The best view at the Hall of Fame Open is from the top of the South stands on Stadium Court. When I was there yesterday, I saw the camera at the very top of the bleachers to film the tennis. Today, I got a chance to talk to the man behind that camera: Andreas Wu. Here is our conversation.
The Racket: What are your favorite and least favorite parts of being a cameraperson?
Andreas Wu: I enjoy doing the games because I enjoy sports in general, so I enjoy watching it and getting entertaining shots. I’ve always been into sports and also media in general. I’m more of a film person, but I like to put out content that gets people entertained, so that’s one of my favorite parts about it. Maybe the long days aren’t so much my favorite, but it comes with the job, and by the end of the day, you get used to it.
The Racket: What’s an aspect of your job that the general public, or the general tennis fan, wouldn’t know about?
Andreas Wu: This is not as easy as it looks. Sometimes, especially during this age of technology, everyone says ‘oh, you know, I can just shoot it on my phone, right?’ Because technology now is so advanced that you can get very high quality stuff on just an average iPhone. But knowing aspects of broadcasting and what you see on TV, you don’t realize how much work is put into it because you’ve just been watching TV and it’s like ‘oh, it’s just another regular shot of someone’s face and their emotions,’ or ‘oh, someone’s doing basketball, someone’s just doing a jump shot.’ There’s a lot more preparation to get into those shots and that’s something that’s underestimated.
The Racket: What’s your favorite surface to film on and why?
Andreas Wu: I haven’t done clay yet. I’ve done hard and grass. I guess maybe more the hard courts because it’s indoor, the variable of weather is not much of an importance because you’re always indoors. Delays don’t happen as much, and you don’t get rained out, and you don’t have to worry about equipment getting damaged.
The Racket: The grass here is probably the color of a court most similar to a tennis ball. When you film, do you use a filter to make sure the ball is easy to track on here?
Andreas Wu: I wouldn’t say so, but there are some settings in the monitor maybe I use so that [pauses] I think it’s more greyed out so that it’s a lighter shade.
The Racket: There’s a debate among tennis fans sometimes over what angle is the best to watch a tennis match from, between the overhead angle and court level. What’s your personal preference?
Andreas Wu: I generally like to see everything. Granted, you get to be closer and see and hear more of the players when you’re closer, but when you actually are a little further, not so much too far away, but where my angle is — where I usually go up there and I’m the replay camera for tough shots — I like that angle because I get to see how the players move and how the players adjust their positioning to incoming shots, or drop shots.
The Racket: When you’re focusing on the camera to get a shot, do you ever have to remind yourself to enjoy the tennis itself?
Andreas Wu: No, when I work I generally try and put that aside, because I’ve been in those positions before where I enjoy the match too much, and it sort of degrades the quality of my work because you don’t get focused. Big points are crucial to be focused on, because it could come down to your camera to make the whole show, or they want to see something on replay, and if you’re the only angle that gets it and you don’t get it, then it’s a problem.
The Racket: Do you have a role in helping make highlights for the ATP?
Andreas Wu: I don’t, I’m more for production and straight to live. I do have editing experience myself, but no, I haven’t done anything for the ATP.
The Racket: Yesterday, the Kevin Anderson-Illya Marchenko match was interrupted by a rabbit running on court. When you’ve been filming, what’s been the weirdest interruption?
Andreas Wu: Here, maybe that probably has been the weirdest. That rabbit going on the court…I’ve seen them around. It was only a matter of time before that rabbit got on. But generally, most of the tennis stuff that I’ve done, security’s pretty tight. So there’s not gonna be any fans running on the court or anything like that. The worst you’re probably gonna get is some person shouting and the umpire telling them to calm down, so not too crazy in tennis.
The Racket: What’s the best match that you’ve ever seen while filming, or in general?
Andreas Wu: I think the most interesting match I’ve done is probably the New York Open with Jason Jung [who is playing in Newport today against Brayden Schnur] and Opelka [won by Jung 5-7, 6-4, 6-4]. That was a pretty intense match and I think it was an upset, too, because Opelka was ranked higher. That was probably the most intense and interesting match I’ve done.