Closing and Marathon

As I write this I am trying to remember what happened. And it is only Tuesday. Those who know me well will be surprised to know that I did not check my email between Sunday morning and Tuesday Morning…

Sunday was cool. Before work I went over to Paramatta Westfields, where there were so many athletes it is not funny. So many. The atmosphere was great – There was a buzz in the air – something magical. I got to work at about 12:30 pm, and we did not have much to do until 1:30, so we just talked, and had a great time. 1:30 was the rehearsal, and it was not much of one… not like the Triathlon where we had triathletes running the course… This time the lead truck did not really leave the compound, which caused us problems later…

The rehearsal went well, as far as it went, but after the rehearsal we had problems. Our camera technician was thrown from the vehicle at the last minute for the official documentary film maker… Which caused us problems. Seems that the camera operator did not know how to speak english or operate the camera. For the first 30-45 minutes of the race we had a camera at a huge angle… My boss commented that the camera on the manly ferry was more stable. Production also decided to have the runners in the center of the bridge, [one on the east side] and didn’t provide the millions of cameras they promised… Basically we were it, and our cameras were breaking up… YUK.

That did not last too long… we were soon on our way to Anzac Parade… And Air Traffic Control would only allow 2 helos in, and at 4000 feet. Now, we normally use 6 helos, at 800-1300 feet, so much of the time we were relying on our fixed wing plane that could not do too well in 45 knot winds at 14,000 feet. A 747 took off under our helo.

During this time I was Quality Control on two motorcycles, which meant making arbitrary decisions on which downlink was providing the best feed, as well as doing general air traffic control activities… Lots of work… Once we got back to the city things settled down, and the pictures improved.

After this finished I got out the party food I got earlier and we enjoyed ourselves.

Once the race finished we worked out who was to stay and go. I stayed, but I took one of the woman, who had been sort of our producer much of the time, to the Bankstown Airport so that she could attend a party with her husband. Coming back I stopped for some soft drinks for our acting producer, and then my car refused to go into gear. YUK. Restarting the car fixed the problem.

When I got back we did a quick order for Pizza, which I collected during the opening.. That took 5 minutes… We needed the food. Soon after we went onto the roof to see the F 111 plane… It was cool waiting for that since the wind was so cold… I had a jumper on, and that was not enough… It was interesting trying to guess what was the plane as it was coming in. And it made a lot of noise!

I was also on the roof for the wireworks, but I was too far away to really get a good look. When I get a chance I will watch them on TV. Our helo was up there for aerial shots – but most of the time they were not actually used.

I loved the french farse when the people were chasing all over the stadium at the beginning. This was truly amazing… although the video in the tunnels was pre-recorded. Well done. Immediately after the fireworks I went home… What a night…

Also, just before the race, our helo saw a boat on fire near dee why. I saw this and got it punched up to the International Broadcast Centre, and also fired it up on the video recorder. Because of it being so far away, pictures were up and down, but they were basically good… It was interesting being there having to switch video for something that really mattered – and really was life and death. – he is fairly quiet and takes a lot of pride in his helo.