The Sounds of Learning

Producing a live athletic ‘show’ not as easy as it sounds

PHOTOS / GARY LAWSON

Gideon Thompson, a 2010 broadcast journalism and sports media graduate, works with Cal Garbe, a sports journalism and broadcast production senior, on the OSU Sports Media Club’s two EVS replay machines during a Cowgirl basketball game.

2 SPRING 2011

If you’ve attended a Cowgirl Basketball game or a Cowboy Wrestling match this season, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the sounds of Gallagher-Iba Arena.

There’s the roar of the crowd, the high-powered music from the band and the sounds of the athletes pounding the court or the mat.

But for a few students attending the events, the sounds are completely different.

“Ready two — take. Ready blue, ready ‘S.’ Effects to ‘S.’ Roll blue — dissolve.”

These are the direction cues for a video replay making its way from a camera on the arena’s historic floor to a machine in the basement then up into the rafters and onto the video board.

These are the sounds of learning.

For the past two seasons, students from the Sports Media Club in the School of Media and Strategic Communications have been in charge of producing the

“show,” as it’s called, for the video boards and online streams of Cowboy Wrestling and Stillwater Pioneer Football. This season, they also began producing for Cowgirl Basketball.

“We call it ROSCO,” says Marc Krein, associate professor of advanced video

production and sports media production. “I’ve built four ROSCO’s in my career. I’ve always felt that if you can give a system a meaningful and catchy name, people will remember the name and what it is.”

ROSCO has transformed the way broadcast students at OSU are learning the skills for their major and preparing themselves for a competitive job market.

ROSCO stands for “Remote OSU Streaming Control Operation.” In layman’s terms, it’s a master control room for a television studio on wheels, and with it, the school is rolling into broadcast education history.

“There are a couple of other institu-tions that educate broadcast students at live athletic events, but they bring in professionals to run the bulk of the systems,” Krein says. “These systems are typically fixed facilities. ROSCO is mobile, which enables us to work a wider variety of events.

“Most of our crew is made up of students from the Sports Media Club.”

Until now, fans didn’t know they were watching a live preview of student demo reels on the jumbotron. But from the cameras and the video switcher

to the replay machines and the audio board, most of the action produced for the jumbotron demonstrates the talent budding in the halls of the Paul Miller Journalism and Broadcasting Building.

“I’ve done everything ROSCO has to offer, but I think running the EVS replay machine has to be the most interesting,” says Melinda Thompson, a recent OSU graduate who became involved with ROSCO her senior year.

“There’s just so much to learn and so much you can do with one of those machines. It’s a lot of fun.”

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AbOve: Danilynn Welniak, a broadcast journalism and sports media senior, operates the high camera located on the concourse level of Gallagher-Iba Arena during a Cowgirl basketball game. beLOW: Melinda Thompson, a 2010 broadcast journalism and sports media graduate, operates the video switcher used to control the cameras and replay machines feeding the Gallagher-Iba Arena jumbotron.

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ROSCO’s two EVS machines, or “Elvises” as they’re nicknamed, are identi-cal to the ones used in multimillion-dollar production trucks for broadcasters like ESPN, ABC and FOX. Each machine can record two live feeds from cameras and instantly rewind the feeds for replays while continuing to record, not unlike a household DVR.

But becoming a good EVS operator requires hours of training and experience on these machines. While other students across the country are standing by watch-ing the professionals, OSU students are taking the controls night after night.

“Any initiative that brings students into contact with real-life professional situations is a unique educational experi-ence,” says Derina Holtzhausen, director of the School of Media and Strategic Communications. “What ROSCO does is to introduce students to the use of complex and advanced technology in the field.”

Thompson says ROSCO has enhanced her broadcast education and knowledge more than she could have imagined. “It’s the best way to learn because you’re not watching someone else do it. You’re out there doing everything yourself.”

That experience is paying off for grad-uates who know all too well the difficulties of starting out in the broadcast business.

“The experience not only educates, but it’s also the reason the TV networks contact us for qualified production assistance from our students,” Krein says. “We’ve had students working the Super Bowl, Oklahoma City Thunder games, OSU and OU events, and numer-ous other productions.”

In total, Krein says it took one year to develop the plan for ROSCO and two years to secure all the funding and grants before the project became a reality.

Building the system required quite a bit of television engineering experience, Krein says, which was provided in part by the OSU Institute of Teaching and Learning Excellence and video production manager Tim Cushing.

Students also helped develop the plan for ROSCO — a task that fell upon graduate teaching assistant Jayson Evans

and undergraduate Jeremy Davis. Davis graduated from the school in 2007 and now works for OSU Communications as a videographer. He became involved with the Sports Media Club during his fresh-man year, and he never left.

“As an OSU graduate and current OSU employee, it’s great to see so many students have the opportunity to get

“More than just setting up cables and cameras, I’ve learned about the conversations and problems encountered during a remote production.” – Ryan Wycoff, senior

Ryan Wycoff, a broadcast journalism and sports media senior, operates a floor

camera during a Cowboy wrestling match.

4 SPRING 2011

To learn more about ROSCO and the School of Media and Strategic Communication’s Sports

Media Club, visit smc.okstate.edu.

Tyler Thomason, a sports media and broadcast production senior, operates the wireless camera during a Stillwater High School football game at Pioneer Stadium.

real-world broadcast experience before they graduate,” Davis says. “As a student, I was always looking for ways to get involved and learn about live broadcasts because it’s not something you can fully understand from a book or watching it.

“Being able to give students the ability to experience the speed and chaos of live broadcasts before they leave college is a huge benefit, and I’m grateful that I’ve been able to give back in a small way,” says Davis, who serves as the engineer for ROSCO. He helps set up equipment before each show and troubleshoot problems that

can and often do arise. Besides events at Gallagher-Iba Arena and Pioneer Stadium, ROSCO also produced live streams for OSU softball and soccer, Spring Sing and Homecoming’s Sea of Orange Parade.

“ROSCO allows me to gain experi-ence that students at many other schools won’t ever have the chance to get,” says Ryan Wycoff, a broadcast journalism and sports media senior who runs cameras for ROSCO. “More than just setting up cables and cameras, I’ve learned about the conversations and problems that are encountered during a remote production.”

Anyone involved with ROSCO will tell you there were plenty of problems in the beginning. Gallagher-Iba Arena, now more than 10 years removed from its renovation, was not built to serve two production crews using two different sets of equipment. It took many events and handoffs between ROSCO and Cox Communications, which is contracted for Cowboy Basketball, before a “perfect show” was achieved.

“We are proud to have students in a live lab during our events,” says Amy Weeks, associate athletic director, who served as coordinator between OSU Athletics and ROSCO. “They have done a great job, and the end results on the boards have been very professional.”

In the future, Krein hopes to upgrade ROSCO to high definition and also upgrade the camera lenses used with the system. He also hopes to branch out and produce more non-sporting events such as debates, lectures and concerts.

That diversity will further prepare students for life outside of the classroom.

“Every event is different — the set up, the problems, the outcome,” Thompson says. “It keeps it interesting.

“The practical experience from ROSCO prepared me for what it would be like to work in a professional environment and gave me the skills to succeed,” she says. “I would not be where I am today without what I gained from ROSCO.” O

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