Ep 41: Antonin Pharel - Why IFSC Production SUCKS?!

the non -climber audience is becoming the target for these live streams so bouldering in itself has a problem yeah like it's 50 meters away like you are working and people are having fun and there's some dude dying there in his sleep after a live i know what was wrong and what what was that yeah what Yeah, what was not good? I know it right away. Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing Podcast. I'm your host, Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce my

guest for today, Antonin Pharel. Antonin is the graphics operator for the IFSC. I know there's been a lot of complaints about World Cup broadcasts lately, so in this episode, I gathered all your hardest -hitting questions over on the internet's

biggest hater platform, Reddit. In this episode, we'll learn about why the IFSC chooses to use local production teams instead of their own production team and the difficulties that come with that, why graphics don't show up sometimes, and we'll hear about his thoughts on why the bouldering format is inherently broken for watching on TV. I hope you enjoy this episode with Antonin. Real

quick, I'm excited to announce my new sponsor helping make this podcast episode possible, Mad Rock Climbing. I got fitted with their brand new line of high -performance shoes, the D2 .1s. They just came out December 6th, but you might notice a few of your favorite comp climbers are already wearing them, like Oscar Boudran from

Team Canada, and also me. This is the first time I've gotten to wear their shoes for an extended period of time and I'm actually super impressed with the grip of their in -house rubber and of course the famous drone heel that everyone says is the cheat code to heel hooking small edges. Feel free to message me if you have any questions about the shoes or sizing and you can use the discount code notrealclimber for 10 % off your entire Medrock order. Info will be in the description.

Back to the show. How are you doing today? You

have like a bit of a break between competitions. Actually, not really. I've come back yesterday from Bali for the World Cup in Bali. Before that, I was in Ke Xiao and Wu Jiang for the two World Cups. So that was quite a long tour in Asia, like three weeks. And I have two days home. So I have arrived yesterday. And then I'm taking the car again because this weekend there are the French Elite Championships that we are covering

also. So I'm going there this weekend. And Monday, we take off to Brazil for the World Cup in Curitiba. So that's a good start of the season, like five weeks, five competitions. In five weekends. And all your flight and travel is covered for, right? Yeah, yeah, yes. So I have immobilized day, travel days, and yeah, everything is covered. So I don't have to pay for anything myself. And yeah, I'm paid to work, obviously. Yeah, it's a lot of not being at home. Do you manage to get much

climbing in during the competition season? It depends on the events. It depends on the places. Obviously, it's difficult to keep, to maintain a regular rhythm of climbing. During the off -season in winter, usually I try to go climb mostly indoor because I don't have much time. Still, but like two or three times a week. But during the season, I've tried to fit in some little climbing time. Yeah, whenever we can. Sometimes it's only on the warm -up and the isolation

zone. Some warm -up areas are very good for that. Some others are a bit less. But yeah, with people there, we try to set up some boulders. I mean, like what we did in Quechua with you. Yeah, did you feel like that's considered a pretty good isolation zone, right? Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good one, yes. It's not on, like, I think athletes going to Wuzhang the week after, they were complaining a bit because in Wuzhang, for example, it's a very, very long wall. It's just a big traverse,

but quite short. I don't think it's more than two meters high, for example, and it's... not not overhanging so it's always the same kind of feature slabby vertical but slightly overhanging maybe but even though the holds are quite good you can't really do a lot of things on this kind of warm -up wall so yeah i know that the athletes are complaining a little bit about this wall and yeah i've Actually, we didn't climb there.

What's the best ISO warm -up zone that you've been to or seen? Crachow is quite nice, actually. Yeah, it's one of the best, I would say. The one in Bali last week was quite nice also. So they had put it in a tent. We didn't climb there, but from what I saw, it was... Pretty nice. Maybe a bit smaller than Keishao, but it was in a tent with air conditioning. That's helpful. Yeah, that's very helpful. All the tents have air conditioning. Yeah, but yes, this one was good. Let me think.

The one in Chamonix is quite nice also. Also, we don't climb much there because it's directly in the Ensar. So it's the gymnasium, not the gymnasium, the climbing gym for the local club there in Chamonix. So it's quite nice. And it's where there are some Romain Desgrange. I don't know if you know him. It's like a French athlete.

And he's now a coach. And it's basically where he trained, etc. quite a good good space with a lot of bouldering and so yeah quite quite good uh warm -up area um yeah i mean it varies from place to place but yeah and of course in salt lake now there is a tc which is quite a good warm -up zone also. Okay, so getting into a bit

of what you do for the IFSC. I guess most people probably don't know too much about you or who you might be. So what do you do for the IFSC and how did you get involved? So yeah, probably not a lot of people know me. I'm the graphic operator in the IFSC broadcast team. I'm the one displaying the names, the results, all kinds of graphics that goes on top of the live stream. So during the live, I'm displaying that and etc. And I'm also in some events in charge of setting

up cameras, mostly on the walls. I'm the one putting up the cameras on the walls. It's my task, but I can help. other team members to do some other things. So yes, I have varied tasks, but these are my main two, like graphic operator and PTZ camera. So PTZ, it's the cameras on the wall. It's pan, tilt, and zoom. It's remote cameras that are controlled directly in the control room. And yes, there is a dedicated operator that manages them. All right. What cameras on the walls, like

actually on the walls? Or do you mean just like filming like close -ups of the wall? They are fixed on the wall. So yeah, you can see them on the stream. Sometimes, yeah, in most of the

time in bouldering, you can see some. masts how do you say like sticks sticking out of the top of the walls and there are some cameras hanging there so on bouldering we put at least three maybe four cameras so we get shots of the tops and they are mostly used to get some close shots not from the back from behind Because most of the shots in climbing are from behind, right?

