When the Sports segment of Duck TV goes to shoot, they mean business. There are certainly studios on campus available to shoot in; however, Sports takes it one step further to achieve a quality, professional look for their show.
Venturing about 10 minutes off campus, they found Chambers Productions, a large, professional production center open to serving corporate, commercial and educational purposes. Chambers is complete with five studios, with stages ranging from 600-14,000 sq. ft. They provide Sony XDCam HD cameras, lighting equipment, control rooms, grips, makeup rooms, and more. The audio studio itself might cause a producer to salivate: it is a Dolby Certified 5.1 surrounded audio facility, with stereo mix-downs for TV, DVD or web to achieve professional results.
Preston Hiefield has worked on sports as an anchor, analyst, script writer, and editor. The first time he saw Chambers, he was blown away. “Everyone’s really excited about it,” he said. After the first tour, he describes the sports crew thinking, “Wow, this is amazing! We feel like we’re in the real world doing real broadcasting.” The ability to work in such an environment provides the cast and crew at each shoot at Chambers with energy and excitement.
The control rooms allow editors and producers to make the final touches. In the studio, camera operators focus and white balance the cameras, but people in the control rooms can see it on multiple big screens and make final touches. “We can check audio levels and see who’s doing what which is really efficient,” said Hiefield.
Duck TV Sports uses two studios: one bigger and one smaller. “The anchors sit with a great backdrop, a great background and wooden finish on the desks. Then we have 3 different professional stand-still cameras to get different angles of the anchors.” Two mobile cameras transition into a smaller studio for smaller segments. The show also frequently utilizes the green screen.
Hiefield also mentioned that KEZI, Eugene’s ABC affiliate, shoots at studios there and uses similar control rooms. For this reason, he thinks it is safe to say that Chambers “gives us a professional real-world experience.”
More information about Chambers Productions can be found on their website: http://www.chambersproductions.com/index.php