Super Bowl cameraman juggles to catch jingle
His mission: "I'm going to Disneyland!"
At crunch time at the Super Bowl, he'll rely on the confidence gained
from having been in the same precarious situation many times before.
To
avoid defeat, he'll rely on his savvy, quickness, toughness and anticipation,
along with his vision of the field. Millions of dollars are riding on
his shoulders.
Tom
Brady? Eli Manning?
No,
he's Mark Allan, a stocky, 61-year-old San Francisco native who lives
in Inverness. He has wielded a camera for 40 years. Today, the freelance
television cameraman's mission, as at many previous Super Bowls, is
to capture the key player of the victorious team in the frenzied seconds
immediately after the clock has run out.
Someday,
if he were so inclined, his epitaph could echo the triumphant words
he and his crew elicit from the day's hero: "I'm going to Disneyland!"
In
the commercial that will further immortalize the lucky player, an off-camera
voice says, "(Player's name), you've just won the Super Bowl. What are
you going to do now?"
American
sports have some oddball customs in their victory celebrations. The
Indy 500 winner chugs a bottle of milk. World Series winners shower
each other with Champagne, and the empty bottles fetch thousands of
dollars on the Internet. College football rivalries feature such trophies
as an old oaken bucket, an old brass spittoon, a couple of cannons and,
of course, an ax.
To
be sure, the Disneyland phrase is merely a commercial jingle, no more
spontaneous than a pregame flyover by F-18s. But it has become an NFL
tradition, and players (and their agents) have lobbied for the privilege.
It has spawned numerous parodies, some in Disney's own films.
Allan
has shot 18 of the spots, beginning with New York Giants quarterback
Phil Simms in 1987. Disney hires NFL Films to shoot them, then pays
a fortune to run the commercials on prime time for several days after
the Super Bowl.
The
player utters not only "I'm going to Disneyland!" but also "I'm going
to Disney World!" for the sake of East Coast audiences. He is asked
by a director to repeat each version three or four times, while Allan
implores him, "Look in the lens."
Allan
has no idea how much the player earns, but he says the player is obligated
to show up at one of the Disney theme parks soon after the Super Bowl,
preferably with a horde of smiling offspring, so that he and his family
can be treated like royalty.
Allan
is concerned strictly with the quality of the shot. Helmets on are better
than helmets off, he says; the appearance of spontaneity trumps full-face
recognition. Helmets are way better than those baseball caps that instantly
materialize after big football games. And a moving hero is a better
shot than a standing one.
Disney
officials decide the player, often in the final minute of play. The
chosen one, as Allan points out, isn't always the game's Most Valuable
Player.
And
sometimes a coach is involved. Colts running back Dominic Rhodes was
paired with coach Tony Dungy last year, making this the rare national
TV commercial on which Peyton Manning, the MVP, has not appeared.
Like
Manning, Allan was shut out on that spot, through no fault of his own.
In a Miami downpour, his lens had fogged up, so he couldn't see what
he was shooting.
What's
worse, one of the lights being used to illuminate the stage for the
trophy ceremony "was shining right between Dungy and Rhodes right down
the barrel of my lens, hitting the fog and flaring everything up."
His
shot was ruined, but another NFL Films crew got the shot and saved the
day. Rhodes joined the Raiders last off-season. In fact, you could win
more than a few bar bets on the premise that both the 49ers and Raiders,
despite the depths to which they have fallen, currently boast players
who have basked in the "I'm going to Disneyland" spotlight.
In
2001, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was chosen as the game's
MVP but was snubbed by Disney, apparently because he had been indicted
for murder a year earlier and eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor
charge of obstruction of justice.Instead,
Disney chose quarterback Trent Dilfer, now with the 49ers.
Two
players were shot for the spot in 1997, when Green Bay beat New England
35-21. Quarterback Brett Favre had a big day, but Desmond Howard was
the MVP because of his 99-yard kickoff return.
