Something our wrestling fans might not know about me is that I’m not just a photographer. At SLAM! Wrestling Finland, I tend to wear many hats. One particular case in point was our MetalliSLAM! event in June 2024, in Helsinki.
I won’t touch upon the usual things, but with this one, I’ll focus on something called multitasking. I know it might be neurologically impossible to focus on multiple tasks simultaneously, but call it what you will.
We streamed the show live on TrillerTV (formerly FITE), but this time we didn’t have our regular producer/director present. Instead, we had another guy substituting, and this added some extra responsibility to my plate.
Prior to the show, we had prepared a full script for the broadcast. I wrote another version of it just for our video guys, a much shorter one, with some points about what to look out for at a given time.
I prepared the necessary banners and lower-thirds for the broadcast beforehand, so they could just be placed on top of the picture when needed. I had also compiled a playlist of entrance songs and exit songs on my laptop. Thank goodness, our live commentator Sly Sebastian, agreed to play the songs. That was a huge load off my back.
We were an hour late to begin building our setup because of a delay at the venue. This was out of our control, so it was time to get busy.
I made sure all the necessary parties had their version of the running order/script. While trying to help our broadcast crew, I started building the lighting at the venue. They had no in-house lighting, so I set up some lights so the ring looked good for our attending audience and the video stream.
Up until five minutes before broadcast, I was still running outside to my car to get a cable adapter for the backstage interview camera.
The show finally started, and we were live. I had memorized the running order and the segments. I was giving hand cues to our ring announcer, cues for entrance songs, cues to our backstage camera guy (to whom I had visual contact behind the curtain), while trying to make sure our substitute streaming producer was following the script.
Not to be Captain Obvious, but I was photographing the matches, too.
Luckily, for me, shooting the matches doesn’t really require any thinking. I’m there, and the photography just happens. It’s instinctive, which allows some mental resources to be freed up for other things.
It was a fine show, although I recall Heidi Katrina accidentally slipping on some water on the floor, outside the ring. I had sent our runner over there with a towel, but in the midst of everything going on, I forgot to go and make sure the floor was properly dry.
And our visiting producer, Lauri, was absolutely brilliant, despite the perhaps ungrateful position he was put in, and not really having proper time to set up.
All in a day’s work, good vibes, and a great crew. Goes without saying that these types of projects are always a group effort. A very special shoutout to Ville, Jarmo, Sly, Eliel, Lauri, Jari, Liana, and Janne. Everybody stepped up their game that night.
Cheers!
