other great professionals. It's really wonderful. And being a sports geek by nature, it's a dream job.

TMac 5:43

It is. They pay us to go to sporting events, and that was my odyssey.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

It it's there's a lot more detail to it, but you get the gist of it. And you know, you you make your own breaks, and uh, I really felt good about what I did to make my breaks. I really worked hard for them. I got a lot of help along the way, but I felt good about how I did it. And there's a graphic that exists uh talking about um what I think my career should look like, and it's a straight arrow from here to there or there to here. And then this is what it really looks like, and it's a bunch of squiggly lines that basically ends at the same destination, and that's kind of more about how my career has gone.

TMac 6:29

Let's take a little technology tour. Uh, I want you to date yourself and tell me about the first system you worked on, analog that you mentioned, means it was videotape and how you learned the basics doing that.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Well, I got lucky and a little spoiled uh in late 1990s technology in that I I started out with betacam SP, and that was kind of state of the art at that point, still analog, but um, you know, good enough quality and uh certainly portable enough. Those uh they had the big ones that were 60 or 90 minutes, and then they had the little ones, which we used to refer to as cheeseburgers, because they were kind of like the size, a little bigger than a cheeseburger, but can easily fit on a butt. So uh I worked with uh beta sp and then a bunch of different remote systems. The first one was the Panasonic, which was just terrible, and I broke in using Beta SP and those Panasonic controllers for those first two remotes. But there were other ones by Ampex, and uh it was um it was hard to do in terms of the fact that I really had to learn the pace of a broadcast, uh, how to sell a replay, when to break record, because back then we could only record or play back. We couldn't do both at the same time like we can do now. And so there were a lot of little techniques that I needed to teach myself back in those analog days. I did go on to move it a step back technology-wise, when I worked for WWOR TV Channel 9, working on Mets Home Games at Shea Stadium, where they had one-inch machines. So I went from the real, yes, wax on, wax off. So I went from the uh ability to have a little remote in front of me and jog shuttle wheel to having these big reels, which we operated by hand. And you rolled a replay like this, and then you froze it, and maybe you want to take it back on air, or you're queuing it up frantically. And I mean, you talk about, but I mean, that's the way they did it for years and years. Yeah, and fortunately, I only had to work with that technology for a few years right at the beginning.

TMac 8:54

Uh a funny shout out to uh little film canisters because I remember the guys taking the gray caps, sticking them on the side of the reel so they could stick their finger in it.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, and even build it up with white tape to make it bigger and thicker so you can stick your finger in there and do that. And those are really helpful because just putting your hand on a reel, it's really hard to get that grip on the reel and turn it around and give a real good replay.

TMac 9:23

It's so hard to explain to people that that that what that's what you were doing, that you physically had your hand on the on the tape reel and you were physically controlling the slow, the speed. It's right. And they look at me like you know, and you have to go, yeah, it was analog. How did then uh how and when did digital come into the picture in remote? And then we'll talk about some of those changes, uh, big and small, to the replay world.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Well, back in the late 90s, as I was starting, there was a company called EVS that was developing these video servers, which were analog and very bare bones, but have has turned into the behemoth that it is today, going from one record and one playback to ultimately, you know, you can record 10 sources at once, have as many many outputs as you want, you could do supermos with them and everything. But back then it was one in, one out. And so they had these uh systems which caught on relatively quickly, but it was still not the point where trucks were actually installing them. You had to rent them, or the teams had to ship their own around the country like MSG in New York did. And the other technology that came around around that time was uh laserdisc. So I don't know if you remember those old laser discs, which were these huge platters that you could have like a movie on, and people had these pioneer laser disc systems at home to watch movies or TV shows and whatever. And for TV shows, uh for remote productions, we would store video clips on there for instant recall. And you know, you you create a little bookmark, that's where it started. And so you could just, hey, I need this play from 1993, and it's uh happens to be cue number three on this disc, cue it up and play it out, and that was it. So it was systems like those that pretty much were the only instant, instant replay back then.

