FLUSHING, NY — The sound of every ball bounce, service grunt and on-court comment from the players at the 2009 U.S. Open was delivered to viewers’ ears via Sennheiser MKH shotgun microphones. Over 700,000 fans annually attend the U.S. Open, which is also broadcast on local and regional networks in 150 countries worldwide. Court effects mixer Jay Willis, the man responsible for feeding the on-court microphone mix to the broadcast production mixer, said, “What we’re trying to do is put your ear on the ball. Television has made such logarithmic steps forward with picture quality that we’re really trying to focus the mics as best we can to bring the listener not just into the stadium but to put them on the ball.”
It’s not difficult to spot some of those Sennheiser mics during a match broadcast. Looking from the main camera perspective at one end of the court, located inside the Flushing Meadows Corona Park near LaGuardia Airport, Willis said, “In each quadrant of the court behind where they serve there are 416s, behind the service line, evenly spaced. Those are generally kept in a stereo array, with a near and a far.” Seated below and behind the right shoulder of the umpire is an operator constantly following the ball with an MKH 816 long shotgun mic, he added.
On the far court, in the upper left hand corner of the television picture, there is an operator with a handheld camera on which is mounted an MKH 816. Diagonally opposite, on the near court and in the right hand corner, is another. “In addition,” noted Willis, “at the umpire’s chair position at center court, to the left, there are two stationary MKH 70s pointed straight across on either side of the net. Opposite the umpire’s chair on the opposite side of the court are two cameras that have MKH 70s on them.”
The MKH 816 operator and the MKH 416 short shotgun mics set back behind the baseline provide the basis of the court sound. “I always try to keep a stereo spread on things,” he said. “The thing that makes it tricky is that you can’t open all the mics at once. You have to constantly choose, following the ball, which set is going to be open, so usually there are more than a couple open. Basically I’m trying to work out which pair or single mic is working best at that moment.”
Four MKH 416 shotguns positioned in and around the announce booth, where the main cameras are positioned, supplemented by a number of studio mics, capture the sound of the upper and lower tiers of the crowd. “The mics for the upper crowd,” Willis says, “are in the booth, spaced apart, pointing across the crowd. Immediately below the announce booth,” he continues, “there’s a game camera, then a slightly lower camera that shoots tight, and the lower crowd mics are to the left of that camera on stanchions about ten feet high.”
Willis revealed that the mics mounted on the handheld baseline cameras were changed from MKH 70 to MKH 816 shotguns for this year’s U.S. Open. “The old standard 816 is a great mic for reaching all the way across the court. It just seems that it has a tremendous amount of grab,” he said. “As a result, I’m getting a lot more of the preparatory ball bounce and service sound and speech.”
The trick with those MKH 816 mics, he said, is to mult them into several input channels of the mixing console. “While they’re bouncing the ball and going up for their serve, that’s one gain stage, but if you want to open that same mic while the crowd is roaring, that’s the same mic on a different fader with a different gain stage.”
Noting that his submix feeds not only the production mix for the U.S. networks — CBS, ESPN and the Tennis Channel — but also goes out simultaneously to 150 countries, he said, “It’s probably the largest mix that I get to do, because so many countries are being serviced by the same mix.”
The U.S. Open, which comprises five major championships (men’s and women’s singles; men’s and women’s doubles; mixed doubles), originated in 1881 as a high-society entertainment featuring only men’s singles matches. Now, more than 600 men and women compete for over $20 million in prize money at the annual tournament, which has been played on the hard courts at Flushing Meadow since 1978.
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