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ANAHEIM, California — There are nine minutes until the telecast goes live. A nervous energy has permeated this cramped, souped-up broadcast center out beyond left field in Angel Stadium's parking lot. A few hundred feet away, the annual Home Run Derby on the day before the All-Star Game is about to commence, and once the baseballs start flying beyond the outfield, there's no coming back.
Fist bumps start going around the trailer, trying to loosen the tension. "Hey guys!" the lead fist-bumper calls out. "Let's have some fun and see what happens." Chip Dean, the telecast's director and a veteran of ESPN's Monday Night Football coverage, continues calling out instructions to his crew in a language that sounds like gibberish to the untrained ear. Mercifully, no one can really hear the flat rendition of "Calling All Angels" that Train, situated inside the stadium on the border between infield and outfield, is belting out.
The live signal officially goes out at 10 seconds before 5 p.m. Pacific time. Train's lead vocalist, Pat Monahan, starts up with the group's catchy tune du jour "Hey, Soul Sister." After a few minutes, Dean instructs his charges to go live to the ESPN broadcasters ready to call the derby. Before the camera cuts in, you hear the voice of play-by-play man Dan Shulman, a baritone Canadian broadcaster who's flanked by former pro ballplayers Nomar Garciaparra and Aaron Boone.
And that's when you notice that all three are wearing glasses. 3-D glasses, to be exact. Everyone in the ESPN broadcast center is wearing them, too. And this is the moment where you know this isn't going to be any typical telecast of the Home Run Derby. No, this broadcast marks a distinct turning point for ESPN, a global powerhouse that has made a tremendous investment in 3-D-centric infrastructure.
Company execs believe that, just as with the introduction of HD broadcasting seven years ago, 3-D signifies the next step in sports programming. What started a month ago with an ambitious slate of World Cup matches has matured into a fully realized 3-D destination.
"Once people see it, they'll believe it," said Chris Calcinari, ESPN's VP of event operations who gave Playbook a behind-the-scenes tour of how ESPN. Calcinari, who had been on scene setting up for the derby since Thursday, brought the operation together.
With roughly 160 engineers, technicians, camera operators and other staffers on-site, ESPN 3D has become a full-fledged unit of its own. "We're giving them the resources to do something truly unique," Calcinari said.
For at least the next 12 months –- and likely well beyond that -– ESPN has committed to providing a dedicated team to broadcast specific events in 3-D. Right now, the technology favors more-static events (such as golf or baseball) or singular events where the on-field action is more predictable (like the Home Run Derby).
Monday, ESPN experimented with several camera angles designed to engage the 3-D viewership in different ways than the 2-D crowd. A 3-D camera was hoisted behind the pitcher's mound 15 feet in the air, which provided a more top-down view for the derby pitches, allowing for a greater field of view as the ball came in toward the batter. The 2-D feed utilized the traditional center field camera, with which the ball was seen pitched on a flatter plane.
Similar upgrades surrounded the batters themselves, with twin 3-D rigs positioned five feet away from both the left and right batter's boxes. 2-D viewers, meanwhile, got their up-close perspective via the usual "lipstick cameras" embedded into the infield soil just in front of home plate.
ESPN brass isn't blind to the obvious limitation standing in the way, which is the extremely low household penetration of 3-D television sets, unveiled in earnest just a few months ago. Either way, they're going forward with 3-D. "From the beginning, we all believed this had to be a difference-making experience," said coordinating producer Phil Orlins. "We've been challenged with creating a unique and ground-breaking visual experience, but the product has to be exceptional."
According to Anthony Bailey, ESPN's VP of emerging technology, the demand for 3-D will grow over time, just as with high-def: "The more 3-D content we give the viewers, the more people will want to watch it."
As the Home Run Derby went on, the optimism among executives at DirecTV, which has partnered with Fox to present today's 81st All-Star Game in 3-D, was just as unbridled. "To us, even with sports programming, it comes down to telling stories," said Steven Roberts, DirecTV's senior VP of new media and business development. "Only now, we have new tools to help us tell stories."
DirecTV announced in January that it would dedicate multiple channels to 3-D broadcasts. Since then, the company has slotted ESPN 3D (channel 106) into its lineup, but its flagship channel is n3D (channel 103), which will exclusively broadcast today's All-Star Game in 3-D.
Derek Chang, DirecTV's executive VP for content strategy and development, was excited for this "new area" that the company had embarked on. "When we went full-on with HD some years back," Chang said, "people said we were crazy. And look at where we are today. The experience of 3-D is visually stunning, and it's here to stay."
It seemed the only sight that could divert people's eyes away from ESPN's 3-D feed was when actor Will Ferrell bounded into the suite to slip on some glasses and check out the 3-D–ified derby himself, as well as record some video to be shown during tonight's All-Star Game telecast.
Still, even the most ardent 3-D supporters at ESPN and DirecTV full well realize that the learning curve will be steep, hard lessons will be forced upon them in time, and that the technology will evolve rapidly. In the ESPN 3D B-Unit truck, an hour before the derby commenced, nine more engineers worked on manually adjusting each of the feeds that were coming in from inside Angel Stadium. Everyone wore headsets, talking to one another or to their A-Unit colleagues a few yards away.
Vince Pace, who worked with James Cameron for years to create and perfect the 3-D camera rigs used to film Avatar, had his own corner of the trailer, tucked behind a black, sliding curtain. Pace was there to make sure the 3-D feeds were being calibrated properly before showtime.
Back in the main B-Unit room, the biggest issue was not the feeds or the cameras or the angles, but rather the blinding light that glared inside the darkened truck whenever someone entered or left through the door. "Yeah, we need a curtain like that one," said one of the engineers, waving in Pace's direction.
Maybe you can finagle that for next year, someone suggested. "Nah, we need it next week. Tomorrow, even!"
After a beat, he looked around the trailer. "Next year, hopefully all of this," he said with a wave of his hand at the monitors and walkie-talkies, "will be in the Smithsonian."
Top photo: ESPN producers and engineers monitor coverage of Monday's Home Run Derby in the broadcast center outside Angel Stadium.
Erik Malinowski/Wired.com
