The shot from center field over the pitcher’s shoulder at the hitter is still the television mainstay. Heck, it’s baseball comfort food, so MLB broadcasts still feel largely the same as they have for decades. But beyond that main course, the sheer number of available shots major broadcasters use to tell the story around it, the narrative options, have taken off in recent years, and are on display in this World Series.
Advertisement Fox Sports is deploying more than 40 cameras during the Yankees-Dodgers World Series, vice president of field operations and engineering Brad Cheney said. Umpires wear cameras on their mask or chest. Miniature lenses are hidden on parts of the infield, and shallow-depth-of-field cameras create a cinematic look, focusing on the foreground with the background blurred.
Drones, at least some requiring Federal Aviation Administration coordination, are used both inside and outside the stadium, and temporary flight restrictions sometimes ground them during the game. Then there’s the handheld rigs, or the one suspended on a wire, and many more. “It’s grown from the upper 20s to to the low 40s in the last couple years,” Cheney said.
“As you look back at how technology has just changed, we had a lot less high frame-rate cameras, super-motion cameras. And a lot of them that we had were very specialized.” Today, most all of the cameras can be cut to in real time, rather than being best used after a play has happened.
“We’re in a spot right .
