The NAB Show has announced the participants in a Content Theater session titled "ESPN: Scoring a Field Goal in S3D Sports." The panelists will be Anthony Bailey, vice president emerging technologies, ESPN; Phil Orlins, coordinating producer, ESPN X Games; Vince Pace, CEO and cinematographer, PACE; and Bob Toms, vice president, production enhancements and interactive TV, ESPN.
This special Content Theater session will tackle the creative and technical lessons that ESPN has learned producing sports in stereoscopic 3D (S3D). It will examine how S3D impacts broadcast direction, workflows, graphics, camera placement and other key components of sports capture and exhibition. "The worldwide leader in sports" will unveil dynamic, never-before-seen S3D sports footage and address the network's vision for making a dedicated S3D channel a reality.
ESPN shot to the front of the sports S3D pack last fall with its successful telecast of the Ohio State-USC football game on September 12, 2009. Beginning June 11 of this year, the network will launch North America's first all S3D sports television network, ESPN 3D, with the broadcast of the 2010 FIFA World Cup match.
"ESPN is already at the leading edge of content delivery, and with this new network ESPN will literally give fans the chance to see their favorite sports in a new dimension," said Chris Brown, executive vice president, Conventions and Business Operations for the NAB Show. "We are thrilled to be presenting such timely and exciting content at the 2010 NAB Show."
Anthony Bailey is ESPN's vice president of emerging technology. His team developed many of ESPN's on-air advancements over the past 30 years, including the Virtual Pitch Analysis, the Huck-O-Meter and the Emmy-winning EA Virtual Playbook.
Phil Orlins is coordinating producer, X Games, and has been responsible for many of the highest rated X Games telecasts in the event's history. He has been honored with a New York Film Festival Gold Medal for Best Sports Special and an Emmy nomination. Orlins produced "X Games 3D: The Movie," which was distributed to 1,400 theaters nationwide last year.
Vince Pace is chief executive officer of PACE, as well as an Emmy nominated director of photography and an innovative technology developer. He was the co-developer, along with James Cameron, of the world's most advanced stereoscopic acquisition system: the Pace/Cameron Fusion System. He has worked on projects including "Avatar," "U2 3D" and Disney's "Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert," to name only a few, and continues to lead the revolution of taking the world of 3D out of mathematics and into creativity.
Bob Toms serves as vice president of production enhancements and interactive TV for ESPN and oversees creative services, production enhancements and ESPN's interactive television efforts. Toms' work at ABC has earned him more than 20 Emmy nominations and 14 Emmy Awards. He has also won two Promax Gold Medals for promotion excellence.
Content Theater Sessions are dedicated to showcasing cutting-edge content and first-looks, and have been a popular feature of the NAB Show for the past two years. The sessions are designed to demonstrate how the tools and technology on the NAB Show floor are used to create today's most dynamic content. This year's line-up also includes “'Alice in Wonderland:' Turning Fantasy into Motion Picture Reality," which will explore both the production and post production processes, and will describe the challenges of creating characters of unique heights and proportions in a synthetic environment. Additional Content Theater sessions will be announced in the coming weeks.
For more information about the NAB Show, visit www.nabshow.com.
