ELECTRONIC FIELD PRODUCTION:Sports, Electronic news gathering

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TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

LESSON 29

ELECTRONIC FIELD PRODUCTION

Electronic field production (EFP)

Electronic field production (EFP) is a television industry term referring to television production which

takes place outside of a formal studio, in a practical location or special venue.

Some typical applications of Electronic Field Production include awards shows, concerts, major

newsmaker interviews, political conventions and sporting events.

Electronic field production (EFP) places the emphasis on high-quality, multi-camera photography,

advanced graphics and sound.

Sports

Sports broadcasts make up the majority of EFPs. Major broadcast networks once owned their own

production trailers for covering major events, but since then, with the explosion in networks on cable

and over-the-air, they and broadcast rental companies rent production trucks by the day or week for

more routine or remote productions.

A typical sports production truck includes:

A large video switcher, with an external digital video effects unit and several mix/effect equipment

allows the director, flexibility in calling for certain visual effects in the broadcast.

Several tripod-mounted and hand-held cameras.

A variety of zoom lenses for the tripod-mounted "hard" cameras, typically at least 50x to 100x

magnification, and a maximum focal length of at least 600 mm. The extreme amount of magnification is

necessary because the cameras can be located quite a distance from the action.

Several video recording and playback devices such as VCRs or hard disk recorders. Certain cameras

or video feeds can be "isolated" to specific decks, and when something happens that the producer or

director wants to see again, the deck can be rewound and shown on the air as an instant replay. Hard

disk recorders typically allow some limited editing capabilities, allowing highlight reels to be edited

together in the middle of a game.

Several character generators allowing scores and statistics to be shown on screen. The scoreboards used

in most sports facilities can be linked to the truck to drive the television production's graphics as well as

the arena scoreboards.

An audio mixing booth and a variety of microphones to capture audio from the sportscasters and from

the field of play.

Several miles of various types of cable.

TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

Electronic news gathering

Microwave trucks seen transmitting. Modern news employs these trucks extensively.

ENG is a broadcasting (usually television) industry acronym which stands for Electronic News

Gathering. It can mean anything from a lone reporter taking a single camcorder or camera out to get a

story to an entire television crew taking a satellite truck on location to do a live report for a newscast.

In its early days, the term ENG was used by newsroom staff to differentiate between the NG

(newsgathering) crews that collected TV news with traditional film cameras and the new ENG crews

who collected TV news with new electronic analogue tape formats like low band U-matic.

The requirement for the differentiation stems from the radically different methods of post-production

involved in video versus film. Film needed to be processed before editing, unlike tape where footage

could be edited fairly quickly, thus dramatically reducing the turn-around time for a story. The use of

film in newsgathering virtually disappeared by the early 1980s.

ENG originally referred to the use of point-to-point terrestrial microwave signals to backhaul the remote

signal to the studio. In modern news operations, however, it also includes SNG (Satellite News

Gathering) and DSNG (digital satellite news gathering).

ENG is almost always done using a specially modified truck or van such as those made by Sat-Comm,

Broadcast Vehicles, E-N-G, Frontline, and Wolf coach. Terrestrial microwave vehicles can usually be

identified by their masts which can be extended up to 50 feet (15 m) in the air (to allow line-of-sight

with the station's receiver antennas), while satellite trucks always use a larger dish that unfolds and

points skywards towards one of the geostationary communications satellites operated by companies.

The acronym ENG was also used as title for a Canadian television drama about the news department of

a TV station. The series ran for 96 episodes, from 1989-1994.

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