TMac 11:37

So now we've we've advanced to digital and that begins to evolve. Uh networking comes into the picture. I distinctly remember a lot of you guys uh and gals talking about being able to now have everybody doing their job, but sending uh I think that was somewhere in the intermediate step where now you could ship clips, share clips to uh sort of another uh a central hub in the in the room, correct?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Well, even before that, it was really hard. If I if my EVS machine, which has one record and one playback, I only have one angle, uh, it would be pretty bad to have a highlight package with just all the same angle. So I would work with linear tape operators who I would say, hey, I need the uh high third angle of that home run, or I need the low first angle of that double or that great play. And I would have to punch their machine in on the router and record them playing it back to me so I could use it. So that was the next step for sharing video. And we used to do that, by the way, with videotapes as well, when we used to do like halftime highlights of a basketball game.

TMac 12:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Uh, you have that play I need, I'll give you that, and then you give me this other play, and that way we can go, I can play mine back, you play yours back, then I can requeue to mine, and you play yours, and et cetera, et cetera. It's like, wow, that was crazy. Not to mention the whole, not to mention the whole uh editing a tease by you get the first clip, I get the second click, et cetera, et cetera. And we're doing A-B roles all throughout this thing. And so now we're at this point where we're sharing video clips where I have a nonlinear unit and you have a linear unit. Now we're at the point where we all have nonlinear units and we can share through a closed network on the truck. And that's amazing. And those networks have only gotten more and more robust. And you know, eventually, I guess we get into the talk about HD, but even back then, to be able to share those uh SD clips was uh pretty mind-blowing.

TMac 13:50

Uh I I always remember sticking my head in there, and it was like a commodity pit. That's exactly what you guys were. Hey, get uh and it was just slinging clips all over the room.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah. Yeah, it sounds messier than it really was, but uh right.

TMac 14:09

Yeah, but you guys, you guys mastered it pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, you have to with the survival tactic.

TMac 14:15

Correct. So uh we'll get to we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah.

TMac 14:19

Um it is the ultimate multitasker position. I mean, literally and figuratively, camera guys are jamming their heads in in you know, in a viewfinder and focusing on on on that. Whereas uh I always felt like the the replay folks are the opposite. You had to be aware of different angles, different situations. Uh you know, calling up uh in the middle of something some history. Uh you know, there's pr producer on golf directing, if you have a series of holes and routers, made you directors. For me, it's like replay is like the ultimate multitaskers in the truck.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

And it used to be worse uh regarding doing golf. Yeah, if you're replaying a golf shot, which basically let's say somewhere around half the golf shots you see on TV or on tape, because you can't, it's like having 18 football fields and there may be more than one play being going on at the same time. So you got to record something. So we would literally have this huge uh it almost looked like a full production switcher in front of us. It's our route video and audio router. So we're acting like a TD, we're punching cameras around, we're punching audio around just to create a replay of one golf shot. And by the way, we're also queuing up on our other remote, the shot that just took place. And yes, it's it can be quite a lot. And there is there is an extreme talent available there. Hey, look, I think golf is one of the most uh difficult sports to cover, even things to cover in the TV world. And for a camera person being able to follow a golf ball in the air for the video people who shade that video in order to make that ball visible on the screen and help the camera person follow it, it's incredible. Yeah, there it takes a lot of people.

TMac 16:30

There are technological wonders. That's what I tell people.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Now, one of the great things doing golf is we now work, at least on the CBS side, we work with 16 channels of audio. So we don't need to cut the audio on a golf shot anymore. We get every audio stream, every mic from every hole in our router. So that's one less thing we have to worry about. There's still plenty to worry about, don't get me wrong. Because we've we're still nothing got taken off. We're cutting a golf shot while the guy hitting the shot is already on the air, and we're tape delaying this golf shot by one or two seconds. And you better get it right because you're on network TV right now and you're live to air, and if you mess up, there's no turning back. But of course, it's live TV and mistakes do happen, but we try and minimize them.

