Team Talk

Team Talk

Photo Credit: Billingham Stars

Continuing to produce video footage, highlight reels and post-match interviews for Billingham Stars this season, Pyro Media’s Matthew Donnachie and Chloe Thomas provide a behind-the-scenes insight into their work for Billingham Stars TV…

This is your second season working on Stars TV. What led to your decision to produce video highlights for Billingham Stars?

Myself and Chloe had been working on Pyro Media (which runs Stars TV) for quite a few months, venturing into different things like football, live gigs etc. We had some free time on hand and Chloe had talked about Billingham Stars for a while and suggested we should give it a go. Chloe’s sister is the fiancée of #15 Chris Sykes and had been a supporter even before he arrived so we approached Allen Flavell to offer our services and our first game filmed against Widnes Wild was positively received. After watching my first few games of ice hockey that I had ever seen in my life, I really enjoyed it and the sport itself is really what made us want to take the project on board.

What does your workload consist of for Billingham Stars TV; how much preparation goes into setting up filming equipment on match night, into editing the footage to make the highlight reels and into interviewing coaches and players after the game?

Billingham Stars TV involves a lot more work than just what the fans see in the space of a few hours on a Sunday evening each week. Preparation for a game starts on a Sunday morning, plugging everything in that needs charging and then packing all the bags of equipment. We obviously have the cameras, tripods, microphones, cables, lights and all the other little things we need to make our highlights look as professional as possible. Faceoff is at 6:30pm for the Stars’ games. We tend to arrive at 5:00pm to set everything up. With it being a public rink, it’s a case of set up and pack down every week. After a game, we then get straight on with the interviews where Craig Simpson questions the players and coaches and then we pack everything up. We tend to leave the rink no earlier than 9:30pm and then it’s straight home to edit the interviews and get them online for the fans to view the same night. Monday’s schedule for us is simply to get the highlights edited for people to view the day after the game. It is a big commitment to just give up a day completely but that really is how long it takes. We need to watch the game back and pick what we are going to use in the highlights. We need to choose which camera is best, edit the sound, sometimes move commentary from NIHL Radio around to suit the video and add all the graphics etc. It takes a lot of time but it means we get highlights up for people to view at around 8:00pm on a Monday. Sometimes, if it is a very eventful game, it can take even longer. Coffee is a good friend!   

Editing is a key part of your role as it has the potential to cause controversy when clips can be played repeatedly to be analysed in the public domain. Just how much time does it take to decide what should be featured and what should not and have you ever regretted including a particular event or incident following the fans’ reactions to it?

Because we are officially a Billingham Stars outlet, it is difficult to avoid some controversy and accusations of bias. Firstly, our highlights are going to show more of Billingham than the other team because we are Stars TV but we show every goal and a good save from Flav [James Flavell] or [Mark] Watson is a good play from the away team. We know fans love the footage being there, not just for when there is a really good goal but also when something happens. There have been very few occasions when we have chosen not to show an event at all and this will either be to protect the team or players’ interests or be at the request of the EIHA-always with good reason. In our very first month, Jack Davies took an unprovoked slash to the back completely off the play by a Solway Sharks player. This is an event we are glad we captured because Jack could have been seriously injured and neither the coaches or, more importantly, the officials had seen the incident due to it being off the puck. The footage actually ended up featuring on The Mirror website and the local paper which we didn’t expect. One of the most controversial clips we posted was during a Tyne-Tees derby game where it appeared that Andre Payette went for Chris Sykes after an altercation. This is our most viewed clip to date on Facebook with 200,000+ views. This, however, came with a backlash, with fans accusing us of causing drama and highlighting the sport in a bad way. One thing we will say is that we don’t make the events on ice happen. We simply filmed what happened and the Stars’ fans asked to see it so we shared it. Really, we regret the fact it caused arguments and threw the legitimacy of our intentions up in the air but ultimately, we are here for the fans and we will show what they want to see if it is appropriate to do so.

How much has it cost to set up Billingham Stars TV and what would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of working as part of a media team in ice hockey?

When we initially came on board with Stars TV we were using basic equipment provided by our university which, at times, was quite unreliable and in fact led to a Blackburn Hawks game being missed. This was the first time this had happened since we launched and remains to be the only game we have missed. When we first signed up, it was agreed that the few months of the season left would be a way of dipping a toe into the water and seeing what the response was like. Because it had been a success, Pyro Media made a deal with Allen Flavell and Billingham Ice Hockey Club to ensure our filming for the next two seasons. When we agreed to this, we were in the early stages of preparing for our coverage of the playoffs and so we ourselves invested a lot of money into buying new equipment of our own and, as part of our two-year deal, some of the equipment was provided for us. All this new equipment has been reliable and has helped us to improve the quality of our highlights since we first started. Working as part of a media team is fun because you get a lot of appreciation from the fans for the work that you do. I think they understand that, for us, this is very much a voluntary role and all the effort we put in is so that they can enjoy our work. Unlike other projects we have worked on in the past when our commitment was taken for granted, the hockey community is a very welcoming one and where any support for the sport is something the teams and fans are thankful of. It is great to feel like you’re really a part of the team and help get the whole thing moving. The only disadvantage as such is not being able to have an opinion without needing to state it is your own. At the end of the day, we are Stars fans in our own right but when we are Billingham Stars TV, we are as unbiased as we need to be.