So the big advantage of these cameras directly fixed on the wall is that it allows us to get some closer shots and some shots of the faces and from above. So the counterpart is that usually the walls are shaking a little bit, so the cameras are quite shaky. Sometimes. It depends on the walls. Again, from structure to structure, it can vary a lot. But yeah, we installed them on bouldering and in lead also. So in lead, we usually display three. So one at the top, we get the

top shot for both routes. And two on the sides, on the head wall. Just to get a broader overview

of the rest of the production team at the IFSC, because you just mainly do the graphics, how does the rest of the production team work? It depends a bit. The season, so there are how many events? There are 12 events on a season, something like that. It starts from April to October. We have a broadcast team linked to the IFSC. So we are directly hired by the IFSC. And sometimes we do the full production. Sometimes we are only on support because it's local productions handling

the whole live stream. And yes. So for example, In China, it's local production. So it was a Chinese crew doing, installing all the cameras, doing the full live stream, etc. Me, I'm still there to display the graphics. And we are, in cases like that, we are there on support. It means that we make sure that the... standards required for the IFSC live streams are followed. So the live streams are well sent to the TVs

that have the rights for them. And we make sure that the rundown, the running order is well followed. So it's, for example... Yeah, we have a rundown. So at that time, the live stream starts. At this time, 30 seconds later, we need to display the start list, etc. So we have a full schedule to follow and we make sure that this schedule is well followed by the local crews. And yes, we try to give some advices on how to film climbing

and things like that. So that's... For the cases where we don't do the full production, we are there on support. And then there are some events where we are hired to do the full production. So like in Bali last week, for example. So in that case, our team is a bit broader. So we are six plus some cameramen. So we have dedicated roles. So me, I'm graphic operator. There is

one that is a director. There is a sound engineer, vision engineer, etc. But yeah, it's still a reduced team compared to what you can see in... in yeah in other local tv productions like it's we arrive with a lot of boxes we set up the thing but if you look at local productions they arrive with a big truck with way more people and things

like that so and so why in like kachow for example was it decided to only do support instead of have a full production yourself it's decided by the IFSC and the organizer so how it works is like organizers proposes to host a world cup and I don't know exactly how that works because I'm not involved in this in this deals etc but from what I understand is like the organizers is proposing to to have a local production crew who is going to realize the live stream and then

they will get some TV rights for national TVs, for example, or for other production. I don't know. So that is the deal. So the organizers propose these services and they get the TV rights for their local channels. That's the case in quite a lot of events now. Before 2020, we were still doing most of the productions. But now in Slovenia, it's local TV. In the World Championships, it's local TV now in Seoul. It will be KBS doing that. So in China now, after COVID, it's local

crews. But even before, the crew from the Olympics, for example, it was a Chinese production. And there were training in Chongqing 2019, I think, already. So this time already, it was not us doing the production. But before that, until Wuzhong 2019, we were doing the production in China also. So you're working towards doing fewer productions? Yes, we do fewer productions. I mean, this year, actually, we do quite a lot

compared to last year. Because there are new venues and there are some organizers don't find local producers. So instead, we do the production. So in Brazil, for example, it will be us. Usually when it's a new event, we do the first production. So like in Prague, it was 2023. The first edition in Prague, it was us doing the production. And last year, 2024, it was a local TV crew doing it. And it will be again a local team also doing

the production this year also. so like the goal is to eventually have a local production do it because i guess for consistency's sake it seems like people expect that it would usually be an ifsc production the big plus for to have a local production is like they get the tv rights right so it means that um the live streams is broadcast on the national tv so why do organizers want

to organize the World Cup. It's so they have local spectators, local audience, and the fact that they also want to have a local producer is so they can have the TV rights for their audience. So it's just to present climbing in their country,

basically. So that's understandable. After, to have consistency from one... event to the next for sure it's a bit more complicated if we change crews from one event to the next but yeah that's why we are there on support it's to try to give guidelines and to to make sure first that the live streams follow the required standards and we are there to try to give advice also how to film climbing Sometimes they are followed, sometimes they do a bit how they want. But yeah, usually

it goes quite well after one live or two. If you look at the first live streams, there is an improvement from, let's say, semifinals to finals. In finals, usually it's quite better quality. While the first live streams, it's still a moment of trying and errors and trials. And from one year to the next, the productions improve also. So if they do every year the same production,

they improve from one year to the next. Yeah, obviously there's a lot of like... online discourse about um how the production runs um what what the broadcast looks like um i gathered some questions from reddit since i think that's where they have

the most strongest opinions about uh about the broadcast and so like what guidelines specifically are given to ensure consistent product and also the big one being uh like the split screen issue that we saw in kajal yeah so um Of course, we are here on support. So our first task is to make sure that the live stream is well delivered to the people paying for it. So deals with the FSC and usually the local crews are handling themselves the signal going for their local TV.

