Back on Canadian soil and reflecting a bit today on my third Olympic experience.
The athletes are not the only ones who push themselves during these events. The opening ceremonies were one of the most ambitious live television broadcasts most of us working in television had ever been a part of. It’s ambitious to retrofit an arena for any large event like the Super Bowl, NHL playoffs, or an Olympic event, but to place hundreds of cameras along an 8 km length of the Seine and have content roll down the river, dancers on landmarks, and Céline at the top of the Eiffel Tower is more than technical ambition.
Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) and their team achieved something never really attempted before. As technical staff, we all know what happens when something we haven’t achieved before goes on the air, right? Something even bigger and more ambitious happens next time because we now know what is possible—basically anything you can dream of now. Partially because the technology is there to do it. Camera technology, network fiber technology, and wireless systems have allowed for an extended range outside of the mobile truck that we have never before been able to achieve. But don’t think it was without cabling and power; I’m sure an SVG article will quote the length of the fiber run along the Seine, which was just staggering.
My personal takeaways from these Olympics are two things. The first one is IP technology for video is here to stay and is ready. Learning it, educating myself in it, and finding opportunities to work with it will be the challenge in the next five years of my career. It is not perfect, it is not easier, and it absolutely requires knowledge of video and audio and why we have certain workflows in media. Left to network engineers who think about traffic flow only and not quality control, the transition will be felt by viewers.
A deep understanding of the business practices in media and broadcasting is essential for anyone aspiring to create and deliver an exceptional product to audiences. This knowledge should not be overlooked. While I might not possess all the right skills today to fully design and roll out a SMPTE 2110 system or fully configure an NDI [Network Device Interface] network, or build an IP distribution method with all the security knowledge of a network architect, I am absolutely thinking about how to learn, listen, and grow these skills on the first projects I am handed.
The obvious tie-in for WABE, in my mind, is how important our educational programming and having speakers and ideas presented at our conference is. New standards, new workflows, and new tech, when presented and discussed together, help the entire industry start a migration that affects our workforces and our audiences. I mentioned Content Credentials to a few peers I was working with over the summer who had never heard about it, and this kind of presentation from Sébastien Testeau, who is leading CBC’s adoption of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), is the kind of insight we have always provided on technology integrations and standards coming down the pipeline. We have always tried to put new ideas and technology in front of people who attend the conference. Check out our conference schedule for presentations and panels that will get you talking.
My second takeaway eases my worry about jobs in our industry being lost to AI. While AI and other tools are introduced for technical success, AI isn’t laying cables along the Seine, coordinating the delivery and setup of cameras and lenses 2 km away, troubleshooting light levels from fiber transmitters, or plugging in cables. People make content, and other people make the content delivery possible. AI is a tool, but a team of people is how you achieve any technical project, and so much of what we do behind the scenes in media and entertainment is physical hardware integration so that software can do its job. The specialized connections, integrations, and configurations in each production environment are so unique that I doubt robots or drones could manage them efficiently or cost-effectively without extensive and complex programming, at least for the next 15 years.
If you are responsible for managing a technical team across media, broadcast, radio, film, AV, stage, live production, post-production, marketing, venues—basically anywhere you want video or audio delivered—you’re going to need a diversely skilled, hands-on, and positively motivated team who believes in what you are doing and is working toward your end goal together. The days of a one-size-fits-all technical team member are over. Mixing those hard and soft skills, someone who understands your business, comes to work every day, performs all kinds of small tasks that change daily, and brings a smile and new ideas to the table is as valuable as the smartest, most introverted genius on your team. If you pair a few of those together and they learn from each other, it might just be technical magic.
An event like the Olympics involves hard work, long hours, and extreme physical exertion for the athletes and for everyone working behind the scenes to ensure the venue and in-home experience are meaningful for everyone, from advertisers to audiences. I do it because I can learn, grow my skill set, and connect with new and amazing people, which NBC really has a knack for hiring and is the reason I said yes to working for them in Paris. WABE volunteers and members have always known that good people exist in our industry who are mentors, leaders, and team members, which is why we still hold this conference after 74 years. It brings us together, no matter where our careers lead us or which company or role we have in the media and entertainment technology industry, because we know that together, as a team, is how we get everything done.
This kind of celebration of careers, teams, and people is also what we do at WABE. Consider nominating someone you know for an award before August 27th. We are open and ready to receive nominations, regardless of whether they are a broadcast engineer, any contributor, or someone who has gone above and beyond, skilled and moving the technology in our industry forward.
We are also looking for volunteers for next year’s conference in Calgary and a member of our Executive as Treasurer this coming fall. Who are we looking for? Doers of tasks and idea makers who want to see this organization be a place where all are welcome to come, learn, connect, and move our organization into the future.
Just like athletes, technical teams push themselves further with less. Ambitious plans that you don’t know will push past the competition result in an experience like no other. If you had asked me after a 20-hour day of work for the Opening Ceremonies at 4 a.m. if I would do it again, I might have said never. But upon reflection, in my backyard with memories galore of my experience, I could see myself saying yes if the call came again.
Registration for WABE, September 23-25 in Edmonton, is still open, and from the list of new faces already on the list, I am looking forward to meeting the next industry game changers this fall. Nothing gets more accessible than our Free exhibit hall to just peek at the world behind the curtain. Together we will find some answers on how we can forge ahead in media’s new landscape.