Since establishing Stars TV, several other ideas have emanated from this project, including an 'NIHL Roundup' radio show last season and ‘Stars Talk’ this campaign. How much work did these projects involve, how successful do you think they were and are there any plans to do anything like this again in the future?

Stars TV gave us a taste of what it is like to help give the sport more exposure. We do it for the team and ice hockey in general because the sport is something we really enjoy and it would be good to see it as popular as it was a good few years ago! So yes, other projects have been something we’ve gone along with to try new things out. NIHL Roundup we sometimes did as part of our university work but it was something we also intended on doing. Because it was about all the teams, it did take a lot of time to research content, read match reports and find tweets and fans’ opinions so unfortunately, it was something we couldn’t continue to do alongside Stars TV but NIHL Roundup was the inspiration behind Stars Talk. We have had fans say all the time that they want more and Stars Talk was our way of doing this; giving the fans more of an insight into the workings of the team, letting them see the more personal side of the players, asking them questions, hearing from Terry [Ward] and Allen [Flavell] and just getting their opinions on how games went in a lot more detail than an interview that lasts a couple of minutes. We had hoped it would get a bigger viewing than it did but it still attracted around 500 viewers every week and we enjoyed doing it too. Unfortunately, it was met with the same fate as NIHL Roundup as we simply didn’t have the time to do it with a lot of things going on. We do hope to revive it in the future. We have had time to work on smaller projects though such as our documentary which will be appearing in the next month or so and also some very exciting videos, giving people a much better understanding of what happens out on the ice, but all will be revealed soon.

With increasing amounts of NIHL footage being released by clubs, what advice would you give to someone who wanted to start out as Pyro Media did?

We’re glad to see that following Billingham Stars TV’s success, other clubs have also chosen to release games to be viewed by fans. Warriors TV and Solway Sharks have both emerged this season. As a result of the Jack Davies incident mentioned earlier and others, it was actually agreed by clubs and the EIHA that all games must be filmed in some form, though it is up to the team whether they release it publicly or not. All we could say really is to just get as much experience behind you as possible. Don’t rely on applying for placements and work experience with production companies because it’s an area where mistakes cost. You can get a decent camera for a few hundred pounds and get some work under your own name! Visit places that could use filming but might not have realised it. Local sports teams, weddings, local events, bands, gig venues-we have done all of these and once you have, you have the experience behind you to get involved in bigger things.

Thinking back to the highlight reels you have put together so far, which clips have been your most favourite to date?

Matthew: Wow, favourite clip? The guys have been amazing out on the ice this season so it is quite hard to choose but for me it has to be from the game where Blackburn Hawks were at The Forum for a cup fixture and it ended up being tied at the end of the third. There were no goals in overtime and it couldn’t even be decided in the first three penalty shots for each team so it went to sudden death! It was really tense, the crowd were loving it and the suspense was killing me but my favourite moment was Andy Finn putting the puck in the back of the net to win the game for the Stars. If you watch it, you can basically see my reaction when the camera goes all over the place!

Chloe: My favourite highlight so far is probably Chris Sykes’ fight during the Tyne Tees derby with [Callum] Watson. I know it was quite recent but I’m still shocked that Chris actually had a fight. Having known him for quite a few years now, I think I’ve known him to have one other fight when playing hockey in that entire time. It was certainly a fight to remember!

Looking ahead, is Pyro Media going to be involved with playoffs again, having provided footage which fans could purchase last season, and how much of a success was this weekend from your point of view as a media team?

We would love to be involved with the playoffs again this season. We have big plans for it and hope to improve our coverage a lot more since last year which was the first time they had ever been filmed. At the moment, planning is in progress and the EIHA are still to make a decision but we definitely would like to be there again this year. Last year was a success in our eyes. We made a profit which then went to cover our expenses and that of our partners, then the rest of the money went back into the league and to the teams themselves. We took the bold step to film the playoffs for the first time and we made a healthy amount of sales. This year we hope to really improve our coverage and do even more with it.

How successful has Stars TV been in your opinion, what do you make of its reception in the ice hockey community and is there anything you would like to say to the fans who have supported you from the very beginning?

We are really happy with how Billingham Stars TV has gone for us and we think it has been well-received by the team’s fans and the rest of the league. We are very much still improving as we go on and have a lot in the pipeline. We’ve been going for just over a year now and have achieved over 100,000 views on YouTube and over 300 subscribers which makes us the most viewed in the league. We just want to thank all the fans for supporting us and watching everything we put out there. Every like, every share, every subscriber we get keeps us going. The appreciation we receive makes it worth every second.

Thank you to Billingham Stars TV’s Matthew Donnachie and Chloe Thomas for taking the time to be interviewed by NIHL Northern Trio.