That's a main task. Make sure that there is a live stream happening. Then the second... part of our job is to make sure that to ensure a quality and of the live stream and consistency from one event to the next and here we give some advice on how to film the sport um but we are sometimes often uh facing some issues uh like the The crews we are talking to, sometimes they are well known in the sport. They are filming some sport at the Olympics, etc. And as we arrive, we are only

three people filming climbing. So us giving advice to these big crews of 40 plus people. Yeah, it's sometimes we are not heard that well. Sometimes we have also some communication issues. So like in Keishao, for example, we had an interpreter. Yes. Who was not speaking that well English either. So it's always a bit... And also she was not... So she was hired by the local crew, but she was not working in media. So it was the first time

working with them. So she didn't necessarily know the relevant words, like the specific vocabulary for what a white shot is, what format of video this is, etc. So it's always... sometimes a constant struggle on trying to be understood, trying to understand what is needed, etc. So that's a lot of meetings back and forth, for example. So that's

another issue we are facing. And to make sure that there is a live and that the basic quality of the live is covered, we need to make sure that... first climbing is filmed and then we can introduce a split screen and then yeah so it's one step at a time to make sure that yeah we can't some yeah in case how i we could not cover everything in one go for the semi -finals and finals for the women for example but we could make it work uh for the men's the day after and

that's how we improve And after, in Nubujang, the week after, it was the same crew, which was nice because we could start. We already knew each other. We knew how to communicate. We knew, yeah, they already knew the rundown also a little bit. So it was already easier to make sure that the live stream was following some guidelines

like that. Another thing people on Reddit asked about was kind of about like the cinematic shots, like foot chips, hold closeups. Is that a direction from the IFSC or do the local crews do that themselves? In the control room, there is a director and sometimes he's switching the cameras himself. Sometimes he's behind and saying to his operator to, okay, camera one, camera two, et cetera. That's up to the TV crew to decide how much beauty shots. The direction is up to the TV crew. We

can give some guidelines again. The main guideline is make sure that the cameraman keeps enough space above the climber so we have at least two, three... holds above so you can see where the climber is going it's it's not evident for people not knowing the sport sometimes they center the climber and so you see uh holds below no you need to to leave some space above um it's not it's just simple things like that and the thing is like is a tv crew is in the end the one the

director is in the end the one taking the decisions of how the live stream looks like. So if there is a director very happy with his setup, with big lenses, with cameras being able to zoom a lot on small holes and maybe some crane doing some... Very nice moves along the walls and things like that. Of course, he will want to use these tools. They are quite expensive. There is a nice show, light show. It looks very nice, but maybe

it doesn't show climbing as it should be. just because you don't follow the action as you would want to follow the action if you are a climber yourself. So in my opinion, close shots like that, they should be maybe two seconds on air, three seconds at max. If you have an action, like if the climber is moving, you want to show the hold. two, three seconds. If you go more than that, of course, you lose something. But again, that's difficult to say to some directors.

And of course, you could keep that for replays. And usually, these directors, they use replay a lot just because they have a lot more shots,

a lot more cameras. we do for example so they have a lot of mean at their disposition and the replays are usually quite long which also cuts the action so the next athletes needs to wait to enter for example and you have longer live streams for example so that's also something that could be smoothened a bit but yeah again it's The last decision is by the director in

the end. Yeah, I wonder if you could just tell them climbers will go and grab their chalk a lot, so that's a good time to show replays or close -ups. Yeah, I mean, there are some directors who put some replays even during the four minutes in the boulder finals. While people are resting, they put some replays, etc. There are some crews that have... like two or three replay operators preparing replays all the time. So of course, they have the possibility to put some replays

at any time during the show. And of course, it removes these little dead times that can cut a bit the rhythm in the final, for example. But yeah, it's a question of balance. Sometimes I feel like... When TV productions have a lot of cameras, etc., it's too much. And the thing is also you need to consider that there are different kinds of audiences for climbing. Most, like we are climbers, so we know what we like to see. We usually like to see a wide shot and you see

the full. the full climb and then you see the full movement of the climber. And you don't necessarily need some closer shots because instinctively, you know what the holes look like, but just by the look of it, you know how hard they are. And there is a less experienced audience who don't

necessarily have these reflexes. of understanding why the climber is doing that at this moment and they are more interested by beauty shots and also they need some to see their holes much closer and to maybe understand what what are the holes like because you see if you have an experienced eye maybe you see the crimp okay it's very small but maybe for a non -climber audience you need to wow to stay more than three seconds on the small holds and oh is he holding

me like that that makes sense i like seeing the small ones too yeah it's so and the thing is like the idea to have tv crews local tv crews and um the live streams being displayed broadcast on local channels it's just to reach a non -climber audience the non -climber audience is kind of becoming the target for these live streams so that the thing like the the climber audience is vocal about it it's maybe it's just it's still a minority of the the watchers i don't know if

you've had experience with like other sports productions um do you know if they go like a similar route where they use local teams every time and there's not as much consistency because i guess my only other experience with like watching other sports broadcasts is maybe like broadcasts

that are more just within the u .s so i don't think travel is as difficult but for more like global productions i guess maybe like F1 or something like that I've never watched it so I don't actually know if they're consistent or like have consistent angles or anything like that do you have any like comparisons on what other TV productions do so my team is working with the FSC since 2016 something like that so that's and me I've arrived at the FSC in 2018 and so I'm covering most of

the World Cup since then And in my team, I'm almost the only climber. So, yeah, but they are quite experienced, especially the director is very good. And he understands the sport quite well. He's quite invested in it. And I think he is very good at just covering the sport, in my opinion. So it's not a problem that he's not a climber. On the other hand, my team is also covering some other sports, especially ski. They are coming from the ski. Before that, they were

doing ski events. And yeah, I don't remember exactly what they are doing. And from this year, they also cover the ski mountaineering. So they do the production for that also. So they have some experience in other sports. Me personally, I don't. So I can't really compare from one production to one sport to the next, how the productions are doing. I know that in Schemo, they do most of the productions also. I suppose that from one, from big... For big sports like F1, Formula

1, I think it's local crews maybe. I don't know. Okay. But Formula 1 is such a big sport that for sure all these crews, they know how to produce it. And that will be the same crews doing that every year for many years. Okay. So maybe we just have some growing pains. Yeah, it's still growing. It's not like soccer also. I mean, in soccer also, it will be different crews depending on the stadium. It will never be many trucks moving around Europe, for example, to cover.