As
Allan was shooting Howard, he not only said the lines but then performed
a highly photogenic Lambeau Leap into the fans at the Louisiana Superdome.As
a result, if it were possible to be left on the cutting-room floor in
a world of video, that's where Favre was.
The
49ers' first Super Bowl, in 1982, was also a big occasion for Allan
and his new bride, TV producer/writer Susan Giacomini Allan. They were
spending part of their honeymoon in snowy Pontiac, Mich., where he was
assigned to shoot broadcasters Pat Summerall and John Madden for an
NFL Films feature on the how CBS covered the game.
Leaning
over the edge of the booth for his shot, Allan inadvertently obscured
Summerall's view of a Bengals' touchdown, causing him to misidentify
the scorer.
Allan
and his wife were working as a team trying to track down John Elway
for the Disney spot in Super Bowl XXXIII, Elway's final NFL game.
Trouble
was, so were a few thousand other media people. "We're in this sea of
humanity," Allan said. "Susan has me by the belt, and here's Bubby Brister,
the backup quarterback, kind of protecting John. She yells at Brister,
'We're with Disney! We've gotta get John!' And Bubby really gets into
it. He's now doing crowd control for us. John's moving. His helmet is
still on. That was one of the best ones we did."
Allan
has been shot at while taping segments in helicopters for CBS' "60 Minutes"
and ABC's "20/20." He also was rammed by Raiders cornerback Dwayne O'Steen
at the 1980 AFC Championship Game. "I never felt the hit, but I remember
seeing my feet up in the air," he said.
Getting
ready to shoot Washington's Mark Rypien for Disney after Super Bowl
XXVI in 1992, Allan received "a crushing blow" in the back, then another
hit. He recovered, got the quarterback to repeat his lines while holding
his young daughter - "a million times better." Then he turned around
to find that the photographer who had hit him had been decked, probably
by a security guard.
Like
the game itself, this can be a violent assignment. It can also be nerve-racking.
After the 49ers dusted Denver 55-10 in 1990, Joe Montana had done the
Disneyland lines and gotten through one Disney World try.
Then,
a cool eye in the midst of chaos, Montana noticed that the cable between
Allan's camera and the sound man's equipment was severed. As the sound
man tried to assess the damage, Montana raced off. Allan said he and
his crew were "sweating bullets" until they reached their viewing station
and found they had just enough good material. Otherwise, they would
have had to track Montana down in the locker room, where the shot would
have looked too staged.
Allan's
most memorable Super Bowl experience was the only spot in which the
player didn't utter the word "Disney." In honor of the troops fighting
in Kuwait, the MVP of the Giants-Bills game in 1991 was going to be
given a small U.S. flag and say, "I'm dedicating this one to our troops."
With New York ahead 20-19, Buffalo's Scott Norwood lined up a 48-yard
field goal try in the closing seconds.
Allan's
instructions were to grab Giants running back Ottis Anderson if the
Bills didn't pull the game out. Norwood's kick was wide right, so Allan
dutifully scrambled across the field. His director handed the flag to
Anderson, who performed his lines flawlessly. "I feel a tap on my shoulder,"
Allan said. "It's Bart Oates, the (Giants) center. He says, 'Get off
the field.' I look at the clock, and there's four seconds left. (Jeff)
Hostetler's still got to kneel down. "I look around, and there's 11
Bills and 11 Giants, myself, my sound man and the Disney director in
the middle of the field. What are you going to do? You can't crawl into
a hole."Allan
ran to the end zone and "hid behind the goal post," he said.
The
embarrassment subsided because the lines Anderson rendered after the
game weren't as good as the earlier ones. "It's fun at the end," Allan
said. "There's a lot of pressure, but there's a certain amount of excitement
to get into a crowd of people, all trying to do their job, and fight
your way through and get the line. There's a lot of pride involved."
by
Tom FitzGerald...www.sfgate.com
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