California Pro Am - August 23-25, 2024

[Horton]

 

California Pro Am - August 23-25, 2024

• Official web page https://www.caproam.com/
• WaterSki Pro Tour https://www.waterskiprotour.com/
• WaterSki Results https://scores.waterskiresults.com/Tournament?SN=25W035&FM=1&SY=0
• Saturday Webcast https://www.youtube.com/live/nwRy0LQQBMo?si=grG4IhD4vlJpXY7p
• Sunday Webcast https://www.youtube.com/live/fvEXRpAgwto?si=Z5RYOTlZEr_T6P-3

[Horton]

final running orders https://www.caproam.com/copy-of-confirmed-skiers

[Cooper_Trelawney]

Feels like it's been a minute.  Ready to see some pro water ski competition!

[Slalom.Steve]

Stacked line up. Lookin' forward to this.

[jjackkrash]

This looks like a great lineup and a great event.  It makes me sad for no Hilltop though.  

[Brokenstack]

Webcast so far is pretty decent.   No complaints.

[B_S]

Impressive 1st round. Watching Nate get back into his 41 after that 1 ball was something else!

[LeonL]

I'd say the webcast is excellent.

[bishop8950]

I love being a part of the CaProAm every year.  Amazing skiing, great sites and great people.  Happy to have a front row seat to all the action and looking forward to a great set of finals on Sunday!

[thager]

Finals time info?

[bishop8950]

[Mateo_Vargas]

@bishop8950 is doing a great job announcing 

[Bill22]

What happened to Corey’s round 1 score of 2 1/4? Why did it get downgraded to 2? 

[Cooper_Trelawney]

@bishop8950 great announcing! Detrick too!

[Andre]

Webcast is excellent quality!  Way up from other years... Congrats@ Kevin!

[bishop8950]

Horton at work in the wild

[Kelvin]

9 hours ago, Bill22 said:

What happened to Corey’s round 1 score of 2 1/4? Why did it get downgraded to 2? 

After video review, he ran over 3 ball. 

[TMay]

Congrats to Nate & Whitney! Thanks for sharing the webcast !!

[Horton]

every time I see pictures of me on a podium or walking around the lake, I look so grumpy? I'm not really that grumpy am I?

[thager]

 Oh, No, glorious Galactic Baller # 1 🪐.  You are the happiest, ungrumpy , and level headed Leader of all time!

[Horton]

@thager that is almost Panda worthy 🙂

[MitchellM]

21 hours ago, bishop8950 said:

Horton at work in the wild

Get any decent photos?

[Horton]

@MitchellM

 

 

 

 

 

Best thing that I saw/heard at Cal Pro last weekend is in the below YouTube. It should start at Freddy's second jump in the finals. You can not hear it on the webcast but the scream of joy he made when he heard his distance is a testament to his passion for jumping. 

 

[Hallpass]

4 hours ago, Horton said:

every time I see pictures of me on a podium or walking around the lake, I look so grumpy? I'm not really that grumpy am I?

My observation, you are really busy at tournaments - skier, parent of a skier, judge, announcer, sometimes the host.  You are probably thinking about dozens of things at once.  Then, pretty much everyone at the Lake knows who you are, even if you don't know who they are.  So, I suspect you get stopped and interrupted a lot.  

It's not natural to stop  in the middle of what you are doing and say "gee, I better look happy" particularly when you are thinking about lots of things at once, and running from task to task, etc.

Oh, and water skiing is your job.

Happens to me all the time at work.

 

[MitchellM]

21 minutes ago, Horton said:

@MitchellM

Scary, but you look happy (not grumpy).  Any photos of competitors you took with that longish lens?

[Horton]

@MitchellM

Yea I know what you were asking 🙂

I am about 1/2 way editing down all the images. Lots of good stuff.

[ROBOT]

[APB]

Amazing webcast!!!! Great knowledge and information. I’m liking that a lot more recently in webcasts. Zane Nicholson was so good last week.

I like head to head. It’s fun to watch, but man there’s such a disadvantage to the skiers that go out second. I would love to see the opportunity for ties in head to head. Heated runoffs… When we’re dealing with such tight scores it would definitely make it a lot more interesting, having a beat someone by a full buoy when everyone is essentially skiing the same is pretty crazy. 