TMac 17:25

Well, this is my homage to replay people. I strongly believe and tell all of the new camera operators. When I was at the back end of my time, I advised all of the camera guys that I came into contact with, go talk to the replay guys. You will learn more about your camera work in the first two minutes of what you talk to them about than any other camera guy. Because we're all kind of a selfish lot, and everybody's trying to do this and that and the other thing. And I would say, no, no, no, no. You want to be better, you talk to the tape guys. Because here's what they'll tell you there's two shows going on. There's from the camera position. There's uh being where you're supposed to be for tallies and the director, but there's also this being what you're where you're supposed to be for you guys with all those plates spinning back in the replay area. Hold shots, get some extra shots for them, do you know whatever it may be, that makes you uh better at shooting. So I'm throwing that out there that that I feel, especially on golf, I became better uh talking to all those guys on the NBC tour. Because you know, you think you're all hot, and then I I go, Well, what do I need to do? And they go, Yeah, sit down. Let's talk.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

And in my mind, there's two kinds of camera guys. There's the ones who are telling the director, hey, I just had such and such, and make sure it gets on. And God forbid we don't sell that shot as being a good shot. And if we're not selling that shot, there's a reason. They may think it looked really good, but maybe they whipped off the end, or maybe their focus was soft. And then there's, I think that's kind of unprofessional. And then there's the other kind of camera person, the one who will come by after the show and say, Hey, can you show me that shot on 17 that um Bubba Watson hit? I want to see what my follow looked like. They really care about their product to go the extra step. What can I do better? How can I help serve you guys better? It's easy to serve the director, but they really have no idea because we're not directing them ourselves. For do I need to hold that shot a little longer? You know, when when do I have to whip off to the next golfer, for instance, if uh if they're playing threesomes and the guys are hitting the ball real quick, and then I got, oh, I gotta get to the next guy. Well, you gotta hold that, the ball's still rolling. And you can't whip off of it because I can't cut to another cabra until that ball stops rolling. So but the guys who have been doing it for a long time know what they're doing, and they know what questions to ask. And they know that besides what the director needs, they also know what we need to help them look better on air. It's a team, it's always a team.

TMac 20:46

Yeah, it is totally a team. And it's funny you mention experience because as you've got more experience and as you prove yourself and you you you gain some trust, then I was always aware of the little whispers from you guys. You're very discreet. And you would T-Mack, give me the face. And you know, because golf is five holes away and I'm I was sleeping, or I was daydreaming. And there's a there's golf, you're recording happy. That's the another thing that I don't think a lot of people understand. If there's golf everywhere, we're recording everywhere. Yeah, but in a in in some of the more inexperienced guys, they think, oh, it's only about the TV, the TV golf. And and it I always appreciated, you know, little w reminders in in my ear, and I'd look and I'd see the situation, and boom, and it happens. You guys don't even uh hesitate.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah, I communication. We're in the communications business, and it's so important that it be a two way thing, and especially during a show when we don't want to let anything good end up on the cutting room floor, as they say. So I think that that communication is really valuable.

TMac 22:05

I got to the point where I was, I felt like I was always trying to work. There's lots of color that can get added if you just pay attention. I'm the guy that got the little eyeballs of the gator at uh the players' championship the one year. So, and that's just looking for stuff, man. Look, look, you know, you guys are building all kinds of stuff that that clips can be used from. That's another thing that comes, I think, with the experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah, I anything we can do to enhance a broadcast. And uh, yeah, it it takes everybody to do even just that little extra really makes a difference.

