HSE Students Joined the Olympic Games in Sochi

More than 160 HSE students are helping to organize the Winter Olympic Games broadcast from Sochi.

The Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is the agency of the International Olympic Committee that provides the Olympics broadcast for different countries. The agency also organizes broadcast training programmes in Olympic host countries. The HSE and several other universities are partners of the OBS in Russia.

 ‘Thanks to the cooperation between the HSE and the Olympic Broadcasting Services, our students have had the opportunity to take part in the Olympic Games coverage,’ says Anna Kachkayeva, Dean of the Faculty of Media Communications, ‘they will see how a unique media performance is organised, they will work with a team of professionals from around the world, and will learn the ins and outs of global broadcasting.’

In February 2013, the OBS training centre was organised at the HSE Faculty of Media Communications. About 300 successful applicants have been studying,at the OBS training centre since February 2013. The students have been mastering various roles, including camera assistant, assistant sound engineer, assistant commentator, assistant logician, and document and archive assistant.

Folowing the training the OBS staff had two rounds of interviews with the applicants. Fluent English was required for participation in the project, since students needed to work with international crews. As a result, more than 160 HSE students went to Sochi. The majority of them study at the Faculty of Media Communications, the School of Integrated Communications, and the Faculty of Politics, though there are also students from other HSE faculties.

Students’ Comments

Maxim Grachev, second-year student of the HSE Faculty of Media Communications, Assistant Commentator:

— It’s been almost a month since I started working as an assistant commentator at the Olympic Games, now we are preparing and checking the equipment, which, of course, must work perfectly during the broadcast. We are working in an the international team, my immediate boss is American, and my colleagues are from England and Greece.

Isabella Prusskaya, second-year student at the Faculty of Law, Audio Assistant:

— I will work during the hockey broadcasts from the Bolshoi Ice Dome. I have been preparing for this job for almost a year, I’ve studied special vocabulary and ice hockey rules, as well as taking a course for audio assistants.

Nikita Maltsev, four-year student of the International College of Economics and Finance, Utility Assistant:

— Our goal is to help broadcasting engineers, responsible for the smooth transmission of images from sport facilities to those TV channels which have acquired the broadcasting rights. I work wth a Canadian crew, which is always hired by the OBS for filming the curling competitions and other events.

Victoria Nosik, third-year student of the Faculty of Media Communications, Audio Assistant:

— I have always been interested in working with sound, and I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to study its technical aspect, and that’s why I chose to be audio assistant. I understood that I made the right choice during the theoretical and practical lessons of Dennis Baxter, OBS Sound Designer. He managed to explain the theoretical basics of sound design during sport events, and then we practiced them. We went to a volleyball arena, where we learnt to assemble microphones, to locate them, and to work as part of a team. In Sochi I have the opportunity to apply all my new skills. I’m working as audio assistant on a ski trail; we assemble and locate microphones so that we can hear not only the cheers of the supporters, but also the sounds of the forest, ski race, and even the competitors breathing. This activity impresses me a lot, I like snowy mountains and sunlight, meeting new friends and doing an interesting job.

Liudmila Mezentseva, the HSE News Service