The best of “ICC in Mexico”
My work in Mexico City for ICC and Chess Life Online was far more hectic than I expected. After the first few days I never left the press room before 3:00 or 4:00 AM and often later, starting again at around 1:00 PM, an hour before the next round. During the day, you try to follow the chess a little, but spend most of your time shooting or capturing video, keeping tabs on people and events, recording and editing audio, and figuring out what the “story” of the day will be. I was also reporting LIVE on Chess.FM at least once per round!
Each day I wanted to do something interesting and different, topical, yet in some way cinematic. I didn’t care much for ICC’s term “video diary,” but it certainly wasn’t straight news reporting. “Short films,” or the currently in vogue, “webisodes,” seems more apt.
The important thing was that, with few exceptions, each video was about the events of that day, which is the main reason for the long hours. My work only really started after the games had finished at 7:00 or 8:00 PM. By 10:00 or 11:00 I’d have all my clips captured and selected and could start editing.
A good rule of thumb for editing is that, if the project is not too complex, you need 1 hour per minute of finished video. That was about right in Mexico with a few exceptions. E.g.: The first 2 minutes of Day 3 – Anand Vs. Kramnik took forever, because I decided to try cutting on flashbulbs — something which is almost totally lost in the crappy Flash (the compression format of most web video) version. (Download the Quicktime to get closer to the original.) Probably a dumb idea in retrospect. Game After Game (below) required going through all of Gelfand’s press conferences to find the few relevant seconds.
That 1 hour per minute doesn’t include compression, uploading, and Flash transcoding, which tended to add an extra hour. So even when you’re “done,” you’re not.
All 18 pieces are available on Macauley.blip.tv and at ICC’s Chess.FM archive.
Here are my four favorites, which are also available on SCREEN:
Day 15 – Morozevich
Alexander Morozevich is a crowd favorite with his eccentric personality and wild style. (Running time: 3:38)
Day 14 – Game After Game
On the rest day, we take a look back at Boris Gelfand’s mantra. (Running time: 1:03)
Day 8 – Anand +3
“Vishy” Anand takes the lead in the World Chess Championship with a win over Alexander Grischuk, adding to his full points taken from Svidler and Aronian. (Running time: 1:30)
Day 18 – World Champion Anand
Anand is the new World Champion. Let the celebration begin. It may be short lived, however: Kramnik awaits their 2008 match to decide who is really on top. (Running time: 5:16)
