Istanbul, Turkey Men's Saber World Cup Matches

[10000Fencers]

I'm just starting to upload some of the matches I taped in Istanbul. I have the entire top-4. I'll be uploading more tomorrow. -Tim

http://timmorehouse.wordpress.com/20...-matches-2009/

[erooMynohtnA]

Congralutions on 7th and thanks for the video.

[Sean Butler]

What Anthony said! Great video, I especially love the fact that it was narrated.

[10000Fencers]

Thanks! Glad you liked them! I'll have some more up soon. -Tim

[Sean Butler]

Hi Tim,

Is that your voice? Whoever it is has a decent voice for play-by-play. With another person doing "color" commentary and some more high-speed cameras, this could be very enjoyable for spectators of limited fencing knowledge.

Half the problem with watching video of fencing is that you can rarely hear or understand (because of language and voice quality) the calls being made. The Beijing Olympics, with all of the great camera work, perfect lighting, fast cameras, good angles, etc., the actual intelligibility of the calls was sub-par. If they could have spent even a small portion of the money on some live commentary and play-by-play voice talent, it could have been SO good. The stuff which made it to TV, like the Individual WS was okay, but the rest of the time it wasn't as good.

[Coldfire]

Tim is speaking in the first video, James Williams in the second.

[10000Fencers]

I just posted a few more videos on my site. www.timmorehouse.wordpress.com

Thanks for your thoughts on the "commentary" of the current videos. I'll probably play around with what we say in future videos that I do. I at least wanted to have the referees call since most times you can't see the referee in the video.

I've been thinking a lot about how the commentary and fencing can be presented effectively and the speaking engagements I've done have been a great testing ground and learning experience on that front.

In saber at least, I think there shouldn't be any talking during the action at full speed. After a light goes on, I think someone should say what the referee called and then there should be a slow motion repeat where the play-by-play and commentary can take place explaining what the referee called and saw and why and also pointing out the beauty in what's happening and the decisions of each fencer during the action.

For people new to the sport, I think it's almost better to have 2 slow motion replays since there are so many amazing, interesting (and funny!) things that can be happening during a touch from the footwork to the bladework or choices in strategy and it's important to keep a non-fencer viewer focused on one thing so they don't get overwhelmed.

I'm hoping to make a really strong explaination of fencing video in the future based on what I've seen is effective in the presentations we are doing and also will probably try out what I've just described above and then see if non-fencing viewers enjoy watching it and understand. (Won't happen for a few months!)

Fencing needs to get on television and be an interesting product (which it is if packaged correctly) for the sport to really grow and expand.

Thanks for your thoughts and enjoy the videos! -Tim

[Sean Butler]

More than anything, I think fencing needs a real personality to represent it. The person has to be someone whom fencers respect and non-fencers enjoy listening to. With that combination, I think it would be much easier to package fencing as a commercial product. Take John McEnroe for example, he's interesting to listen to, and tennis players acknowledge him as an expert. We need a McEnroe of fencing.