BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
For my money, the best sports piece on local television is John Popovich's Bengals report that airs each Sunday in Channel 9's Sports of All Sorts.
You get the highlights, the story, the sound and what the game meant in six to eight minutes.
Popovich is a good writer, reporter and storyteller, but in TV pictures rule, and 9 gets the pictures.
"The thing I've been blessed with is good photographers," Popovich said. "I had Mike Williams and Scott Simpson. Now I've got the Seans - Shawns."
Popovich is talking about Sean Dunster and Shawn Jones, Channel 9's two full-time sports videographers. No other station has two shooters who do exclusively sports. In fact, Channel 12 is the only other station with one full-time sports shooter.
Jones has been shooting sports since 1983; Dunster just reached his 10th anniversary at 9.
They are two of the best sports shooters in town, and they work every Bengals home game together. That guarantees NFL Films-quality video.
Sunday, Jones shot the high shot - he was in the booth at the 50-yard line next to the CBS camera - and Dunster shot from the sidelines. They shoot four or five 20-minute tapes each; 9 rarely uses anything from the CBS feed.
"We look for what the fans don't see," Jones said. "We're looking for those little extras."
Sunday, he had a lot of shots of banners being torn down, and fans booing.
Dunster concentrated on up-close stuff.
"I can get stuff you don't see on TV or in the stands," he said. "I can also get sound of the players talking to the coaches. You can see the faces real close."
Popovich spends the game in an open booth chronicling the play-by-play. The cameras are synchronized with Popovich's watch, so when he sees a play he'll want for the package, he jots down the time.
After the game, Jones and Popovich head to the locker room to do interviews.
Popovich is the first to get to cornerback Artrell Hawkins. Popovich has a knack for asking a tough question in a nice way. He gets Hawkins to say, yeah, he felt like he was being picked on. It's a sound bite that will fit well with pictures of Hawkins getting burned for a touchdown.
Dunster records Bruce Coslet's postgame remarks, then works the locker room for interviews.
Popovich goes through the tapes back at the station. He zips through them in a small editing bay, picking what he wants for the piece.
"That's probably the most time-consuming part of it," he said.
Popovich said Tim Melton, the former 9 sports guy, was the first in town to mix highlights with interviews.
"Everybody used to do highlights, then all the sound at the end," he said. "It makes more sense to put the sound with the play it's about."
Popovich records his words in the voice bay. He gives either Jones or Dunster the outline of the piece by 9:30 p.m. or so.
It's a race for them to get it ready by 11:30 air time. The rule in TV is an hour for each 1-minute package, so doing a 6-minute package in two hours is tough.
"John makes it so much easier," Jones said, "because he knows every shot he wants."
A 6- or 7-minute piece is a marathon in TV.
"It's huge," Jones said. "The average piece is 45 seconds. Only I-Team reports go six minutes."
Popovich has the luxury of time because SOAS is an hour show. But he doesn't shoot for a set time.
"Some games it's hard to get five minutes out of it," he said. "They seldom go over eight."
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John Fay covers TV - radio sports for The Enquirer. Call him at 768-8445.
