As our regular readers will know (hello to you both) the Elite League season is finally underway, and the Phoenix have returned to active competition. It's been a hectic week for everyone - for the players, for the fans. for the back-roomers and for the management. Also this week we launched Phoenix TV, which is a multimedia section on the team website, and one of my chief responsibilities is to provide the content for it. Hopefully you like what we're doing there!
For me personally, it's been a knackerising week and a bit - it's now Tuesday and I'm still shattered. I'm not asking for sympathy, that's not what this posting is about at all, so don't worry! However, since some of our critics have in the past accused us of being 'in it for the glory', I've decided to post this overview of the past week-and-a-bit to illustrate what this glory looks like....
Sunday 3rd September was the 'Meet The Players' event at the Sports Cafe, and myself and Ron Gilmour (my fellow Match Night Entertainment Director) were tasked with documenting the event - Ron armed with a digital stills camera, and me armed with a video camera. The presentations by the builders and developers were duly captured, the player introductions documented, and some short interviews carried out afterwards with some very tired, uber-jetlagged players. Monday and Tuesday were all about editing the footage and getting it ready to be sent over to Mr Landers for encoding and putting on the website (as well as doing my day job).
Wednesday 6th September was the night so many people had dreamed of - the Phoenix taking to the ice for the first time in two seasons, with a challenge game against the Scimitars over at Ice Sheffield. Once again, Ron and myself were on the documenting team, each armed with a video camera whilst Landers and Carl The Producer worked on providing live updates to the website from the Media Gallery.
Thursday was edit day for the game footage, trimming it down into a package for Granada TV and then expanding that package into something for the Phoenix TV webpage. Along with doing my day job.
Thursday night was a bizarre one. The customers at a pub not far from the M6 were treated to the spectacle of two men climbing into a pick-up truck and not coming out for an hour. Yep, it was interview time, with me recording an interview with Neil Morris, before heading home to process the interview ready for upload to the site. Again it's Mr Landers who does the actual uploading, working in tandem with Carl The Producer.
Friday saw me prepping the camera kit ready for the weekend's games, sifting through more cds and mpegs of music for the match night entertainment. Again, the day job did put in an appearance!
Saturday and Sunday were filming days in Edinburgh and Hull respectively, getting footage for the website and for our new match night opening sequence.
Monday was editing the footage from the two matches into the pieces that now adorn the Phoenix TV page, and sending them across to Landers for uploading. Last night was checking through some PR material, uploading the Rink Round-Up report to the website (thank heaven for Ronnie Nichol and Jim Lydon writing it this season) and then finally getting to bed sometime around two. I believe the day job may have also been a part of the actual day.
Well, hopefully this has given you an idea of how things are hotting up for Phoenix at the moment! Like I say, I'm not looking for sympathy, more like using this piece to show how we're back in business and we're always on call, 24/7. For those critics out there, if that's what passes for glory, then I'd hate to see what masochism is!
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1 comment:
Pah. Part-timer!
We ought to keep a log of the hours we put in. And then present them to Neil with an invoice and watch his face.
Then agasin, maybe not. If I worked out how much time I spend doing all this stuff, and not with the wifey-to-be, I reckon I wouldn't even make it down the aisle...
On a serious note though, seeing the team on the ice makes every second of it worth it.
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