It will be local crews all the time, I think.

Okay. But it's not a problem because the sport is so well spread that there are some... yeah there is some theory behind it like okay there is this and white shot then there you can go close shot and things like that it's not like climbing has been theorized yet uh to to cover it yeah i guess we just kind of need that time for it to be uh to like come up with a consistent maybe like a baseline of what it should look like yeah i think the One attempt to do that

was by this director in Austria. So the one who is producing the live streams in Innsbruck every year for some years now. And also who covered

the Munich Championships in 2022. I think he is quite invested in... pushing the sport on how to broadcast it and I think he had it's the first attempt to really theorize it on AAA production because I can't say that our crew is AAA I mean we are six people plus four cameramen so we can't pretend to be like the big production that produces national TVs every week and we don't have a big truck, et cetera. So we might have some theories, et cetera, but... Wait, but what does... Yeah,

like big production. Okay. Yeah. So I think this Austrian director is the first one who really started to really think the sport. and how to make it look good on TV. And I think more and more producers will do that. I think in the Czech producers also in Prague, they are quite interested in showing climbing just because maybe, I don't know, there is Adam Andra also and he's a national

legend also. Because of that, because climbing is so well spread in Austria, because there is Adam Ondra in Czech Republic, and maybe also because there is Jamia Garnbret in Slovenia, all these producers are interested in the sport directly. And because they are doing it over and over, year after year, I think in the end there will be a quality raising up like that. just because the experience is building up. But if you do one event a year, of course, you can't

have... I mean, it takes time. And they are looking at what everybody is doing. So when we see them and they come to see us, to... to get advice, et cetera, we see that they have watched some other live streams. So, OK, you do it like that. So we put these graphics at this time. And so they are looking, they are preparing like that also. That's good. The most invested ones. Yeah.

Yeah, you mentioned that there are some challenges of filming Climbing for TV and that there are difficulties specifically showing bouldering. Why is that? What makes it difficult? It's inherent to bouldering itself, like the format of bouldering.

Please excuse this brief intermission, but if you're interested in deleted scenes from this episode where we get his thoughts on the high production quality at 2025 Plywood Masters, and we also get his soul travel recommendations, do consider helping support this podcast on Patreon. Some other perks include a membership pin shipped to you after two months, prioritize guest questions or the ability to submit video questions and

more to come. The proceeds go back into the podcast to help me break even and they help me improve the experience of the guests. If you would like to help out non -monetarily, liking, commenting and sharing helps a great deal as well. Back to the show. For TV, for example, what you want

to see. in in a sport is like um the winner of the competition you want to see him or her the most time on the on the screen right so in lead it's it's it's obvious like the the one who goes the highest uh wins the competition so the one uh the longest on the wall wins the competition The person who falls at three plus, you don't

see him or her much. Fine. That's perfect. The problem with bouldering is like if you have someone who can't start a boulder and can't establish the start position and struggles for four minutes straight on the mat, it's boring. And then you have Janja arriving. And she flashes, she demonstrates how to do every boulders. She's there on the mat for like, on the screen, she's two minutes on the wall for two hours of live streams. I see. So there is, for bouldering, the shorter

you are on the wall, the better you do. You are probably the winner. And it's not exactly what you see in most of the sports. In most of the sports, The winner is the one who has the most attention, who gets the most shots, the most time on screen, etc. So bouldering in itself has a problem. It's not exactly... From a climber point of view, in my opinion, it's the most interesting to watch just because it's so varied. Like you have... You have slabs, you have overhang, you

have every type of move. Some people complain that there are some too weird moves, not enough outdoorsy moves, not enough old school moves. But in the end, you have all these moves anyway in Boulder, maybe. Sometimes it's not balanced enough. Maybe sometimes there is too much of this type of move and not enough of the rest. But if you compare bouldering to lead, lead is always overhanging. You will never have a slab

in a lead competition. For example, it happened maybe in the 90s in the first competitions and people were just finding weird rest positions

and they were staying on the wall for... 13 minutes 30 minutes and uh people get yeah because there was no time limit also so oh that's terrible yeah exactly so they were climbing up they were climbing down uh checking the moves going down and resting forever oh that sucks yeah so that's why the walls got much more overhanging and that's why the road setters are not setting knee bars where people can rest indefinitely and yeah the other thing things like that but in bouldering

from a climber point of view it's quite interesting like there is there is all climbing in just four boulders not all climbing but you see my point so but yeah from a non -climber audience i can get it that it's you don't know what is happening there is too much things happening The format is difficult to explain. The rules are difficult to explain. There is attempts to make points now. In my opinion, I think we lose a bit the thing about attempts. The attempts are less interesting.

