Event Crew 2018
Girls SAISA volleyball was held in OSC 2 weeks ago in which I participated as an event crew member handling the technological work during SAISA. My focus was on capturing the best moments of the games, social events, and the tournament and also maintain the score board on the live stream. I also switched to live streaming and taking footage of the games for the 2018 SAISA Girls Volleyball video. This blog posts focuses on the 1st and 4rth IB learning outcomes which are ‘Identify own strength and develop areas of growth’ and ‘show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experience’.
From 25th of October to 27th of October, Thursday to Saturday night, my days were intensely busy and nights were full of school studies. Although I was a part of Saisa, I didn’t deny my time for my school studies. I had almost no time during the day for my school work because of managing the Saisa game events, however we didn’t have a lot classes during Saisa days but my nights were more busier compared to other days because I had all my study practices to be done. I joined event crew as an aim to be a part of Saisa which I couldn’t have been for the past 2 years because I never traveled nor participated for any Saisa tournaments, and with an aim to improve my socializing skills as well.
During the tournament I was managing photography of the games, live streaming for YouTube, and keeping the scores on the live stream, throughout the days. I was consistently switching roles after each game with other members of the event crew however I had a huge amount of responsibility for capturing the best moments on the court, and keeping the scores up to date.
Photography:
The author taking pictures of the live games. Photo taken by Savindi
Photography was a challenging part in the days of Saisa girls volleyball because I’ve never did any photography using a DSLR camera for an event, and especially for Saisa. My job was to walk around the sides of the court and take pictures of players, teams, and playing moments such as spiking, defending, etc. I was very nervous on the 1st day, not because of taking pictures, but because of going close to teams and players, and taking pictures during intense moments of the games. However by the end of the 1st day I was quite comfortable with photography. I had a commitment of taking photos during the day, and by the 3rd day I was quite trained in photography as I was able to take well focused and timed images as shown below.
Background blurred shot right before the serve taken by the author
Live stream: This was my 1st time experiencing with live stream, I was in charge with live stream on all three days for specific games, but mostly I was involved with checking if all the students were properly controlling the live stream and helping them out throughout the day while taking photos and scoring. Live stream is quite a difficult work as people from all around the world have access to watch it and specially all the countries involved in Saisa. During my shifts for live streaming, my aim was to movement the camera as the ball shifts from one part of the court to another. During live streaming I was focusing on audience responses on the YouTube channel, I didn’t want anyone to comment negatively about OSC live streaming. So in order to maintain that status I tried to keep the movement of the camera as smooth as possible by which it wouldn’t be hard to follow the game and every player can be shown on the court quite clearly. The easiest way to live stream was to just keep the camera zoomed out but I wanted to grow my live streaming skills so I tried to zoom in the court by which every played can be seen clearly, the actions can be clearly seen, and smoothly rotated the camera by which there won’t be any disturbance for the audience while watching.
Live streaming games on YouTube by the author. Credits for the picture: Savindi
Scoring: I also handled scoring of the games on the live stream during the Saisa days. Each day we all had to rotate jobs so every day I got more than 2 chances to do scoring for Saisa games per day. Keeping up the scores wasn’t a tough job however it was enjoyable, I really enjoyed it as I was able to watch the games from a great view and do the scoring as well. Sometimes I did face difficulties due to technical difficulties such as lost of internet connection but however I was able to recover it and get the scores right back up.
The author while maintaining score for live stream on YouTube. Picture taken by: Lithira
Tournament: In general the tournament was a success for me as I developed and improved many skills as described above. Other than these I’ve increased my social skills during Saisa as our team of Event Crew was very social and we all communicated and stayed together. Also on the court, the teams were very nice and I enjoyed their accompany. Specially while doing photography, I met many new Saisa athletes and had conversations with them whom I’ve never met before and I’m glad I got to know them. The athletes were very kind and fun to interact with during the tournament and I was very happy that I was able to increase my social skills. I think this tournament helped a lot with my social skills among the Saisa athletes and that I was able to make many new friends on court and off court in the event crew during Saisa girls volleyball.
Photo shoot for the athletes after the ceremony., taken by the author
Ending this post, the final game of ASB was a blast against ACS and very intense. I was doing photography for that game and I successfully captured many great moments. After the game I was also assigned to take photos for the award ceremony and in which I would like to congratulate ASB for their win for Saisa Girls Volleyball 2018.
Photography by the author during award ceremony
Shot taken by the author from downward angle with artificial lighting