Design Types sends the questions, and the answers… they typed it. Design Types talks with April Carty-Sipp of Comcast Sports Group. She talks about the new Comcast Sportsnet graphics package.
First off, will you please introduce yourself? I’m April Carty-Sipp, Senior Vice President of Creative Services for Comcast Sports Group, we manage 10 regional sports networks across the country.
What design company helped with your new look and why did you choose them? We used a combination of our in house graphics team and an external vendor for this project. The in house was mostly done by our creative staff in our Mid-Atlantic office, they created the insert package. This was then recreated in lyric for our Duet machines by Dave Burke of Keyport Keys who also animated the insert package. The animations were created by Big Studios in Toronto. We’ve used them for several projects in the past and with our tight timeline, I felt comfortable knowing they would do great work. For our game bug, we utilized TV Graphics in Freeport, Texas. Terry Jopplin and his team created four different bug designs for MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS in a very short time period and were great to work with on this project.
Why did you decide to stay with the Chyron Duet? Truck compatibility and staffing were key factors in this decision. We do a great deal of live events from trucks across the country, which are not as controlled an environment with both operators and the equipment specs. The Chyron Duet was the logical choice since most of the trucks are equipped with the machine and also all of our networks are familiar with Duet as we use it in most of our studio control rooms as well.
There’s a lot of 3D work in the animations? What software was used? This was a combination of a few programs. For 3D, Big Studios started off the package in 3D Studio Max. However, when expanding the package the team in our San Francisco office were able to create elements in Cinema 4D as we use both of these programs in our networks. In addition, there was a great deal of After Effects in the project as I’m sure you saw.
How long did this project take? Believe it or not, in April 2007 we reached out to all of our networks asking them to come up with five elements of what their ideal event package would look like (Title Card, Lower Third, Bug, etc). Five of the networks participated, we then went thru a small committee and this is where the Mid-Atlantic office was selected to do the insert package. By the time we started it was later in the year, initially we were doing the animations in house as well, but timing was getting tight and that’s where we brought big studios in around January 2008. Our goal was to be on the air March 31, 2008 with the package for our Comcast SportsNet Bay Area launch. We made the deadline, but then over the summer were able to tweak and expand all of the elements in time to get to all of the networks for October 2008 so they could premiere with NHL and NBA.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank in this project? Honestly, a great deal of people. I fear leaving someone out… but I’ll try!
Jon Litner, President of Comcast Sports Group, as he was instrumental in getting us resources for the project and understands the importance of packaging for the network.
Jon Slobotkin, VP of Live Events for Comcast Sports Group, he worked on the project from day one and was instrumental in many areas. I can’t imagine being able to get it done without him.
Earl Camburn, Avid Editor/Designer from Comcast Sports Group, he worked so many hours over time getting this project done and was key in distributing and creating ideas as well.
Jay Moore, Art Director from Comcast Sports Group. Jay is new to our team in July and has enhanced the package tremendously with the 3D elements.
Austin Krablin, Creative Director from Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. Austin and his team came up with the initial design for the insert packaging and did a great job putting out various versions of elements in a timeline basis. Steve McIntosh, Graphic Designer/Avid Editor from Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. Steve was the direct designer on this insert package and did an amazing job putting it together. Jeff Dougherty, Graphic Designer/Avid Editor from Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. Jeff created original 3D animations for the package and has been a great asset in the project. In addition, John Hoagland their lyric specialist was also involved and helped with the integration.
Tom Pellack, VP of Marketing; Ron Aguilar, Art Director and Tim Hansen, Sr. Graphic Designer, all from Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. They all came on board for the project in January 2008 and were instrumental in making the package work. In addition, they did a Cinema 4D version, created the sponsor elements and were the first to get it on the air and test the new look. In addition, David Koppett, Executive Producer for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and Joe Washington, Coordinating Producer for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
Dave Burke, Keyport Keys. Dave was the person that did all of the lyric integration, style guides, and all of the elements for the Duet. He still is the expert on the package and takes all calls. We are actually working with him again for a studio package and are hoping to redo the package in HD in the winter of 2009-10 and will be using him again.
The people above did the original packaging and a great deal of the initial work. Obviously, each of our regional sports networks that use the package have all added their own sponsors and helped out as well. In Chicago: Sarah Lauch, Kristina Quinn, Aaron Stoeckel, Don Karulski; in Philadelphia: Gena Krug, Dennis Spence, Ivan Cheitowskij, David DeMarco and Bill Green; in New England: Jason Levine, TJ Powers, you - Zack Millican; in Sacramento/Bay Area: Andrew Wise; and in Atlanta at CSS: Brian Outten. In addition, all of the executive producers and event producers in the markets gave great feedback and information.
I’m sure there is someone I’m missing, I’m hoping I didn’t. Basically, you can see it was a huge team effort and we have an amazing creative staff within our organization that I’m proud to say I work with every day.
Anything else you’d like to add? Just thanks for asking me to do this and it’s great you have a blog on this subject.
Bob Banks