And also, you can't read directly the performance of a climber. Before, it was one top, one zone

in. that many attempts now with just points you don't know exactly the performance just because it's points it doesn't translate exactly in how many attempts were used so you need to make calculations it's a bit yeah so it's it's bouldering is complex it's just because it's about climbing and it's climbing is so complex yeah i mean i think the point system will help with understanding I think it makes a little bit more clear just because then there's like a numerical value that people

can point to. But yeah, I guess I do see the issue with like the star not really getting that much screen time. But I mean, it's kind of similar in like, I guess it's not that similar, but like in speed, the faster climber obviously is spending less time. Yeah, but the faster, the winner. He's not eliminated until the end. Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So you see him or her the whole competition. Okay. And he or she will get all the replays. Yeah, I guess I don't know

how that would be self -reporting. Yeah, I mean, I've thought a little bit about it. The best

would be to eliminate. the worst people like what they do in arco for the uh i don't remember the name the rock masters the rock masters yeah the problem is like if you eliminate someone uh after the first boulder and this person was not good at slab but right very good at yeah it's not fair just because And also for the competition, it's not fair because what if this person eliminated after the first boulder was the only one able to do the boulder two, for example, or boulder

four. So there is this unfairness that is problematic if you eliminate people. Yeah, I've seen some competition formats of the elimination format where you can't go to the next boulder until you finish the first boulder. But yeah, that does seem kind of unfair because there are just so many bouldering styles. Yeah, I think the solution would be to not impose an ordered circuit.

The best would be, and that could be actually quite interesting, you leave the athletes to choose in which order they want to climb the boulders. there is still an observation of all four boulders. And then in isolation, they decide, okay, I want to do boulder two first, boulder three, and then blah, blah, blah. So there is some strategy involved. And as a commentator, it could be super interesting. Like, okay, we know he starts, like he's better at slab climbing,

et cetera, but he's going for this one. Maybe that's because he... Yeah, I think that could be quite interesting. That would be interesting. I don't think I've ever seen that in any format. It might be kind of hard to feel. And also hard because what if two people want to do the same one at the same time? Yeah, I mean, you would let people climb one by one. There would still be only one person on the climb. Of course, with the new format, there are two people on the mat.

Yeah, it would be only one person on the mat. And difficult to film? Yes and no. It would be an extra difficulty. But anyway, all the cameras are placed for the whole final anyway. So the only one moving is the mobile camera on the mat.

But anyway, most of the time, the cameraman is placed in front of the... of the door and then you will just follow the the athlete and then yeah of course the camera will have to adjust to focus on this boulder instead of this one but that's not a problem that's not a big deal it might be hard in terms of graphics because then you have to explain like oh this is this problem but this person this is this person's like third problem that they're on i don't know

i i don't think it's unsolvable either yeah interesting um and i want to go back to something you mentioned

a little bit earlier how do you balance attracting a new audience versus satisfying the existing climbing audience so non -climbers versus climbers who are watching i don't think we think that much about how to attract a new audience except maybe in the graphics how to explain the sport better. So that's why points were introduced. Now this year, there is a new little graphic explaining what the graphics mean. There is its own rule thing. So it explains the icons and

stuff like that. So it's mostly via the graphics, I think, that it comes. Also introducing predictions. For example, it's been a long running topic. So the predictions, it's basically when a boulderer enters the mat, what he or she needs to do to reach this rank, for example, on this boulder. So that already you can do quite a lot just with the graphics, introducing something so people understand what is going on. And I think it has come a long way since I've started. Just in the

lead bar also, it's quite explanatory. Things like that. After, in terms of filming itself, of course, beauty shots are nice. And that's usually what TV wants, just because... I don't think TV wants a wide shot, a still wide shot with just four boulders in the shot and climbers going up and down. That would not work for TVs. Having too many shots also, switching from small holes, narrow shots to, yeah, et cetera, close

shots, et cetera. I think we are doing a bit too much at the moment, but it might calm down, hopefully. Maybe keeping the narrow shots and small shots for when the climber is resting, for example. So in lead, for example, that would be when they are shocking up and they are on the same hold for 15 seconds. There you can allow yourself to put a narrow shot, a close shot. Or you can just put on the close shot for three

seconds. But yeah, I think to introduce climbing to a new audience, wide shots, split screens is still the best. And speaking of like graphics, since that is kind of your specialty, I think on the Reddit post there was some positive feedback on stats showing up in graphics this year. So good work on that. But I guess the issue that comes up sometimes is that they often don't show up or they lag behind. I think, for example, the lead progression in the past couple events.

Bali or Wujiang would just be kind of slow to update. So people are wondering, why are the scores rarely shown on screen? And yeah, why do graphics lag behind sometimes? Yeah, so the

new graphics, it's a new graphics solution. It has been developed this winter by a new team of developers so it's a new it's a new production doing them i've had access to the solution quite recently and it has been tested on some test events so we have a platform where we can test the graphics of course graphics are working like all the results big result screens and names, etc. It's very easy to test, for example, just because they don't necessarily need a live update.

But for all these provisional graphics, live progression bar, so the lead bar on the side, it's much more complicated to test. Of course, you can do that and simulate some events. But like, for example, in China, I had some problem with the internet connection just because of the Chinese firewalls. I think it was blocking the access of the platform. I mean, it was slowing it down. So there are things that we can't foresee

in the tests. And because it's a new solution, I have a team on support during the live stream. So I'm exchanging with them constantly and I'm giving them feedbacks on where it updates and where it does not. So they just improve that. So there was some tests and then like in any... development. I'm working also beside the FSC. I'm also working on some applications and stuff like that. We can make as much tests as we want. Nothing beats the live event. You will always

find bugs. Like me, for example, trying to display that at some weird moment just because there is a dead time and the live progression was not meant to be displayed at this moment. So like in between, for example, two climbers and there is no active climber. And then, of course, the active climber is not on the lead bar and it should appear. So just weird things like that. So yeah, we are exchanging a lot of feedbacks. It will get better event by event. And it's already

much improved, I think. And another thing, like why it's not updated, it's better now, but sometimes the judges, they just input the scores at the end of the run, for example. Because the judges, so there is one having the tablet and making the plus, plus, plus while the climber is going up, for example. And then there is another one. having the topo of the route being printed and following with the finger the progression of

