No Rehearsal, No Do-Over: Producing a Live Broadcast Day at Bonneville
This August JCB broke its own 2006 land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats, with Wing Commander Andy Green behind the wheel of the JCB Hydromax, a hydrogen-powered rocket car. Taproot Media was on the ground in Bonneville as markettiers US partner providing production and media relations for this ground-breaking event. We’re very happy to add another successful collaboration with markettiers to the roster of US-based projects.
The coverage so far has been amazing: Reuters, Associated Press, Forbes, Fox News, and top local stations across the country, with tens of millions of views and counting. So, lots of people saw the result.
The part of the job nobody sees is everything it took to be ready for a moment that had no fixed schedule, and constantly changing conditions.
Going in, there was a plan: what time the car would run, how many passes, when interviews would happen. Once we were on the salt, that plan was more of a starting point. Every call came down to what the engineers decided the car and the conditions could handle that morning. A run planned for 5:30am might not happen for hours. If wind speed past a certain point…everything stops, for safety, no debate. We got three clean days of weather. It easily could have gone the other way.
That meant staying ready to move at any moment, in close, constant contact with the team running things on the ground and leaning on local crew who already knew the terrain and how it behaves.
Then there was the media operation running underneath all of it: Ensuring our crew captured all the exciting visual elements of the event and delivering that footage to our editor who was poised to turn around an adrenaline-filled B-roll package on the fly. Coordinating live remote interviews for US and International broadcast outlets off the same shared Starlink connection while accommodating journalists onsite who were eager to speak with the ‘Fastest Man on Earth.’
Landing interviews with high profile outlets like these is the visible part of the job. Running a schedule that's a constantly moving target, and staying ready for it anyway, is what makes it possible.
Proud of what the whole team pulled off, on camera and off. The adrenaline of working in live events is second only to the adrenaline of being the fastest man on earth (I’m guessing).
