We had the chance to talk to Fighting Films' Managing Director Danny Hicks about not only what we can see in the highly anticipated 2007 Rio de Janeiro World Championships, but we took the liberty to ask him a few questions about how these professionally produced, exciting titles are actually made.

Q: Danny, when we saw you in Rio, it was the day before the World's began and you were excited to be there for two weeks. Many fans of Fighting Films would be very interested in knowing what goes into producing your amazing titles. Can you share with us briefly how long is the preparation to attend, make the contacts, and eventually set up to shoot a 4-day world championships? Did you have any unique or particular challenges due to the location of Rio?

DH: Fighting Films were approved as the IJF (International Judo Federation) Videographers as far back as 1989 when we shot the 1989 World Championships. Ever since then we have been responsible for producing the official IJF record of the World Championships and Olympic Games. This means that when we attend the Worlds we have priority position – after the host broadcasters – of where we set up our cameras in the venue.

Prior to a Worlds I will spend 3-4 weeks putting together a budget, pulling the crew together, booking hotels, flights, equiptment, etc. In Rio we arrived several days before the competition began. We had to catch up with contacts, sort out our accreditation, and most importantly attend the venue. In the stadium we test our equiptment and mark up our camera positions. The day before the first day of judo, the team get together and I run through with everyone which fighters are important to follow in the preliminaries and who will be filming the different mats.

Q: Who was there with you and what were the roles of each of your crew?

DH: In Rio we had a crew of four. Four is a good number, and I felt three would have been a bit understaffed. In Cairo, two years before, we had five mats to shoot in the preliminaries with two cameras. So we did miss some good early round action. I wanted to make sure this didn't happen in Rio. This time we took three cameras, and had four mats to cover.

Adam Bell, Fighting Films editor and cameraman, filmed on mat 1. Oliver Roberts, our website designer, took mat 4. And I placed myself between 2 and 3, deciding by fight which one I would film. When it came to the final block all three cameras were in positions that were able to adjust from two bronze medal contests to one final contest. At times in the medal contest I would direct Adam and Oli live over our radio system to ensure we always had different shots. For example at the moment of an Ippon I wanted one camera recording the winner's reaction, a second camera on the loser, and the third on the coaches or crowd. Eric Bonti, the fourth member of the team is a former British international and has worked for Fighting Films several times before. He was responsible for the logging of all three cameras. Eric's position was behind us on a raised table where he had a good view of all four mats. The whole team were in radio contact with Eric, and we had a good logging system in place. Every time there was an important score or moment Eric would write it down, along with who the fighters were, what mat it was on, and on which roll of tape. We had agreed on a coded system the day before, which would minimise our time on the radio and give Eric as much information as possible. This logging proved invaluable when we returned to Bristol and began the edit.

Q: Approximately how many hours of film do you shoot to produce a 2 DVD set of a tournament such as the world series?

DH: We returned with nearly 150 used tapes. Each tape is 40 minutes long. So that's 100 hours of judo. We also returned with the host broadcast footage, which was the live feed that went out on the international TV channels. This was another 15 hours of film. So from 115 hours of judo film we have edited the action down to the best four hours (two hours per DVD).

Q: Who are the editing geniuses that put it all together and can you go over briefly the editing process and the steps taken once you get back to your offices in Bristol, to complete the titles? This will be especially interesting to fans. Many think your titles should take a mere 2 weeks to produce. Yes, I've heard that and so now's a great time to explain the process!

DH: There are two of us that work full time on production – Adam Bell and myself. We do the lot, from the pre-production (the work before the tournament), to production (filming of the tournament), and post production (storyboards, editing, graphics, captions, script, direction of narrators and commentators, writing & designing DVD covers, building and converting the DVDs, etc).