the climber. And I don't know, maybe if the judge with the tablet is not sure of where he is at the moment with his whole number, he has to refer to the topo, etc. And that can take some time. It's also an explanation sometimes. And sometimes they don't update right away. They input the result at the end. So when the climber has fallen, they check. They make sure that the result is correct. They make it official. They put it in the tablet. Then we have the result only at the

end. So sometimes I'm sending a message and the judges are being told to input the result live. So yes, there are reasons, but different. Sometimes

it's user errors. Sometimes it's, yeah. Yeah, another thing people were wondering about was, or people were asking for, was seeing scores show up on screen more often, which, yeah, I think that's a fair ask. It mostly depends on how the director is filming the climbing. if he or she leaves enough space for the scores. If he or she... Yeah, I mean, now we have in bouldering, we have the split screen now that has been mostly introduced for the main semis

in Keishao. So there is a live, the provisional on the right and then the four names at the top. That's quite nice. And it means that the results are there all the times. That's great. Then in finals, we have a split screen already sometimes. I like split screens. I'm all for split screens, but it means that sometimes there is not that much space to display the graphics also. So I display the names and there is maybe not space

for anything else. And then in between, in rotations, maybe the director is putting in some replays and there is no time to display the results. So again, it's a question of getting to know how the director is going to work. Sometimes also it's a director wanting to decide when I'm displaying things. My role is to be under the direction of the director, right? So I have to follow what he wants to do. And sometimes it doesn't want to have that much thing on the screen

and prefer to display some other things. Although it's quite tricky with this new format. Just because people are not climbing the same boulders at the same time. Some people have a score. when they have two boulders while some others have a score with three boulders already. But yeah, I kind of agree that it's important in this case to display the results more often. And I think we will try to do that in the future. The fact that it's a new format also, I mean, there is

some adjustment ongoing, right? Like split screen, it's obvious. Like we have seen that with... combined last year uh yeah two people on the screen of yeah two people on the mat of course you you do a split screen um it's not a lot of productions don't really like it because it's not tv like oh really yeah yeah yeah i don't know it's it's coming from tv some productions don't really like it but i think for for climbing it works quite well um And the good thing is

graphics aren't developed like that now. So it pushes directors to actually use split screens.

Good to know. You also mentioned that there's often difficulty with the timing system. What do you mean by that? Just like putting the clock on the screen? It's more like there is not a uniformized solution for timing. In a lot of events, there is one solution, but for example, in China, it's a local company doing the timing system. So from one event to the next, it's different the way we retrieve the timing system. The timer

is not included in the graphic solution. Just because there are different kinds of data that needs to be retrieved, etc. Usually, we just retrieve a video signal. That's much easier. And we mix it in the live stream. But it's not integrated directly in the graphic just because there are different companies doing different things. Now we know most of the system used in the different World Cups. So yeah, there is no problem to retrieve at least the video signal.

And from this year, we do two clocks now on semis. lead semis, which is finally a good improvement. The big problem is there is not a uniform clock. But that's also normal. There are some organizers that have been using this system. The organizers are providing everything. so that the competition happens, right? So they provide the walls, the holes, etc. And they also provide the timing system. So if the local organizer is used to work with this timing system, of course, they

have the LED display with it. They have all the material because it's not a light system. Sometimes you need to... It's not like the graphic system that... comes with on two computers so it's it there are a lot of cables involved there is a team dedicated to put on the timing system so it's not like you can move a timing system team from one event to the next it's the organizers who have to provide that so that's why we The broadcast team of the IFSC have to adapt to what

is provided by the local organizer. Yeah, I didn't know it was so difficult just to, I don't know, just to put up a time. Yeah, I mean, for boulder and lead, it's quite easy. But for speed, you can't really make anything. I mean, it needs to be certified. All these timing systems are certified IFSC, but it's still local. It's local things. And the CMA, for example, the Chinese Federation is working with this timing system.

Some others are working with Dicron. And all these timing systems are certified to be able to be on the World Cup. Well, I think that covers most of the complaints people had. I hope I... I hope I gave some explanations. Yeah. Okay. So now for something a little bit lighter and maybe more fun. You've traveled with the IFSC a bunch. You go around to all the World Cups? So I started in 2018. And since then, yes, I've done most of the World Cup, yes. Whether we do

the production ourselves or we don't. So just because I'm the graphic operator, I'm basically

always there because I always need some graphics. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, that's like a lot of traveling you've done. Does anything stand out to you in terms of like what makes traveling difficult or like any crazy stories you have while traveling? Yeah, so when we do

the production, we usually travel. six people and it depends whether we hire cameramen locally so maybe it's local cameramen that we need to to train specifically for that but when we travel by six for example we also come with all our gear by plane And it means that it's a lot of boxes that we need to declare to the customs, to move around on trolleys in airports. People think that we are a music band and stuff like

that. And yeah, so it's not like we can arrive one hour, one hour and a half before the flight. So we need to arrive quite a long time before. And we need to, like yesterday, I spent, I don't know. for hours more when we arrived from Bali, like just the time to retrieve all the boxes, make sure that everything has arrived, declare it at the airport, then crossing the border to go back to France and need to declare it again and load. So that's quite a lot of work to move

all these fragile items like that. And yeah, we usually travel with one company only just to make sure that we have a directed line, a direct line. Yeah, and we travel all together. It means that we are together sometimes 24 -7

when we share bedrooms. So when we go for three weeks, we are always... together so that can be difficult to handle sometimes i mean we we usually have yeah we have no problem which we could not live together like that if we didn't like each other but sometimes you would like to have a bit your long time you know right um and uh yeah each time at the beginning of the season i and i i'm telling myself okay this year i can i will take some time for me during the

