A morning with Olympic star Ben Ainslie
In the early hours of the 10th January (a good few hours before the sun made an appearance), I arrived at the doors of the Royal Festival Hall in London to meet up with the rest of the Mallard Productions crew.
Not being an early bird, I managed to get hopelessly lost in the building trying to find the crew. Fortunately I found a friendly stranger to help me out.
That stranger turned out to be no other than Ben Ainslie, the triple Olympic gold medallist (planning to hit gold again for a fourth time in this year’s Olympics 2012) and multi-award-winning Yachtsman of the Year.
I really should have recognised Ben straight away (I blame the, early start for my bleary-eyed ignorance), as it was Mallard Productions who had been brought in to manage the broadcast of Ben’s highly anticipated press conference.
The preparation for this event had been incredible. Mallard Productions had stepped up to the challenge with an incredible confidence, showing off their broadcast and Video PR heritage in every way. It was inspiring.
And so it should be. We were expecting all the major sports media, Sky and the BBC, and the broadsheet reporters to attend, as well as sending a live feed to networks worldwide. It had to be a professional set-up.
From our live-link satellite truck on the ground, to the studio-quality lighting, camera set-up, and editing suite six-floors up, we were ready to go. Even the builders outside paused their noise for our interviews.
Our own director, Chris Hyde, was at the helm, directing Annabel Croft (the presenter), Ben, and his sponsor, Russell Coutts, to ensure everyone knew what to do when the cameras started rolling, ready for the live broadcast.
Ben’s announcement of his new America’s Cup team ‘Ben Ainslie Racing (B.A.R) piqued the interest of the journalists in attendance. Within minutes of the conference, we had produced the final edit, on site, and sent it on to Reuters for the rest of the world to see.
The conference was a complete success and all of the crew at Mallard Productions would like to wish Ben Ainslie the best of luck in the London Olympics 2012.
RSS Feed