At The U.S. Open (Page 2)

Often research projects depend for success on the cooperation of collaborators from very different fields. Certainly our filming project at the Open is a good example.

As we have explained, the concept for the project developed in conversations between research aerodynamicist, Dr. Jani Macari Pallis, and tennis coach, writer, and video producer John Yandell. The pursuit of that concept was made possible by a cooperative agreement with the Learning Technologies Project at NASA Ames. Without this initial collaboration and the support of NASA, the project would never have gotten underway.

But the interest and efforts of two other key groups from the tennis and television worlds were pre-requisites in making the filming at the Open possible:

1. USA Network: USA Network executive producer Gordon Beck is known as an innovator in sports programming. Under his direction, USA's coverage of the Open has expanded to over 90 hours during the two-week event, providing a sports and entertainment feast for tennis fans and players around the world.

Gordon's sense of curiosity and his openness to innovation was critical to our project. Through USA Network, the project team received television credentials that allowed us full access to center court, and to the television and still camera positions. In exchange, Gordon got to satisfy his curiosity about what our camera might do. His producers and editors found that they liked our unique superslow footage, and used small portions in some of their highlight packages. USA even did a feature story on our team and what we hoped to achieve at the Open.

In the swirling confusion that is often normal "behind the scenes" in television broadcasting, Gordon was an island of calm. Sitting behind his corner desk in the new USA studio beneath center court, we watched him address one problem after another, usually wearing a wry smile beneath his drooping, gunslinger mustache. Gordon even had time to view some of our field footage and pose questions for our research team.

Special thanks also go out to key USA team members who welcomed us, gave us precious work space in the USA production trailers, patiently answered the questions of obvious newcomers to their world, and tried to make sense of our strange camera with it's ultra-slow motion footage: Greg Picker, Senior Producer, Rick Clifford, Associate Producer, Denise Rebeiro, Production Manager, Russ Friedman, Director, Production Administration, Steve Dinkes, Unit Manager.

2. USTA Television:

The USTA Sports Science Group had worked with us as a partner, starting from the proposal stage, gave it support to the Open filming, and agreed to participate in the analysis. At the U.S. Open, we needed the help of another key USTA group. At the Open, the team was guided at every step of the way by Herb Swan, USTA Director of Television. Like his friend Gordon Beck, Herb showed an unlimited ability to juggle complex problems, questions, faxes, and phone calls. More than once Project Manager John Yandell called Herb on one of his several cell phones, only to reach him working at the top of the new Arthur Ashe Stadium, while jet planes from nearby LaGuardia Airport thundered overhead.

With Herb the team worked out the possible camera positions on the stadium court that would allow us to achieve our filming and research objectives, showed us how to get there, and also when and how to set up. Herb taught the team how to negotiate the labyrinth of tunnels and entrances in the inner loop of the stadium, frequented by the world's tennis media, the players, the coaches, husbands, wives, girlfriends, other family members and officials, and how to act like we belonged there. He also introduced the team to top USTA officials including Director of Marketing Pierce O'Neil, Tournament Director Jay Snyder, and USTA Executive Director Rick Ferman, giving our project positive exposure at the highest levels of the USTA.