season. I will work on some other things, etc. And in practice, I just can't. I'm just fully on the work. And when I'm not working at the venue, we do again something together. It's not like I can escape to do my own thing. I could, but yeah. Not much time. Yeah, not much time. And yeah, it's quite strange to be home again. It's a lot of busy feeling all the time when I'm away and then coming home. Like there is this, you know, that sudden slowdown and okay,

what do I do now? I'm a completely different rhythm and it usually takes a few days for me to adapt to the new, yeah, to slow down again. Yeah, I think Matt said a similar thing. Yeah. Just weird being home. But yeah, Matt, it's even worse because he's actually doing, I'm doing most of the events. This year, I'm not doing all of them because the season is quite cramped. So like the beginning, it's also events are concentrated at the beginning of the season. There is not

that much after August. So I'm skipping some because I'm not going for the US, for example, because I have five weeks in a row already. Oh, no. Yeah, sorry. Oh, I thought I was going to see you again in Salt Lake. Yeah, sorry. But yeah, so this year I've decided to take some time off. But for Matt, it's even worse because... He's not stopping. He's not replaced. He's doing all the World Cups. I mean, even in between events, he's not going home. He's doing some other things.

And I can understand that it can be hard to slow down if you have so few time between events. It's difficult to readapt to the rhythm all the time. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, yeah, I have two days. I'm not going to slow down much because I'm just leaving again Friday. So I'm just doing

a lot of things when I'm at home. Yeah, makes sense. And it is a shame that you won't make it to the US World Cups. I know you mentioned you had like a weird experience in the US at

Salt Lake. Yeah, it was a bit weird indeed. last year it was in the TC but maybe the year before so 2023 we were the venue was located in in a park I think it's Pioneer Park yeah Pioneer Park in the middle of Salt Lake and it's usually a park where there are a lot of homeless people and there were pushed for the for the competition and the venue was enclosed so there were some fences around and yeah so around the venue there were still a lot of homeless people um and uh

one day i went to uh uh to the venue early in the morning And I didn't have much to do until the afternoon or something like that. So I just did a few things. And then I had time to go climb because I wanted to go to the bouldering project. I don't know if you know. So it was like, I don't know, 20 minutes away from the venue. So I take my climbing stuff. I go to the bouldering project

and just... Leaving Pioneer Park, I passed by one man who was just sleeping under the trees, etc. And I remembered that passing by him, I looked at him and I saw that he didn't look very, very well. Yeah. Yeah. So I went climbing. Nice session. I don't know, two hours, maybe something like that. And got out, started to be quite warm. And I remember passing by another guy that was sleeping in full sun, etc. But he didn't look

very well either. Continued on the avenue. And then there was some policemen who had caught a woman. They had just grabbed her and... Yeah, I don't know. She was screaming like mad. And apparently she had just run down the avenue naked. And there was a friend on the other side of the road and he was yelling at the police also. So I thought, okay, that's US. Okay, why not? Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, that does actually happen. Yeah. Fairly frequently, I do see that.

Yeah, yeah, but I'm not used to that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not used to that. And so, yeah. Usual American scene, apparently. And I just cross the road back to Pioneer Park, and I'm passed by this sleeping guy again. He had not moved an inch since two hours. And detailing him a little bit more. Yeah, he really didn't look very well. So I turned back. I asked the police who were here. That was nice. I didn't have to call anybody. I just told them to just have a look at this

one. And I continued a bit. And they came to see. And they just put the ribbon around him. So yeah, that was strange to find this poor dude like 50 meters away from the venue like that. This whole morning was very strange. Does that have anything to do with you not coming back? No, no, no. Actually, I came back last year. No problem. Well, yeah, sorry that was your experience. Can't say I've ever seen a dead person before. So it's not always like that here, at least.

Yeah, it's not like it traumatized me. But yeah, it's still weird to know that. Yeah, like it's 50 meters away, like you are working and people are having fun and there's some dude dying there in his sleep. Well, at least it seemed semi -peaceful.

Yeah, hopefully. I don't know. So outside of IFSC travel and stuff like that, you also do some climbing gym work. You mentioned that you, I guess, work for Climb Along. Besides the IFSC, mostly during the off -season, but I'm still working with them during the IFSC season. So I'm working with Climb Along. It's a Danish company. It's based in Copenhagen. And we have developed a result system. So for competition, climbing, climbing competitions. The idea came when I lived

there at the time. It was, I don't know, in 20... I think it was during COVID actually. I was stuck there. So because I was working with the AFSC already. I connected with them, I met them, and we started to develop a result system for competitions, just because there was not any result system used by the Federation at the time. And so we wanted to develop something. The idea was first to propose some data for live streams, because