[Andre]

18 hours ago, Kelvin said:

After video review, he ran over 3 ball. 

Sorry I called you Kevin.

Great job on the webcast!  Maybe a bit of boat sound when skier is in the course...

[NZskier]

Sounds like I’m in a minority, but I walked away from watching this webcast underwhelmed and confused as to who the audience is for this event.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of any of the individuals involved. What Kelvin does with limited resources always blows my mind and the expert analysis from Blaze, Matt, Poochie, and others was excellent.

But I struggle to see how an 8-hour long coaching clinic is drawing anyone in except the faithful few. Why was an hour-plus zero consequence ‘practice’ jump round scheduled during prime viewing (immediately following the slalom finals)? Was announcing an afterthought? It felt like they pulled in whichever skier or coach was willing to help out at the last minute.

Maybe the goal is to create a quality video stream accompanied by technical analysis for the same several hundred (maybe a thousand or two?) die hard water ski fans to watch. If so then they knocked it out of the park. I just feel like maybe we could be setting our sights a little higher?

[Cooper_Trelawney]

A 49 yr old man who still jumps over 230' and is still ranked as one of the best 3 jumpers in the world, is a story more people (not just waterski fans) should hear about.  It is an athletic achievement for his age that goes up there with other stories of great older athletes such as Jack Nicklaus, Nolan Ryan or Tom Brady.

Idk...is that hyperbole?

[bishop8950]

To be fair, I baited @Horton with some stupid comment before I ambushed him with that picture.  I don’t find him grumpy at all regardless of his expressions! 

[Horton]

@bishop8950

yeah I'm sorry I can't let you have credit. I had been standing around in the sun trying to take pictures for long enough by that point that I'm pretty sure I did have that old man grumpy face

[bishop8950]

The team at the CaProAm works hard to improve every year and welcomes constructive criticism as well as praise!  Thank you for the flood of support and positive feedback on the announcing from those on site, finding me privately and here on the forum.

 

So many incredible performances over the weekend but easy to call out where we finished.  I agree with @Horton and @Cooper_Trelawney watching Fred win on one massive jump was an awesome moment for the weekend.  What he continues to accomplish is incredible and speaks volumes to his talent, his work ethic and his passion. 

 

[jjackkrash]

As an aside, I loved seeing the camera view that so clearly caught the rope angle in relation to the locker crease and boat speaker on the gate pull out.  Props to Ryan Canepa; I think he was several inches higher on the boat on turn in than pretty much any other skier I watched.  I guess I am one of the geeks the show was meant for, but I absolutely loved this aspect of the video feed.   

[bishop8950]

@NZskier First, the goal of the event is to put on a great pro event for pro skiers.  Second, we want to put on a high quality webcast to highlight the athletes and promote our sponsors while bringing the live action to fans.  

 

Regarding the schedule of events, you must have missed the fact that we had weather delays on Saturday that pushed the men’s jump prelim round to Sunday while it was originally scheduled for Saturday evening.  Adjusting the schedule to run it where we did made the most sense for many reasons.   As for the fact jump prelims were of no consequence, that’s a fair point and is already in consideration for future events.  

 

Since I was chief announcer I will take this comment “was announcing an afterthought?” as a direct criticism of this “individual”.  But that’s ok, I have thick skin and I do want to improve any way I can.  But I don’t see how having Matt/Loren/Blaze announcing jump requiring any improvement.   If you are saying we could have had someone better than me sitting with Matt for the men’s jump prelim, maybe so, but that is the way it worked out this year.  It is a high priority to have the best people I available on the mic all weekend long and the planning for next year is already underway.  

 

As for an “8hr coaching clinic”, please be more specific about what you think would be an improvement?  Less coaching clinic and set our sights higher for what?

[LeonL]

The webcast was great.  If any critique, I would gave preferred a bit more zoomed in from the boat camera. Skiers looked pretty small.  Live action.  Replay was ok.

[bishop8950]

@LeonL agreed and that is on the list.  

