Earlier this week, NBC trotted out a new camera angle in its coverage of a preseason game between the Steelers and the Titans. NBC called it “skycam”. Fans called it no good.
It wasn’t the first time fans had ever seen NBC use the camera angle. Sunday Night Football has utilized the cameras above the field for replays in the past. This was the first game that utilized the angle so often during game play.
Despite the negative reviews, Sunday Night Football executive producer Fred Gaudelli said that the camera angle may still be used by NBC during the regular season.
“I’m glad we did it,” he said on a recent conference call. “We learned a lot. There are things that I would do differently than we did on Sunday night, which is the whole purpose of doing a test during a preseason game.”
Gaudelli doesn’t call last Sunday’s broadcast a failure. He told the reporters on the call that he is considering using the camera angle for parts of the opening night game between the Bears and Packers. Still, he noted that some of the criticism was justified, and he doesn’t plan to shoot a full game with skycam during the 2019 season.
“But I’m glad we did the test because we did get a lot of good information and were able to assess where the holes are right now,” Gaudelli said. “We think we can plug some of those holes. I think it’s TBD, but the plan right now is try to do a series or two again.”
