Starting with the previous night...
- The Peacock somehow ran out of events, so the last half hour of prime time was a taped bit from the pair of Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, followed by a Costas interview with Katie Ledecky.
- Another Ledecky interview kicked off the morning coverage at the MTV Beach House. One of the basic concepts in camerawork is called “headroom”—giving the subject a little bit of room above their head onscreen. The Peacock cameraman needs to remember that—you know she’s tall, so you should actually compensate for that!
- Another technical flub immediately followed—they took what was clearly a different audio feed than the rowing onscreen. Did the Peacock crew go out for drinks last night?
- The Track and Field events are on—I noticed the sprinters, both men and women, are wearing lots of jewelry. Good luck charms? Wouldn’t they get in your way, or slightly slow you down?
- The commentators kept referring to Usain Bolt as “the great one”. All I could think of was Jackie Geason in the 100m dash.
- I’m seeing a number of mini-up-close-and-personals for the Track and Field stars, about 30 seconds long, all of which end with a Ken Burns-esque title graphic. Very artsy, Peacock!
More to come...