WE GOT EYES ON TEAM PILIPINAS
The original plan and the one thing that I asked for from our AAU crew in London was to take pictures. It doesn't need to be an amazing layout or fantastic sky battle. I even gave them specifics. The pictures that I would love to see are photos of them walking around London, enjoying the city, photo of fellow players sleeping and eating, selfies , groupfies (or whatever the heck you call it) or anything fun that they wanted to share to us back home. That's it. That's how we want it here in All About U. We want it to be a no pressure, fun kind of coverage. Because that's how it is supposed to be. Fun. So we selected some people that we think could help us on finding some fun, good quality images. And they are Dada Libo-on of Trident Active Lifestyle, playing for TP Mixed team, Sheilamar Gascon of the Binibinis, Daisy Cimafranca of Mulatto Produksyon, Marielle Maglaya of SP Black and also one of the support crew of the Mixed team, together with our AAU members and photographers, Chlods Manguerra and Tajji Pasigna who both played for Mixed, and last but certainly not the least, Mr. Brian Canniff of UltiPhotos who Voluntarily asked us to be our guest photographer for the tournament. Who am I to say "No" to the man behind some of the greatest ultimate photos we have ever seen online? Our London crew is set, and they sure did delivered!
Before the opening day of the Worlds Ultimate and Guts Championships, I saw Cess Trinidad of the Binibinis post a live feed of them throwing discs at a park near their neighborhood. After a few minutes, another live feed was posted, of them running on the side of a lake searching for two more members of the Binibinis (No they didn't jumped off the lake, I promise) I said to myself, I think it would be nice to have some sort of brief FB live feeds on the AAU page once in a while, letting us know what they are up to. So I asked Sheila If she can convince Cess to post some Live feeds on the page. Luckily, she said yes.
June 19, 2016. Cess went Live while she was holding our Flag in the opening day. Seeing the Philippine Flag being raised, witnessed by hundreds (or even a thousand?) of Ultimate Athletes around the globe, gave me goosebumps and lots of pride while I was watching it on my phone, walking on the powdery white sand of Boracay heading Karen Cabrera's way, telling her, "We Are Live!" We were so quiet while we were watching the feed. I don't know what Karen's thoughts are during that night, but all that I could think of was, "Damn, wish I was there witnessing it in person with my own eyes.... and lenses!"
THE UNEXPECTED THING HAPPENED.
While I was waiting for some photo updates from our AAU crew minutes before the Mixed - Israel game, Chlods sent a message saying that Marielle needs a full access on the AAU page in order for her to start the feed. I immediately gave her access, and waited on what will happen next. I was expecting a short 5 minute FB live, just to give us a short glimpse of the game. But, Marielle did something extraordinary. She covered the whole game under a cold, rainy London weather. I shared the live feed link to all our followers in Facebook and in just a few minutes, you can see the Live feed views rising up rapidly. From 50, it went up to 150. 200. 350 views, it even reached 500+ at some point. The numbers keep on rising. The comment box went on fire every second of the game, and it wasn't just us who were there watching the games, even some other folks from other countries checking out Marielle's live feed. The atmosphere was electric. It was one of the busiest night in the history of All About U page. The hair at the back of my neck raised like Valak appeared right in front of me, it was frightening yet so exciting. Marielle gave us one full coverage of the game, and from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, the whole community became one.
The Binibinis and Masters crew followed suit on the FB Live Craziness. With Cess and Daisy Cimafranca heading the charge, they convinced a couple more folks to help on the coverage. While the phone cameras captured the action, Cess continued to make us proud on the playing field and Daisy continued snapping some photo highlights on the sidelines of the Masters game. It became an all out effort from all the Filipinos who were there in St. Albans. Everyone really tried to help out in order for us to see the games. Big thanks to Kish, Danzoy, April, Nelson and Ping Bautista joined the fun. We are really grateful to have friends like you all.
One of the things that make the coverage great was that, the Live feeds was not only for us to witness the games, but also gave us access to send our greetings to our friends, teammates, families and loved ones. One moment that touched me the most was when Junthir Flores of TP Masters, used our live feed as a tool to send His love to his wife, Raquel and his newly born son who was in the hospital, telling them how much he loved him and missed them, and that he is okay. That moment right there really hit the spot for me, making me realize that what we did during WUGC coverage was bigger than just showing the games to our countrymen.
WHEN WE ALL SLEPT AT 4:30am.
June 24, 2016. It was the day where most of the games were cancelled due to heavy rain and flooding of the playing fields. It was also the day where it was pouring in Bocaray. So we stayed indoors. But we kept ourselves updated on what was going on in St. Albans. The London crew gave us all the updates that they could get, and it was confirmed that the Mixed-USA quarterfinal game is a go. So we rallied the troops in Facebook, told them that we got game at 12:30am. Immediately the good people of our community shared the update to everyone and we are all set for 12:30am. An hour before game time we had another update from the crew in London, telling us that the Mixed-USA game will be again delayed due to thunder and lightning and they were advised to stay indoors for safety. We informed everyone about the sad news, but to our surprise, the Ultimate community stayed on. They are willing to stay up all night to support our team. So we need to think of something to keep them occupied during the waiting game. We asked the London crew to send us some short video clips on what was happening during the delay, we asked the community to send us photos and videos of them sending their best wishes for the team, and some of them sure did send in some photos and videos. Even the Binibinis threw in a short video inside a Mc Donald's in London! Finally, at 2:58am of the 25th of June, we got eyes on Mixed - USA game. 250 fired up viewers are still up at 3:00am cheering them on. Though we didn't get the result that we all wanted on that game, the support from the Philippine Ultimate community was overwhelming.
The last day of the coverage was a tough one where both Mixed and the Binibinis had their game scheduled at the same time. I was watching the Mixed game on my phone, watching the Binibinis game on my laptop while monitoring the chat box and the live score feed on the WUGC website. The Masters game came in live after an hour break. It was super fun, a lot of work, and it was all worth it. Serving the community is all so worth it.
In the end, these five days of amazing Ultimate experience will never be possible without the hardworking AAU crew in London, who spent their time and money to deliver live feed broadcasts for all of us to see. They battled the sun and rain and the freezing cold London weather every single day, battling for positions with the rest of the people in the sideline just to get a good view of the games, "Nasisita na sila ng mga staff pero tuloy parin silang kumuha ng videos." That is Guerilla Sports Coverage at its finest. As raw as it gets. No filters, just pure and real. And these are all because of U, Philippine Ultimate. We are doing these for all of U.
2.3Million people reached, almost 5 thousand live views everyday, 1000+ additional page followers in 5 days. It was definitely an AAU record. In behalf of Karen, Chlods,Marielle, Cess, Sheila, Ma'am Daisy, Tajji, Dada, and Brian. I would like to thank every single one of you for your overwhelming support. We hope that in our own little way, we served you well.... And of course kept you awake till two o' clock in the morning everyday for the past 5 days. We sure hope it's all worth it!
Until then, more stories to tell, more images to share. It's All About U!
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