Adam and I split most the jobs, as there is so much to do. Firstly, we have to organise log sheets and decide on the storyboards, i.e. – who we will follow and what the story is in each weight category. From there we will use the logging to list all the moments that need to be taken from the tapes. This is when the intensive editing phase begins, which can sometimes last nearly two months. We have to input hour upon hour of judo into 'Avid', which is our editing system. From there we will start patching sequences together. Eventually we will have a rough running time, and will then look to cut that time down to a reasonable length. With the DVDs from Rio our target was two hours per DVD. After our first edit we realised we were about 20 minutes over on each DVD.

After editing has been completed, we work on opening and closing sequences, decided where music is going to be, medal tables, graphics, effects, captions, etc. There may be as many as 200 separate captions per DVD, and each one has to be spot on.

Then comes the script and the programmes we have to prepare for our voice-over artists. When someone like Neil Adams comes to do a commentary he needs to have lots of information at his fingertips. As each fight starts he needs to know who the fighters are, where they are from, what they have won, whether the two have fought each other before, how long the clip is and how many replays there are. We have had situations before where he has thought someone has won the European Championships four times, and I think five times. These moments only slow down the commentary and affect any type of momentum. So all the research has to be done before, and Neil has to have it there in front of him.

The closing stages of post production involve Adam mixing the sound, finishing colour correction and building and converting the DVDs. As for myself, I have to preview the final versions of the DVDs aswell as writing and designing the DVD covers. The final versions, along with artwork, are then sent to our manufacturers for DVD duplication. This takes two weeks for us to receive the final product back.

As you can see – these are the many reasons why it has taken us eight months to produce the DVDs of the 2007 World Championships.

Q: Your father, Simon Hicks, was the pioneer and talent behind Fighting Films, and we have so much to be thankful to him. I know that you and he worked very closely together during the past few years and again we have him to thank for insuring that the fans of Fighting Films would be able to receive and enjoy Judo on film for years to come. And of course we have you thank for really carrying on the torch and for luckily inheriting the talent to produce exciting, interesting, fun, and spectacular films. We've had so many enquiries for these titles and we can't wait for their arrival!!!

DH: Thank you. Yes, we really do believe these are the best Fighting Films DVDs yet. For a start they are the first World Championships to be filmed and produced in widescreen. By having three cameras on four mats we have not missed a thing. These DVDs are truly action-packed. We recorded hundreds and hundreds of Ippons over the course of the tournament, and have only included the absolute best. The Worlds had absolutely everything – drama, heartbreak, upsets and an incredible clash in styles between the South Americans, Eastern Europeans and Asians. Viewers will have one last chance to see Kosei Inoue - one of the true greats of modern judo - compete in his last international competition. Then there is the incredible Ryoko Tani, who is aiming to break the judo world record and take her seventh world title. Other big names include the triple World and Olympic Champion Sun Hui Kye, the legendary heavyweight Russians – Tamerlan Tmenov and Alexander Mikhaylin, and the Japanese superstars like Muneta, Tanimoto and Suzuki.

Extra features on the DVD include profiles of the big names and flashbacks. So, for example, before you see Tani fight in Rio, you can see the history and witness her winning all six World titles, from as far back as 1993. The same goes for Inoue, Kye, Suzuki, et al. There are fantastic judo sequences to music, including a remarkable slow-motion sequence at the end of each DVD. We have also changed the pace and style of DVD, so that we flick between live commentary, narration, script and music. It means that before you even know it you have rattled through two hours of heavyweight judo and are gagging to put in the lightweights DVD!

The 2007 World Judo Championships DVDs will be released in June 2008, priced £25 each.

Previous Articles:

Feb '05: Behind The Camera - When are the Olympics going to be ready?
May '05: Behind The Camera - IJF Coaching Series Part 1
Aug '05: Behind The Camera - IJF Coaching Series Part 2
Oct '05: Behind The Camera - 2005 World Judo Championships
Apr '06: Behind The Camera - The Fighting Films GB World Cup
Aug '06: Behind The Camera - 2006 European Championships
Dec '06: Behind The Camera - 2006 World Team Championships
Oct '07: Behind The Camera - 2007 Worlds and the FF GB Judo World Cup