Broadcasters' obsession with Sir Alex Ferguson's face

noodlehair

What's the deal with this?

Every United game I watch on TV, at least five or six times, and at seemingly random points, they'll cut to a close up of SAF's face while the ball is in play, and then focus on him for about 5-10 seconds, before cutting back to the game.

I mean, I know it's Sir Alex, and he's amazing, but his face, isn't really THAT amazing, is it? It looks pretty much the same as it did before the game started, if we're being honest.

It's not like his face is a picture of human emotion either. He only has three facial expressions; not angry, angry, and fucking angry, and the only time it isn't the second one is when we either nearly score, when the ref fails to award us a penalty, or when Ferguson decides it's time for the ref to end the game.

Why can't they just stop doing this? It kept happening tonight when we were counter attacking. There was also one point where I thought coverage of the game had been cancelled in order to spend the rest of the night slowly zooming in on the head of some weird looking Unied fan. Weaste probably works for Sky.

olesmyhero

I find that they have started to cut away from the pitch much more this season. Even to the point of missing a few seconds of football just so they can focus on someone in the stands/on the bench. It's very annoying. I want to watch the game, not some bloke in the stands.

Twigginater

What the fuck was up with the thing today when they focussed on some man in the crowd for like 15 seconds?

olesmyhero

The guy in the white United jacket? No idea. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about though.

Red Norse

Your list is missing the chewing gum expression.

Barbara Charles

The coverage is getting to be more like the baseball coverage in the USA. A hundred times in any random baseball game, the camera picks up on a good looking woman and holds it for a disturbingly length of time. And if they cannot find a babe, they focus on some parent holding a baby. Meanwhile, I'm missing balls and strikes.

B Cantona

They've started zooming right in one their eyes now. Sometimes you see a little too much 'up nose' for my liking

Tonight you had that pissed United supporter who was the focus of the camera for a good 15 seconds or so before they got bored with him looking pissed and decided to go back to the game

noodlehair

That comes under "angry"

Though to be fair I'm not sure if it's chewing gum or just that wasps keep flying into his mouth, which would be somewhat anger inducing

Red Norse

I'm sure I've seen him grin and chewing at the same time. Those Recaro seats must be hard to remove with all that chewing going on. Unless he swallows though. Not a perticular fan of that myself mind you.

narnar

The camera work overall was shit. Many times during the game the ball would appear from nowhere as the camera would focus on players who weren't in possesion.

noodlehair

Perhaps more coverage of Sir Alex Ferguson's face is required in order to answer your concerns?

anything about now

Shit stirring. I love it when they pan to SAF's face to see his reaction when Nani or Rooney show disappointment when being subbed off.

GDH

It seems to be a growing trend in football coverage to try and be more creative with camera angles, cuts etc.. Was it during our pre-season games that they had that "floating" camera above the box on corners? For replays it's great, but you can't see what the hell is happening live.

Fuck off, I just want to watch the football.

R_Nick

That moving overhead cam is used in Serie A and I don't like it either, makes it difficult to follow live play.

WTF was going on with that guy on the pitch as well, took the stewards about 10 minutes to realise and get him off!

Red Norse

Aye, I'd be quite intrigued to know how many he puts away during a game, not to mention what he does when the flavour is gone.

Lailiani

It was really annoying when we won the Premier League last season. Instead of showing our players celebrating and getting their medals, Setanta kept on focusing on the crowd with supporters for about 10 minutes.

Allforone

They had the camera focussed on the Wolfsburg manager for 90% of the move that led to our 3rd goal tonight to...suddenly the pictures went from looking at him to back to the pitch an Owen being through on goal....shoddy stuff tonight really...

B Cantona

That was a rights issue though Lailiani

In Sweden they didn't show anything, just cut to a 3pm kick off. I was a little peeved

Lailiani

In what way?

B Cantona

I think only Sky Sports have the rights to show the title celebrations live

So any foreign channels that got the Setanta coverage missed out

Lailiani

Oh, thanks then, didn't know that.

JezChan

Some of the camera angles when they were replaying offside decisions were a bit sub-par as well.

olesmyhero

Yay for the FSC/Sky Sports partnership then.

Isn't that down to the layout of the stadium? The layout of the stadium determines where cameras go I thought. So if it's not possible to put a camera in a good position for offside, you're more than likely not going to get a great angle.