In January this year the Volvo Ocean Race posted an job advert on their website for applications to become Onboard Reporters (formerly Media Crew Members) for the 2014-15 edition of the race.
Despite billing the role as the ‘toughest media job in the world’, they have already received over a thousand applications from across the globe.
Sail Racing Magazine editor Justin Chisholm recently caught up with Rick Deppe – PUMA MCM in the 2008-09 race and now responsible for the media output from the boats – to check in on the selection process and find out what sort of people the Volvo Ocean Race was looking for to fill this challenging role.
SRM: What is different about the media output you are looking for from the boats this time compared to last time?
Rick Deppe: A lot of our output will look like it did last time – different actors in the frame, different colours, different uniforms – but all of the stuff that we are really good will still be the same.
I’m talking about the stuff the fans love – fast boats, close racing, grand adventure, the waves, the colours, the action. None of that is going to change because that is the bread and butter of what we do.
The hope is that it will get even better. We have put new camera systems on the boats, we have looked carefully at what worked last time, we’ve looked at where we can save money but get better results. Often, by simplifying the technology and making it easier to use, we can improve the output.
SRM: So what type of stuff does the Volvo Ocean Race want to see more of this time?
Rick Deppe: I think it is no secret that the public have spoken time and time again with this race and I think we know what they want. They want to know what actually goes on on these boats and what it is really like onboard.
What is that person like? What is the relationship like between that person and that person? What do those guys on that boat think of the guys over there on that other boat? What are those girls going through? And again, I’m not saying that MCMs in the past haven’t done that, we just want to do it better.
SRM: Are you going be using more cameras than last time?
Rick Deppe: We have the two spreader cameras as normal, plus the one on the back communications mast – they stay the same as they always work and so there is no reason to change.
The larger bubble around the hatchway means we couldn’t use the aft facing camera positioned on the mast below the boom this time – which incidentally I was never a big fan of anyway.
So now we have built an aft facing camera into the top of the coaming around the hatchway. This will be a great location for pitman interviews while they are working. We can also rotate this camera like we can with the spreader-cams so we can point it up at the helmsman, or down to leeward at someone trimming. The microphones will be under the coaming, protected from the wind noise.
We expect to use this setup a lot and I think this will be one of the biggest changes to the look and feel of the media output because it reduces the need to be on deck with a handheld camera where you are shaking and falling around as the boat moves. The footage from the new camera should be rock solid and really, really cool.
Another new camera position I am really excited about is at the front. This new camera is in a kind of steaming light assembly fitted about 500mm above the boom height on the front of the mast and built into a custom fairing. That will be looking forward and because we are so much lower down and closer to the deck, when the guys are working on the foredeck fighting with a sail or when the boat is screaming along, we will see the water rushing towards the camera.
The spreader cams were great for that but because they are so high, it kind of flattens the visual impact compared with being down lower. I think the footage from the new lower position will be really dramatic.
SRM: What sort of professional backgrounds do you see the new tranche of onboard reporters coming from?
Rick Deppe: One of the things we wanted to achieve by setting this worldwide search in motion was to find out about the people who might be suitable that we don’t already know about.
If we want to attract new and different people to become fans of the race then maybe we need a few different people to help us do that. Maybe there are people out there with a different point of view who can tell it differently who might be better for that new audience and enrich the whole experience more.
I think there is a place for talented film-makers, broadcasters, journalists, TV show makers – people from other fields that present challenges and are difficult to film in but involve similar people and similar stories to the ones we work with.
It could just as easily be a combat camera man as it could a snowboarding camera man. It could just as easily be someone from Deadliest Catch as it could be a young kid who has never left the city but is making these unbelievable skateboarding videos.
I’m not saying that they are the people we are going to hire but we wanted to spread our minds a bit and open ourselves up to these other opportunities and possibilities. Believe me, the field is totally open right now.
SRM: How will the people who are finally selected be allocated to the teams?
Rick Deppe: I think each situation will be different and maybe some teams will come with a very specific idea in their head of who they want. In that situation we will just roll them into the process and vet them and make sure they fit.
Some other teams will come to us and say ‘find us the best’. In that scenario we will look at the profile of the team and do some match-making.
It’s important that we make sure across the Volvo Ocean Race OBR team that they all have a good base line of technical abilities and skills. They may all have different styles but they should all fit the goals of their teams.
SRM: Just to clarify, the plan is to allocate an MCM to a team for the race and that will be it? No rotation between boats?
Rick Deppe: Yes, that’s the plan.
SRM: Are there any changes to the daily media output requirements on the onboard reporters for the next race? So many images, so many minutes of video and audio, a blog, etc?
Rick Deppe: They will have to send content every day including all of those elements. How much of each will depend on our relationship with Inmarsat.
One of the things we do want to do is a lot more live connections and the more of those you do means you have to balance the on board reporters’ other workloads accordingly.
So it will be more or less the same, but maybe slightly different ratios, perhaps. We haven’t crafted it down to that level properly yet, but for example, there maybe more emphasis on languages this next time around.
SRM: There was a rumour last time that there was some vetting by the skippers of the content coming off the boats. How autonomous will the onboard reporter be in terms of what they can send back?
Rick Deppe: When one of the teams is selling us a line or they re trying to cover up because they are hurting because they are coming last when they thought they were going to be winning – then we know that stuff is going to go on. We just have to get to it a little more in those scenarios.
I think what we want this time is really good guys who can come back at the end of it and say ‘I made the very best film about that boat, these people and their race around the world that I could’. I think that everybody who follows the race will know whether we get it right from that aspect.
A longer version of this interview will appear in the March 2013 iPad issue of Sail Racing Magazine. http://www.sailracingmagazine.com/
Volvo Ocean Race Advert;
http://watermennews.blogspot.com/2013/01/blog-post.html
Source; Sail Racing Magazine.