[Zman]

Great job by all!  As for the "coaching clinic" - I loved it all.  Some great pointers were brought out with a few that I will definitely focus on as I ski this week.

I doubt anyone, or certainly not many, who are not really into this sport were watching. Maybe those who are far better than me don't need the coaching comments?

I especially liked the 2 replays between each pass from 2 different vantage ponts. Nice!

Thanks for bringing a really great tournament to us!

[NZskier]

@bishop8950 apologies if that came across as an individual criticism, definitely was not my intention. I’m assuming you were the guy announcing with Brian during slalom and with Matt for jump. You’re clearly very knowledgeable about slalom and I thought you also did a fine job of prompting Matt with questions during jump.

I’m venting about what I see as a broader issue and it’s probably unfair to be picking on this event specifically. But at the risk of offending more people I will try to offer my 2 cents as a constructive criticism.

Regardless of whether that jump event was on Saturday, as originally scheduled, or Sunday, having the men’s field cut down from 10 to 6 or 8 for the finals would have made it much more exciting. Imagine the drama of Jack Critchley, who eventually podiumed, potentially missing out on the finals. Instead we got a tensionless hour of broadcast.

On the announcing side, it felt to me like you had an incredible group of highly knowledgeable experts who filled the traditional ‘colour commentary’ role well. I would group your style of announcing in that category and I think you executed very well. We’re extremely lucky in this sport to have so many articulate athletes and coaches who volunteer their time to help out.

What this event lacked, in my opinion, was an experienced play-by-play announcer(s). Someone who can build the excitement, bring up the volume levels and inflection (when appropriate), and really get a casual viewer engaged. Joel’s 225’ in a tailwind and then Freddy’s winning jump were incredibly exciting, but by having two relatively inexperienced athletes in the booth we captured very little of that through the webcast. It’s not that Poochie or Blaze did a bad job, I was so impressed with Blaze I was personally texting him my kudos during the event, it’s just that neither of them have any experience in that play-by-play role.

The ’coaching clinic’ remark was an oversimplification of what I often see happen when you put two ‘colour commentators’ in the booth and the broadcast becomes dedicated to in-depth analysis of technique. I understand the appeal to avid water ski fans, but suspect it is not very engaging to more casual viewers.

 

[Kelvin]

20 hours ago, Andre said:

Maybe a bit of boat sound when skier is in the course...

That's a slippery slope . . . 

[dvskier]

I I’ve watched this event for many, many years. The broadcast is exceptional, especially since the club pays out a great deal to the winners and top placement skiers. I believe that plus an excellent site is what contributes to bring in the top skiers to this event.

[Kelvin]

4 hours ago, LeonL said:

If any critique, I would gave preferred a bit more zoomed in from the boat camera. Skiers looked pretty small.

I don't disagree.  Remember, this is a pro event at an awesome sight.  The promoters want the best possible skiing conditions for the skiers.  Hence, only 2 people in the boat.  If you watched prior years, the boat video was not live and was hit or miss at best.   This year I worked with the TC to use a GoPro mounted on a SkiDoc transmitted to shore.  It's not an ideal solution, but it worked pretty well all the way around.  If you notice on the boat video, the skier is traveling from one side of the screen to the other.  We had to keep the field of view wide or you comments would be about crappy cameras that can't keep the skier in the frame.  One potential alternative is to turn off the stabilization, but then the picture would jump around at every hookup.  We have gained some knowlegde and will continue with testing.

[Garn]

19 hours ago, Cooper_Trelawney said:

A 49 yr old man who still jumps over 230' and is still ranked as one of the best 3 jumpers in the world, is a story more people (not just waterski fans) should hear about.  It is an athletic achievement for his age that goes up there with other stories of great older athletes such as Jack Nicklaus, Nolan Ryan or Tom Brady.

Idk...is that hyperbole?

Outside of our little waterski world, nobody cares.

[Drago]

1 hour ago, Garn said:

Outside of our little waterski world, nobody cares.