I wanted to display more. during live streams, like predictions for bouldering and stuff like that. So the idea came from there. And then from one thing after the other, we developed a full competition platform. And now we are working with some federations, mostly in Scandinavia, but also over Europe, like in New Zealand also. And we also work with some... climbing gyms in the US, actually, in movement. And then we have started to work on another product, which is

called Spot. And the idea is to put some cameras in climbing gyms. And we have an image analysis program that detects climbers and holds. in the climbing gyms. And basically the idea is to give feedbacks. So it measures activity in climbing gyms. So it counts the number of attempts on a boulder, the number of tops on a boulder. And it gives feedbacks to the gym owner or to the route setter about the activity in his or her

gym. So that way you can see which boulders are popular, which boulders are tried a lot, where they are failed a lot. And then as a route setter, you get some data, objective data, so you can adjust your route setting for the next time and

things like that. So the idea is to bypass the... a logging app that exists so some climbers are using it but it's not really used by most of the climbers in gyms let's be honest so we lack a lot of data and sometimes it's quite subjective data because some climbers are just logging the boulders that they are succeeding so Yeah, here the idea is really to detect all kind of attempts

and to give feedbacks like that. The idea is really to introduce some data -driven workflows in climbing gyms because rotating is quite instinctive, you know. Some people even consider it an art. Kind of. So you need to feel a bit the movement. You need to, it's very tactile, right? Climbing is tactile, but even for route setter, you need to feel all the holes. You need to feel, okay, this move, you are trying all the time, et cetera. But here's the idea is really to give back objective

data to route setters. That's not easy to make. Some rotators understand it very well and see the point of having results on a huge amount of data because that's really a huge amount of attempts that can happen in one day in a busy

climbing gym. that's quite a lot or even a week like some boulders they get i don't know how many attempts 5000 attempts in a week so that's quite a lot of and with this amount of attempts you can get quite objective uh you can you can see things you can start to see things and it's very different uh to the way route setters are currently working, where it's so feeling like.

Yeah. So introducing data -driven workflows in such artistic work, it's quite a hurdle, but I think it will work because after that we can maybe look into... Maybe the use of holds, for example, which holds are used a lot, which holds are being, what's the life expectancy of holds? Can they withstand that many foot placement on them and stuff like that? So you could start to gather quite a lot of data on how efficient your gym can become. Did you work in a climbing

gym before? these things in climate change? No, I've not. Actually, I have not. But yeah, we have talked to a lot of route setters and see how they are working. And there are many different workflows from one country to the next, from one gym to the next. There is a lot of different philosophies from what they want to provide to their customers. And of course, there are a lot of ethical questions. coming with it also. The big topic is how can that standardize climbing

and do we want to standardize climbing? In my opinion, it's probably not. I think climbing is so nice just because there is so much diversity

in climbing. So it's more like to give. feedback to people and then people decide what they want to do well like what do you mean by standardized like if you get some feedbacks on uh on your boulder and you see like this style of boulder is is very popular in your gym are you going to set only this type of boulder or do you want your customers to improve also in this style of climbing like in i don't know In one place, maybe people are very good at slabs. In another

place, they suck at slabs. Do you want to still set slabs and so people get better at slabs or you want to completely remove slabs from your gym and your customer just gets the tops they need? Yeah, so that, I mean, it already happens. There are some genes who don't want to necessarily have slabs. Makes sense. Yeah, that's a cool project. It's quite interesting, yeah. So, yeah,

in terms of getting into some of the audience -submitted questions now, do you ever personally re -watch comps for fun or to get better at your job? Or just because maybe you missed it because you didn't really get to watch it while you're working on it? Yes, I do. I started working at the FSC after because I was watching comps. And when I'm not doing World Cups, I'm doing most of the World Cups. So I'm never re -watching.

I'm never really watching World Cups events, but I'm watching other events that I'm not on. So just to check what is going on. But I'm probably not watching the full live from zero to finish. I'm skipping a bit. It's a dead time. Maybe skipping one athlete to go to the next boulder and stuff like that. So yes, I mean, if I'm watching to get better at my job, after a live, I know what was wrong and what was that. Yeah, what was not good. I know it right away. Besides the graphics,

I'm also in charge of the running order. So make sure that the graphics are displayed at the right time. But I'm also saying to the... When I'm working with my colleague, I'm telling him when to display what at what time. So I'm giving the countdowns all the time. And I know when the live streams is going well, there is a nice rhythm. We are well on time. for each deadlines on the TV breaks and stuff like that. I feel like the rhythm is good. The shots are moving quite well

after each other. And we debrief after. Usually we say what was good, what was not good. So after a live stream, we usually know what was good or not. And of course, we can go back to it and see, OK, at this moment, the colors were not good. The sound was a bit shaky. There was too many shots on the quick draw, for example. Last weekend, there was too many shots on the quick draws. So we're really happy about that. But

yeah, too much. So we know it for next time. Okay, last question. Actually, I don't really know if you would know the answer for this, but is it legal to be there and stream the whole event as a spectator? Actually, I don't think so. I would say no. I think it depends on which round it is. I know that for qualification, it would probably be possible. But for semifinals and finals, I don't think that would be possible. Yeah, I guess that makes sense because the local...

Broadcast team has the TV rights. Yeah, I mean, there are TV rights for sure. So even to have your camera and taking pictures, et cetera, you would need an accreditation. Like you got one in Keishao, I think. Yeah. And I know that there are some athletes who were doing some videos about... their competition and, like, you know, their vlog, how did it go in the semifinals, etc. And, yeah, they needed some accreditation for that, for example. A complicated process.

I guess you would have to ask. Yeah, it's probably not. If you want to install a camera on a tripod and to film the full qualifications, maybe. Maybe. I think they would be okay with that. But you

would need to ask, I think, before. For semifinals and finals, probably not. Cool. I think that is all the questions I had then. Thanks for joining me today. Is there anything you want to shout out or let people know where they could find you if they have further discussion topics? Yes. I mean, I have a quite confidential Instagram, but if you want to trash me on Instagram now, yeah, I'm Antonafareller. OK, I will leave the

link in the description. Any last minute thoughts, or you feel like you got everything out there? No, I think we have covered most of it. I will do my best to improve the predictions, but yeah. Good to hear. All right. Okay. Thank you again. And it was amazing to talk to you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you

are a super big climber. If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can continue the discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description. Thanks again for listening.