TMac 22:59

So you um you you begin to master it, and when was the sort so the decision to to go freelance happens, and now you start rising up in the ranks, and and from experience, what that really means is you start traveling more. Talk to me about the freelancer uh lifestyle and how hard that is on family, because ultimately that's what drove me out.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah, and that's a great point. And uh the uh my being laid off and the beginning of my becoming a travel guy coincided with the birth of uh who's now going to be my 28-year-old son, and um it was hard to step away from the family, but as the bread earner, and the fact that I was it and it's a constant juggle. So it started 28 years ago when my son was born, and I I became a freelancer in February. In the beginning of May, I got a phone call. Uh, hey, we're desperate, can you fly to Chicago for uh game three of the NBA finals? We just had a guy who can't make it. And then it's like, all right, honey, sorry, I gotta go. And then it it and it just it added on, and yeah, and it's it's uh it's a scary business in that you could let yourself go whole hog travel, be away 28 days a month or 21 days a month, and it is very hard on families. And I and I learned that firsthand, quite frankly, and that's why I'm married a second time. And uh it's it's an adjustment for everybody, and even now it's there's still this balance going on, and it's constant and it doesn't change, and there's constant conversation going on, and the best we can do is traveling freelancers who are also family people to uh communicate well with your partner and make sure that yeah, you're you're you're making the money, but are you also making sure that you fulfill your responsibilities at home, not just not just the honeydew list, but also the emotional things and kids who hate to see their dad on the road all the time. I my youngest is now nine. I started all over again uh with a new family. I have a 32-year-old daughter who's by the way in this business, but a totally different part and has a school job. My 28-year-old son, and then I uh I got remarried, and my second wife, who didn't have children, so I now have a 15-year-old and a nine-year-old. And the nine-year-old hates it when dad's gone, at least for now. Wait till she becomes a teenager. So there's there's those work-life balances that change, but there's always something to work on, and there's always decisions to be made. And you also have, as you know, T Mac, all these great packages where you're guaranteed a certain number of weeks in a row or days away, etc., that you're kind of locked into. But then there's all these fill-in dates where you have to make hard decisions. So I want to take this one-off baseball game or basketball game on a day that I might have been off. I'm at the point of my career now where I made way too many sacrifices, certainly during my first marriage, and definitely uh to some degree in this marriage, where all right, you know what? I've made a commitment to go to the theater with my wife this night. I I've turned down two jobs because I've made this commitment to go to the theater, and I'm looking forward to it. And you know what? We'll be fine. So, and the fact that we'll have this extra day together to do like normal couple stuff, that's pretty important. And then I guess at some point in our conversation, we'll get into the work that I do here at home and uh talk about work-life balance and what that can do for it as well.

TMac 27:09

That was next on the agenda, and that's part of both of what uh uh much of what we talked about, but the two parts of what we've talked about, which is the technology changing, the job evolving, the demands not decreasing, but now the technology's involved to the point where that system behind you allows you to work at home. So tell me when that came about, how that came about for you, because I don't think even casual fans know that the Olympic venue may have camera people and a few production people, but the but the show is being directed from New York or or Stanford, St. Augustine, Florida, or or wherever. Um, so so walk me through uh which for me, you know, being semi-informed, I remember uh A seeing pictures, you being the biggest source, and thinking, oh my goodness, remote work has come to remote work.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

