Cameras for a Cage Fight

Nothing about the Panama City area screams “Fight Night” other than the usual altercations outside of Coyote Ugly at two in the morning on a Thirsty Thursday. But apparently, we have an actual promotion and are bring in competitors from gyms in Pensacola and Northern Alabama.

This gig was Beatdown at the Beach 9 put on by Impact Promotions. 19 fights; six kids grappling, the rest adult grappling and MMA. There were a number of well known local business owners that sponsored the event and the turnout seemed to be exactly what they hoped for. The word from the crew was the production value has increased with every event, so I find it awesome to be brought in this point in their progress. I have the chance to help make what they’ve got look better.

The Production:

• 4 Barco Projectors on ten foot truss
• 2 Screens with drape
• 4 Cameras
  • 2 On top of the cage
  • 1 Wireless Rover to get the fighter’s walk-in
  • 1 Dummy wide shot over the whole ring
• Couple of subs under the ring
• 2 SM-58s taped to the camera platforms to pick up ring noise
• Wireless Mic for MC
• 8 Colorspots to light the isles that kept mercilessly being kicked over.
• About four miles of XLR and SDI

Now, I had heard about the last MMA event the guys had run, so when I got the call I was all in. Up until I had to scale the cage for the first time. The major concern was how do I get up there without murdering the camera or losing comms of into the ring?

It was surprisingly not that hard after the third trip up. However, once up on the platform, you’re there for a good two hours at a time. There’s just enough space to sit cross legged in the downtime.

That downtime was probably the one hiccup the promoters couldn’t have planned for. The start of the show was delayed due to one of the competitors for the first youth match not making it to the venue on time. The other delay was from one of the MMA fighter’s coach being too drunk to wrap their guy’s hands and they had to find someone else to do it.

That situation really pulls back the curtain on where the show sits. The level of professionalism is both amateur in that a coach would get inebriated to the point of hindering their fighter and serious as someone else backstage stepped up so the fighter could still compete. The love for their sport showed through the setbacks.

On my side, we had our own hiccups. The wireless rover doesn’t like losing line-of-sight. It worked for great close-up shots until it didn’t. Although, it is sort of cobbled together, so can you blame it?

My camera also wanted to act wonky by not allowing me to focus when zoomed all the way out. That is when the old video guru said it sounded like back focus. Now I have never heard of this function. But when I found out I want solely user error on my part, I was excited to know about this maintenance task. He said that this can happen when the camera runs on travel gigs over a couple thousand miles and on the newer camera, adjusting the back focus is done in a menu instead of a ring on the body.

It seems sometimes the only way to learn new things is for problems to crop up and the knowledge comes from the solving. All in all a great gig, an easy load out, and a new experience getting to be that camera guy.

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