Page 76 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Televised Sport • 65

England three lions logo, positioned at the centre of the red and white St George’s

cross, the English flag. The three lions were replaced by the championship trophy,
with the BBC Sport logo superimposed, changing into the words ‘Match of the Day
Live’. Within this title sequence, the colours of the pitch and the crowd in the stadium
were distorted as they passed beneath the shapes of the three lions but otherwise ap-
peared bright and naturalistic. The sequence, with its deliberate image manipulation,
emphasised the realist conventions of live football television.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup match between England and Japan was introduced
in similar terms to the men’s match—‘a win is a must’—but the title sequence was
very different. Opening with a grey landscape evoking Chinese brush paintings, with
accompanying sounds of crickets and the wind rustling through foliage, the camera

panned across pink flowers and a turquoise butterfly, as Chinese calligraphy slowly
appeared, only to suddenly transform into a female footballer taking an athletic over-
head shot at a ball. On contact with the player’s foot, the ball transformed into the
head of a Chinese dragon with a multicoloured tail, and the soundtrack changed to
the Match of the Day theme tune. As the tail of the dragon swooped across a grey
cityscape, it curled around more Chinese letters that scattered and reassembled in the
form of female footballers. All the players were shown in long shot, making them

difficult to identify. Finally, the dragon’s tail wound around the World Cup trophy,
before trailing off screen. The sequence ended with a shot of the trophy in an empty
stadium and the intermingled titles for Match of the Day/BBC Sport/FIFA Women’s
World Cup 2007 appearing on top of the image. The colours and images appeared
nonnaturalistic and stylised throughout the introduction.

Live Sport Action

Ryall’s (1975) analysis of the visual style of the televising of the 1974 World Cup led
him to distinguish four main shot types used during a match:

1. primary image or normal shot: shots from a camera in the grandstand, halfway
up, in line with the halfway line, constituting the normal view of the game, ‘suf-

ficiently close to the play to enable a comprehensible image to be formed . . .
and far enough away from the immediate action to give some sense of its con-
tent’ (Ryall 1975: 38)
2. secondary image A or close shot: shots from a camera in the same position,
offering a closer view of the action
3. secondary image B or goal shot: shots from cameras positioned behind each
goal, for goal mouth action and ‘action replays’
4. secondary image C or bench shot: shots from cameras on the touchline
near the halfway line for images on the trainer’s bench, the substitutes, and
so on.