Week 3: Can't Get Any Better Than This

Honestly, this week was somewhat a blur. It seems like a mixture between a dream and being star struck with my brushes with the England athletes. Regardless, I've learned a lot and experienced my first game with the England seniors, national team.

The beginning of the week was more of a waiting game than anything. The FATV team and I ventured to the Arsenal training grounds and The Grove hotel to document the England seniors as they prepped and bonded before their Euro 2012 Cup qualifier against Switzerland on Saturday. As the boys practiced, played golf and table tennis, we were there to document as much as we could to show the behind-the-scene experience of England's greatest footballers. All this footage will later be edited and used to create a long-form DVD about the seniors' team road to the Euro Cup. Between practices, pressers and interviews, some FATV-ers would edit packages... or find something to do. This translated into playing their own games of table tennis, eating or roaming the absolutely beautiful grounds of The Grove estate.

As usual, my role during this entire process was pretty simple. I shadowed the videographers, asking them question after question about their journalistic techniques: How do you shoot beauty shots differently than you shoot game or training footage? What's your motivation behind pans, zooms and focus changes? How do you decide the types of shots - wide, medium, tight - to get during situations where there isn't a lot of movement? I was a lot more assertive this week, asking to try my hand at filming in their style, making suggestions when editing and such.

Gameday was really when I felt useful, although I was doing a bunch of the typical intern duties. Three cups of coffee - one with milk and sugar, one just milk and one black - six bottles of water, four orange juices, and three Diet Cokes... I fetched them all Saturday morning before the game. I ran up and down eight flights of stairs at Wembley Stadium multiple times to fetch guests from the front office and help them through security. I carried cables and tripods, kept track of paperwork and even found and returned the hair gel of one of the guests. It sounds bleak, but it was all worth it.

New Indy band, Brother, takes Wembley Stadium, performing for the first time at the historic venue on Saturday, June 4.

Saturday morning, I helped set up equipment for the FATV recording of an up and coming UK indy band called Brother. I helped them through security, gave them directions and felt like I got ample time to chat and get to know them. During their live, acoustic performance, I took pictures of my own and assisted a videographer. The rest of the morning I was instructed to "babysit" the band, which basically allowed me to hang out with them for an hour before escorting them to their next appointment at Wembley.

The Switzerland national team leaves the tunnel to enter the field and warm up before kick-off.

The rest of the day, I was stationed in the tunnel where all the players pass to and from the locker rooms and the pitch. Words can't describe how incredible that atmosphere was. I assisted the videographers here by keeping an eye out for specific players and happenings within the tunnel. This seems mundane, but it actually required that I have knowledge of the players and key personnel of the England squad, things I've been able to pick up on in the past couple weeks. My time to shine came when FATV's producer asked me to conduct interviews with the child mascots for the day's game, getting them to show their excitement about meeting the team and walking onto the field for the national anthem. This was used for a very simple segment on the FATV YouTube site, but it was the first sign to show that they know I'm capable of more than just observing.

Check back for more blogs about the gameday atmosphere at Wembley Stadium!

As the England seniors warm up behind me as I cheese on the sidelines.

All 22 children are interviewed after taking the field for the national anthems of Switzerland and England, holding hands with the teams' starters. These lucky kids with such duties are called "mascots," and many of them won this opportunity by entering a McDonald's drawing.