The 2021 tennis season is kicking off, and the US Open isn’t very far away. The big news, fans are back in the stands.
It all started with gathering over 40 player interviews with our teammate Blair Henley at the Western & Southern Open, which took place August 14th-22nd. It was back on its home courts in Cincinnati after moving to New York last year due to COVID.
From there, players move on to the US Open 2021 Tennis Championships, where 100 percent capacity is allowed in what’s being called the “greatest return” to the sport. The US Open will take place August 30 – September 12.
The return of the fans is a huge, and welcome, change to this year’s event. Players missed them greatly last year, having to play to empty stands for health and safety reasons. Their only connection with fans was through social media, and special virtual moments played up on the big screens. It wasn’t the same.
We missed the fans last year too. Seeing them inch forward in their seats when a match was close; hearing them cheer for their favorites – it adds so much to the moment. It shows viewers at home what the heart of the game really is.
This year, the roster is stacked with top players like:
However, everyone is already talking about Novak Djokovic, who’s attempting the challenging feat of winning four Grand Slams in a single calendar year. He’s already won three, and played hard in the Tokyo Olympics , so the US Open will be a big game changer for him potentially. This personal interest story is one everyone is excited to watch, and the team at Greyline is looking forward to putting our production skills to work to tell it right.
You could say COVID has changed the way we’re capable of capturing sporting events, but all it really did was speed change up. Things last year were also very different from a production standpoint because on-site crew was limited. Greyline adapted, making change and harnessing innovation to make remote work possible.
Today, even though we always want as much of the crew on-site as possible, we know what we’re capable of from anywhere. Greyline is embracing the future, where we can use remote capabilities to our advantage, accommodating the needs of any sporting event without sacrificing quality.
It’s reassuring to know we’re prepared for anything that comes our way thanks to what we learned during our COVID year at the US Open.
The game may have changed a year ago for tennis and for sports production, but we’re so happy to welcome so many people back this year. We’re happy to get to see the fans in the stands and all the players out on the court. Personally, I’m also thrilled to have more of the Greyline team with me in the trenches.
I’m also excited to be implementing many of our best practices from our COVID year to maintain the superior quality of our work. Now, if an editor or producer can’t be on location, we know we can still work with them thanks to our remote editing capabilities. We know that even with remote crew members, we can work quickly and efficiently without sacrificing quality.
Through continued innovation, Greyline is able to create engaging, stylistic, and powerful content no matter the conditions. If you’d like to know more about the work we do, please check out our reel, then contact us for more details.