It's literally remote. You can broadcast anything from anywhere. Uh for me, remote work started during the pandemic when everything shut down and I'm Jewish and I belong to a synagogue. And we had the Jewish New Year's services, which were going to take place in September, but no one was allowed to go to the synagogue. So, how do we how do we share these services for everybody? And we made the decision. I volunteered to produce and direct the services, which we would stream and put on local cable access. And I actually directed one of those services from a hotel room in Minnesota, which was just nuts. So that technology existed before the pandemic. The other technology that existed before the pandemic was a technology called Hawkeye. Now, if you're a tennis fan, you may remember Hawkeye is the system they use where they zoom down on the ball, touching the line. Is it in? Is it out? Is it on the line? And Hawkeye created these mega servers where they be basically became replay-at-home servers, where Hawkeye technology enables me to do replays from the company in my basement. Now, the system really isn't behind me right now. I've got an empty space where the system will be in a couple of weeks for the PGA championship. But during the entire NFL season for the last four seasons, I've been a replay operator for the NFL on CBS from right here. And it's incredible because instead of traveling every weekend to a different city and being away from Friday to Monday, I can actually go out with my wife on Saturday night for a date. Yeah, pretty amazing. And have some time with the kids on a set day, Saturday. If there's a lull, hey guys, I'm gonna be upstairs for a couple hours. Text me if you need me on for a fax check or whatever. And it's it's a game changer. I will tell you that remote production is a double-edged sword, T Mac, because with the changes that have made it uh easier for me to work from home, it's also made it easier for networks to do their productions from their home studios. So ESPN producing most of its NBA and NHL games from their studios in Bristol, Connecticut, and Charlotte. Uh, for NBC to produce a lot of their Big Ten and some of their ancillary NFL coverage from their studios in Stanford. Coming up this summer will be my third time doing an Olympics from Stanford, Connecticut, from NBC's headquarters, where I'd been to this will be my 10th Olympics. So I've been to Torino, Italy, Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, uh Rio, which was amazing, um, uh, Pyongyang, um, South Korea. And then starting in 2020, doing Olympics from Stanford, because they're really only sending two or three crews to those cities that are involved now where they used to send the entire crews and do the entire production there. Well, now bandwidth is pretty cheap, and the technology is there to produce everything except for maybe like track and field and swimming and maybe gymnastics. Everything else is being done back in Stanford. So beach volleyball, which used to roll with two production trucks in Rio, is now just done in a control room in Stanford and will look as good as it did with the trucks, NBC Hopes. Uh and that's the business model, and it works, and it works for a lot of different uh TV companies. And I mean, it so it's great in some ways, not so great in others, because the NBA games that I was working week to week for ESPN, they're producing most of those in Bristol. I do get the uh great opportunity during the postseason to travel for a few weeks for them and maybe a fill-in or two during the season, but it's just the reality of the business model. They have some very talented people up in Bristol who do similar work that we would do in the trucks remotely. And likewise for NBC and other broadcasters who were able to do things, um, Fox Sports from their Pico studios in LA. They produced a lot of college basketball from there, some NFL, and that's just the way it is now.

TMac 32:57

Funny sort of related, not related story. I remember in Beijing overhearing the conversations um about the fact that they had shipped all of the uh sets and and all of the stuff to to Beijing and that they were making plans, that that's how they were going to uh you know, they had already started planning that logistical mountain uh for the next one and the next one. And it and it dawned on me when I realized that now stuff was was uh remote, is that that is the biggest thing. The the sets and the talent and the look, you know, they they but now I understand that they can put talent in yet a third place and they can watch a few monitors, correct?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

And not only that, with the uh advent of uh virtual sets, you can look like you're anywhere.

TMac 34:07

It's pretty cool. Yeah, it is, it's pretty amazing. Um let's talk about let's talk about creature comforts, okay? When I was up on a tower, the first thing I did was take my shoes off, put on flip-flops, and I got my snacks and I got my water and I got my when you are, and we have to do this in your gig for in two parts. When you were in trucks, yeah, what was the one accoutrement that you needed uh, and I've asked everybody to survive in your world?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

In the case of some of the Game Creek trucks, a space heater, man, those trucks get cold. And it's not to keep us cool, it's to keep the equipment from overheating. But what ends up happening is the tape room is attached to the main production room by a door. And if that door is open, it's like a wind tunnel. And I've bundled up with the ski hat and everything on like an 80-degree day because the truck is freezing. So yeah, it's yeah, you you can't be underdressed in a truck, and it's it's it's kind of a funny scene on a summer day, seeing me you know walk into work with a parka under my arm or something, you know. But that's yeah, I mean, honestly, for me, just if it's a long remote, uh, if it's something like uh golf, all day golf, just please keep plying me with snacks and not just Oreos, maybe something healthy, I don't know, healthier.

TMac 35:41

I should have qualified it healthy snacks.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Yeah, you know, I don't I don't know if you've gotten this from talking with other TV professionals, but man, do we live off our stomachs? And a happy, well-fed, a well-fed crew is a happy crew. So uh make the catering right. And uh if you can ply us with some healthy snacks, man. We're there, yes, that that'll do it for me.

TMac 36:04

I used to I used to joke that during breaks, if you were outside near like in a production area, but it was outside, I could point out the the the replay folks from the camera guys because the gamma camera guys were looking to slip into a truck somewhere to cool off, and only you guys were standing out looking up like basking.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

I was doing that at the masters, I was sitting in a golf cart basking half the time that I had off exactly because I was starved for the sunshine, you know.

