UFC Live Event – Rolling with the punches
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On the 5th of November 2011 the greatest warriors on Earth heard a calling, a calling to fight in the most deadly tournament in history - The Ultimate Fighting Championship... In Birmingham.
The Reels in Motion crew, no strangers to mixed martial arts – between us having watched the entire filmography of Jason Statham, were hired to form part of the production team managing the live television feed of this epic scrap.
For those not au fait with the art of muscled men beating the respect for life out of one another, The UFC is a fighting tournament which allows any form of combat; Be it boxing, wrestling or martial arts. It does have some rules though - no eye gouging, kicks to the groin or hair pulling (along with no ‘small joint manipulation’ which sounds nasty).
With huge global viewing figures, The UFC is now the world’s fastest growing sport. The coverage of the UFC is handled by the American company Concom, one of the leading U.S sports coverage producers, Reels were hired to fill out some extra crew roles.
Entering ‘The Octagon’ was the effervescent Harri Bailey and little old me. We were to be ‘Bug Operator’ and ‘International Timing A.D*’ respectively. Both of us have had experience on smaller live events in the past, but nothing on this scale – with a live television feed going out around the world and very large, very deadly, Russian men trying to hurt each other in close proximity.
Our roles meant we were working in the main ‘gallery’ alongside the producer, director and the president of The UFC – Mr Dana White - which was ever so slightly frightening.
The gallery looked like NASA’s Mission Control or Jack Bauer’s CTU, but with more screens and computers. My comment that you could probably run a war from in there didn’t get the best response however.
As ‘Bug Operator’ Harri wasn’t in control of some sort of robotic insect but in charge of the countdown clock and info graphics for each round of the fight, cutting it in once the fight began and taking it out as the timer ran down. This meant keeping abreast of what was actually happening in the fight in case a round suddenly ended (not easy when you’ve never watched a bout before).
My job was to make sure the live feed didn’t run over time, as we had to be off the air by 22:58.30 or the networks would cut our feed (and presumably various angry UFC fighters would come and ‘deck us’). To prevent this from happening, I had to keep an accurate check of how long each particular segment of the show was taking, input that data into Excel and then keep the producer and various other producers in Japan, Australia and the U.S informed of how much we were running over or under time. Or as the rest of the crew called it – ‘fat or thin’. If the show didn’t run on time it would be All. My. Fault.
When I was first talked through my duties, a well meaning crewmember clapped me on the shoulder and said “Good luck dude, you’ll need it” – it was at this point I began to get nervous.
The environment was incredibly high pressure - like being inside of a kettle, with so much testosterone in the air it made your eyes sting. This wasn’t helped by the fact that everyone else in the room was American and sounded a lot cooler than us. The director clicked his fingers to denote cuts and people swore with all the colours of the rainbow. This caught on quick as I accidently yelped an expletive down the line to the producer in Japan, after I saw a particularly ferocious punch on the monitors (Who’d have thought it? The UFC is really, really, violent).
In a strange way, everyone inside the gallery would find themselves egging on certain fighters and cheering when things went our way. We’d find ourselves loudly willing on a fighter who was on the ropes because if he didn’t hold on, the fight would end too fast and we’d be under time (thin). On the other hand we also found ourselves cursing one particular fighter after he landed a particularly meaningful blow to his opponent’s groin - not because it was an illegal and, in my opinion, evil move – but because the delay would mean the round was going to last too long and we’d be over time (fatter than Jabba).
Despite the fact that my job was the very definition of clock watching, the 5 hours we were in the room flew by. The work was so fast paced that there was barely time to draw breath (apart from the odd deep, calming one I kept having to take).
In the end, although we felt the way many of the fighters’ faces looked, we managed to reach the end of the night and it turns out it was a big success. We had, according to the producer, performed ‘awesomely’ - meaning that we emerged from The Octagon victorious.
Just goes to show that be it a small live event or an international tournament the likes of which the world has never seen, the Reels team can always roll with the punches.**
*Still not entirely clear on what the A.D stands for, could be Assistant (to the) Director but I believe it stands for Ace Dude.
**Yes that was cheesy, but I don’t care. I like cheese, it’s good for your bones and can really liven up toast.