ITC got screwed

[Michael Collier]

Sort of off topic, and I dont know how many of you follow the iditorod.

 

ITC is the iditorod trail commision, they run all the logistics of the race. Normally for media coverage they contract out the 'official station coverage' and let the station worry about how to cover the race (the station I shoot for up here did it for the last 13 years) And I can tell you from experience how difficult it is to fly into the smallest towns in alaska and shoot in sub-zero tempatures, along with the obvious problem of getting footage back to anchorage.

 

This year the guy we used to rent gear and hire people through went behind our backs and convince ITC to produce the show themselves. I think they spent around 200-300K to produce everything. Funny enough they neglected to find a station to air it. They came to us and asked how much we would pay to air their coverage. we said nothing. all the other stations said they absolutley would not cover it. In the end they couldnt find a proper station and ended up dumping it on public TV. obviously this makes it very difficult to recoup the costs, beacause they cant advertise. Every sponsor of the cerimonial start expected a huge alaskan audience and they got screwed on that. to top it off the production was a dismal falure. They had a remote control helicopter with a camera that never worked, even though they cut to its static and unsynced picture like 10 times. They missed the start of several prominent mushers to do interviews on the street with random people.

 

Now comes the actual race. They promised 6 stories from the trail a day on their premium website (they expected to recoup a large portion of costs by charging 20 bucks to see these videos.) in the end they got about 1 story a day out (and thats the work of 6 different ENG crews) add to that, somewhere down the line they had audio problems, you could barley hear the sound bytes. they had a disclaimer on the site appologizing for the audio

 

In the middle of all this, the producer of the show (guy who is prone to falure and mistake) the producer lands a 200K contract from OLN to use his footage in their production. before too long, it became apparen t that they screwed up the pre-race interviews, because OLN wants them reshot. I havent seen them, but the word was they were not 'up to broadcast standards'

 

Now I also have heard that some ENG guys I know have been mistreated by the production (which shooting from the trail is a very stressful, sleep depriving job, so the least that can be asked is an accommodating production staff.) Cameras were either PD-150s (which I have never seen an ENG crew shoot like my mother, until now) or dinosauric ENG betas. They droped a few hundred grand on fly-away satelitte gear, expecting every station to pony up cash for live shots and feeds from the trail. Not one station took advantage of this. We arranged to use it one day, but in a classic falure of communication, the people on the ground barred us from sending our live shot, killing the story a mere 10 minutes before we hit air (not a great way to make friends) they only used the satelite gear to send their footage back to be editted and put up on their website (which isnt live, and if you wanted to you can put your betas on a king air turbo prop plane.) when the race is going on there are at least 2-3 flights a day, bringing any dropped dogs back to anchorage, bringing food, hay and media types. Im sure transporting like that is much cheaper than 150K fly-away set-up, and $1500 a day for 15 straight days for sattelite time)

 

I know I shouldnt take pleasure in other falures, but I am amazed at how at every turn they could mess up and waste time and money. They didnt even have talent aranged for the live start until 3 days prior, leaving the talent less than enough time to go over things to say (it was all ad-lib because they cant be bothered to actually 'produce' a show)

 

What amazes me is that everyone who knows the guy who masterminded this arangement is known for his bone-headed mistakes. He makes them all the time. It just seems odd that in a town so small where everyone knows just about everbody whos active in production, its strange that people can forget so quickly how bad these people are. It has nothing to do with talent, Its a combination of lazyness and lack of understanding. I can only imagine what would happen if this guy ever goes into independant film making up here.

 

Has anyone ever worked or been a part of a production that bombed so badly?

 

 

By the way check cabelas web site for updates-but pretty soon Rachel Scidoris is set to finnish her race. Rachel is an awsome musher that we have done several stories on. She is the first legally blind person to race the iditorod. This is her second race, and last year she had to scratch. So finnishing is an awsome accomplishment. any producers out there that purchase rights to stories-keep an eye on her.