TMac 36:40

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

So one other creature comfort that we haven't talked about is what it's like when I work in my basement. And the fact of the matter is, if I have an eight o'clock crew call, I can sleep till 7:45, come downstairs in my Homer Simpson slippers, in sweats, ball cap on. I don't even really need the ball cap, but I like having the ball cap on. You know, a cup of coffee, and I'm there at eight o'clock, baby. No traffic, no commute to work. It's pretty good. And the catering's pretty good too. So those are the creature comforts.

TMac 37:18

You made the snacks.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

That's right. If if I have any complaints about the catering, it's on me. So those are creature comforts.

TMac 37:26

I love the idea of you saying, hey, uh, if we're taking a break here, you text me when you need me.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And you know, Will Blakely and John Sauer on my NFL crew are the best and the most understanding. And they they they get it. And they know what it's like to want to have uh have that extra family time. So if I'm home and I'm not doing anything here, well, I'm not gonna goof off on the internet like I will while I'm in the truck, just sitting around waiting for something to happen. I'm gonna do something around the house, or uh, I don't know how abrupt this is gonna look, but there's there's my Peloton and treadmill right there. And then if I get really desperate, there's the bar. So I've got it all figured out, T Mac.

TMac 38:17

That's a beautiful thing. I just I still I'm still trying to get my head around guys remote in remote production. I I just I I know that probably there are dozens of business where people thought that and it happens, but um, and it is a logical when you think about it, evolution of the process is to have you guys um how many people would you say, or do you know of that are in similar situations?

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Well, CBS out of its uh I guess six main shows, five full-time, and then maybe a sixth or seventh part-time crew, there's at least one of me on every show. The A show, the Nance Romo crew, I believe they have two people working from home. Sunday Night Football, I think, has a couple people working from home. Um, I I believe one of them might be for health reasons, and it's great for a network, again, to make an accommodation for a crew member. You know, you're so valuable, and they we want you on the crew. What do we need to do to get it done? So that's really cool. And um I hopefully, and also I'm sorry, um, CBS with the PGA, the same Hawkeye technology I use for NFL, they use for golf. And can I tell you, Hawkeye is the killer app for golf because you can record, you can recreate any golf shot on any hole from any time. You have access to every camera, every mic on the course. And so for a regular golf show during the year, I think they roll with two Hawkeye operators. For the majors, I believe for the masters, there were uh five total Hawkeye operators, including one that's including one that serves as the SPNs, telecast and their sports center, etc. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So, and I'll actually be here for the PGA championship next month.

TMac 40:24

So what's next is more of the same. Yeah. But do you do you feel like you have a little bit more control of your life because of of the technology?

SPEAKER_00 40:37

I think the first step is uh and it's funny because you can almost draw an analogy um uh with my apologies to Nancy Reagan, but the ability to just say no to a gig. And I mean, getting contacted to work a gig is like a drug. It's great for the ego, it's great for someone with wanderlust, and it's great for someone who loves doing what we love. So the ability to learn how to say no to a gig is really important. Turning down those uh playoff games so I can go to the theater with my wife. Perfect example. I was incapable of that 20 years ago. So that's a real that's a real life changer. And then, yes, I definitely have more control over my time, maybe even a little too much, only because those Remis are there that are uh not giving me the ability to work as much as I'd like to be, but I'm being real zen about it and saying, hey, this is bonus family time right now. And the work will come. And my nine-year-old daughter is not getting any younger. So she wants me home, and this is a great time to spend with her, but I still get to work on some of the best shows: Super Bowls, Olympics, the Masters. So I'm pretty lucky in that aspect. Uh, next for me, I've got some NBA and NHL playoff games, I've got the PGA championship, and then we're gonna ramp it down into the summer and go on some vacations. So that'll be great. And then before you know it, it'll be September and uh another season in the basement. Yeah, it's a merry-go-round, T Mac. Don't you know?