Yeah, I doubt a waterski webcast gets a lot of casual viewers 

[bishop8950]

@NZskier Yes, I co-announced all of slalom (with Brian, Corey and Allie) and women’s prelim jump with Matt. My goal was to get experienced professionals to volunteer on the mic to share their wealth of knowledge and perspective while making things more interesting. Thank you so much Allie, Corey, Brian, Matt, Lauren, Blaze and Alec for doing a great job and making the broadcast great!  I deeply appreciate your support   

 

I understand what you are saying on the difference between “knowledgeable color” vs “exciting play by play”.   You are right, my personal style is more the former and I knew going in I would be true that style.  

 

While reflecting, I recall previous CAProAms that were after the ESPN/ODN glory days and before webcasting was a thing.  Only way to see was on site.  Makes me appreciate that we have so many pro events available to the masses through different webcast companies, announcing styles etc.  Not saying we should be complacent because we should all strive for continuous improvement.  Just staying grounded after a fantastic event this past weekend.  

[Jibbo]

5 hours ago, Kelvin said:

This year I worked with the TC to use a GoPro mounted on a SkiDoc transmitted to shore.  It's not an ideal solution, but it worked pretty well all the way around.

The video from the boat was crisp and clear with almost no shudder from the rope slack. The stabilization of the Gopro was excellent and the transmission from the boat was great. (what tech were you using to transmit the video from the boat out of curiosity?) I would prefer smooth clear video of the skier than a shaky closeup shot.

Yes it could have been zoomed in a bit closer to the skier, but the shoreline camera work gave great closeups of the skier in the replays.

Also thought the replays both from the shore and the boat filled the time in between passes well. As these finished, the skier was being pulled up for the next pass.

A big jump in improvement from previous years, well done to all that provided this "free" coverage.

[NZskier]

Amen on how great it is as a fan to have live webcasts of most pro events! I volunteer to help at TWBC events every chance I get, and I’m not normally in the habit of donating my time to for profit companies.

For those outside of Kevin who maybe aren’t following the subtle distinction I’m trying to make, bear with me as I try to make an American sports analogy. Imagine it’s the final seconds of the deciding game in the NBA finals. Steph Curry is open outside the circle, gets passed the ball, and shoots for a 3-pointer that will decide the series. The announcer would never stop to analyse the angle of his elbow, or how he times his release. Instead a good play-by-play basketball announcer, I’m guessing, would say something along the lines of “10 seconds left on the clock… Thompson finds Curry in space.. one shot to decide the title… Curry shoots… IT’S IN! HE FINDS THE BASKET! … from behind the 3-point line… the Warriors have done it!”

Would there be in-depth analysis of that shot? I’m sure - in the post-match, in podcasts, youtube videos, you name it. But a good play-by-play announcer can make a moment like that engaging for everyone from the most avid basketball fan to someone like me that barely understands the game.

The point is if you’re reading this forum you’re in the top 1% of waterski fans in the world. You’re likely watching no matter what. And in-depth technical analysis is probably really interesting to you. As one of these 1%ers I’m stoked anytime there’s a webcast. I’d watch grainy end course video footage of women’s tricks with only nails on a chalkboard for audio.

That’s why I’m trying to play devil’s advocate and give constructive criticism. Because we only ever hear from the die hard fans that watch no matter what, never the casual fans that, I suspect, we’re not doing a good job of engaging. I think events can do better. There’s an incredible amount of work that goes into running an event like the California ProAm, in raising that much money, and I have to believe the organisers want to reach more people than the faithful few.

[Than_Bogan]

There are exactly zero casual viewers of 10 hours of waterskiing.  Please don't cater any of the broadcast to this nonexist audience.

If we really want to try to involve some casual fans, somebody would need to edit -- and create special commentary for -- some VERY short clips.

Honestly doubt that's worth anyone's time, but it at least *could* appeal to casual audience.

[rockdog]

@NZskier I understand what you're asking for which is a sports commentator as opposed to expert analysis. But those 'bring the hype' type commentators are hard to come by in a sport that has no external audience, they are doing the football on ESPN or whatever. Someone like this would need to know the sport inside and out but at the same time dumb it down a bit to fit in some color/flavor/laughs. Exactly like the days of old really.