Adventure show - WOC 2015 promo

[andypat]

Lorna Eades and Paul McGreal filmed a WOC2015 promotional item for broadcast on the BBC2 Adventure Show a couple of weeks ago. It’s intended to be an introduction to the sport for the public. The presenters (Dougie Vipond and Deziree Wilson) ran a short course, and were carrying trackers.

Just heard this from Paul McGreal, WOC 2015 event director

We've just heard that the Adventure Show is going out on Sunday 13th July at 1800 as part of the Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill broadcast. Outside of Scotland the programme can be viewed via Sky Digital Channel 990, and the BBC i-Player.

[andy]

You can watch this here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... -episode-2
for the next week.

While I think this was one of the better videos showing orienteering, why did it have to get put between the cycling segments? Let's look at it from an outside perspective:

Cycling - Elite race, great shots of fast paced adrenaline flowing competition with commentary and interviews.

Orienteering - Two non-orienteers bumbling around a forest and getting stuck in a bog, interviewing organisers rather than (current) elites.

They didn't put the presenters on a bike and push them down the hill, they showed the pros? Can we not get the adventure show to a major race (the castles) at some point please. Balmoral will be lovely.

[graeme]

What do you actually want to see on TV?

After they said "this is a course suitable for a 14-year old" it would have been good to have an actual 14-year old running fast in the forest - INVOC have several. But if we're not covering actual races, we should have something that looks good on TV and fits the timing slot (~1 min per runner). The MTB had a 5-min downhill course on an open slope with a great mountain backdrop, and TV covered the first and last 30 sec.

Balmoral will be lovely.

Yes it will, and there will be a great narrative story to tell with a Scotland Team in the SHIs just after the independence vote. But it still won't have the sheer energy and simplicity of downhill MTB. The JOK chasing sprint or Forvie relay would make better TV and be simpler to explain "Its a race and the person in front is the leader".

[Kitch]

I had much the same feelings -
"could we not see how its really done ?"
if necessary in addition to Dougie and Desree - an elite whipping round in 5 minutes might have made a nice comparison - perhaps with Dougie saying "How is that even possible ?"

Is there any contact with Tripple Echo through 6-days, WOC organisation ?
They took me to Greenland for a week some years ago so perhaps that connection could be used to make contact and work on a presentation of orienteering that has more dynamism ?

[buzz]

Ditto.

I watched with my two young sons who were gripped by the Mountain Biking and singularly unimpressed by the orienteering. At the end of the orienteering section the presenter said 'and now back to the main event', he might as well have said 'and now back to a proper sport'.

To be fair to Paul its really difficult to get round the pre-conceptions of the presenters and production limitations. The verbal messages were spot on with talk of 5000 strong international competitions and something for everyone including elite, and they also showed the mechanics of orienteering really well including great use of GPS, but its the spirit and excitement that was missing.

As others have said all it needed was a nicer looking bit of forest and some lycra-clad youngsters showing the novice presenters how it should be done.

Ah well - it looks like we'll be going Mountain Biking at weekends from now on - that will suit Mrs Buzz at least!

[DaveR]

.

...

Is there any contact with Tripple Echo through 6-days, WOC organisation ?
....

DO you mean apart from the WOC2015 Event director and Lead TV coordinator who were both on camera?

http://www.woc2015.org/volunteers/event-team



...and yes, I'd have liked to see someone doing it fast too.

[andypat]

The Adventure show has been a good supporter of O recently so in my book they are allowed a kipper or two. I also thought it was a bit flat, aside from the inexplicable use of a grotty bit of forest, but I as buzz noted I think it did a good job of showing the mechanics of the sport. Probably the reason we were expecting more was that it was billed as a WOC promotional item and it probably didnt live up that that billing, atleast for existing orienteers

[graeme]

I hope TripleEcho will do one more pre-WOC promo, and I believe the Hubmann's video is the right sort of thing for introducing orienteering on TV.
Start by introducing the characters.
Show off the fantastic location
Set up the race, initially dynamic running head to head through terrain
Then introduce the concept of route choice - someone running flat and fast (say, Scotland's fastest 10km runner) vs someone climbing in terrain (e.g. the Jura fell race recordholder).
A finish, a winner, reiterate the great location.

It's all staged, but that's OK. All that jumping about wasn't super-technical MTBO either.

[Wendles]

The videos made by Puresive each day this week at the Swiss O Week are also great promotions for the sport!

http://www.swiss-o-week.ch/en/aktuell/clips.html