TMac 42:26

Understood. Well, I can dovetail off your your decision making because at some point I said the price is too high, and and I spent a few years trying to figure out what you know, freelance begets more freelance. What am I really qualified to do that's not in remote production? That was one level, and when I realized uh I was working at the pretty elite level as a camera operator, there really isn't anything else. So, what else can I do? And I got lucky that here in my community, my wife is from this community, and she knew about the high school and the sophisticated video production program they had, and ultimately that led to an opportunity for me, and that's when I finally took the leap. I even went back, got certified, got my master's, and this is my 20th year teaching.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

God bless you.

TMac 43:33

But I but I wasn't, I'm not teaching, uh, and then two years ago, not this year but last year, I took on another role in the credit recovery program that the Who's high school has. If you've uh failed a course and you need to recover, you come to my room, and it's it's like all throughout the day kind of thing. So it's a little slightly different role, uh, kind of coach, kind of motivator, kind of. kick some kick some butts sort of job but man you're right it's almost like these golden handcuffs and and uh but i knew that the future i just for the future of the kids uh i needed to make that to make that change but man i dig that uh notion about the pressure it's you think about all the lives you're touching directly compared to look i know what we do it's not rocket science it's not brain surgery we do help bring pleasure to a lot of people's lives by watching sports watching games matches etc that they're interested in so that's great but what you're doing to um helping people directly is really really commendable uh one of the things that I'm doing now that I'm kind of on the back side of my career is I'm trying to do more mentoring uh with not only uh people who are new to the business but also um I've had people come over to watch me work who are college students high school students who may want to get in the business and try and tell them a little bit about what it's about.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

And look 28 years ago I could not have imagined the way my career is now. And who knows what this is going to be like for those kids when they get to the amount of experience I have I just I can't fathom it but it it's going to be pretty crazy.

TMac 45:31

It is the teaching is much more personal than I thought it was and much more of a relationship than I thought. You know you walk into whatever the industry is having your own preconceived notions um but now in my 20th year yeah it's nice to have students former students especially that have uh that have gone on and and and stayed in in production that's that's stuff to be you know to be proud of I I have I have students that I bird walk and shoot birds with um that's so cool you know and and having and I'm old enough now where these these kids are like in their late 30s and god they're married and I'm like you're not in your late I we we we went last weekend and I'm like you are not in your late 30s he goes yes you dope do the math I'm like you got old dude oh geez oh my how did this happen he's like come on keep walking just just nuts well I'll tell you what I so look forward to this and it was so great having you here's what I want to end with and you started to talk about it when someone comes to you clearly like the 28 year old self and says I want to do this give me three things that you do or you would tell them first thing I would say is don't do it just kidding um you gotta be yourself first off all right you don't try to act like someone else or you you've got to be real to what's inside you I'm still I'm still working for the 10 year old kid inside of me you know who loves sports and loves watching games on TV but um look for some area of the business that's underserved whether it's streaming high school games or something in gaming which is so huge right now and the TV coverage of that and so look for a niche for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Don't be afraid to do what I did and try new things. I ultimately got to a place that I love being in but it certainly was not a straight line. So feel free to take those off ramps every once in a while because ultimately doing what I did I feel made me better because I am familiar with every aspect I would think of the business now. So I spent some time on the production side spent most of my time on the technical side but worked for my company so got to see it from their standpoint. And I think when you're young especially in your 20s now's the time to try new things. So if you're not quite sure you have something else to try. And ultimately if you're meant to be someplace you'll get there.

TMac 48:44

But uh don't be afraid to take some chances and have some fun well said Mark I can't thank you enough for being a part of the project I wish you uh safe travels up and down the stairs to your basement cave. The commute is the best that is so awesome I will um hope to uh see your work I love to watch now thanks T Mac it was a pleasure thanks again to the multi-talented replay operator Mark Pokadov you can see his work at the upcoming PGA Championships at Valhalla Country Club in Louisville Kentucky Zoom with our feed podcast is a production of TV Commando Media the Zoom pod theme is by November's and their funky groove cloud 10. Until next time creative producers be ready and accept the challenge