The empty courts of Roland-Garros give the teams of France Télévisions a cold sweat.
Already reduced to 5,000 spectators, the gauge of the French Open was lowered this Wednesday to 1,000 visitors per day, because the whole of Île-de-France was classified as a “reinforced alert zone”.
The aisles of the Paris tournament, where more than 35,000 tennis fans walked every day last year, will be completely sparse.
The impression of emptiness will be even more glaring on the Court Philippe-Chatrier, where more than 15,000 spectators are usually seated, as well as on the Suzanne-Lenglen or the Court Simonne-Mathieu where the 1,000 lucky ones can be distributed among their own way.
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All day Friday, Fred Godard, who ensures the capture of the tournament for all the channels of the world, worked on this point with his team of sound engineers.
The director was waiting for his cameras to be all installed and for the players to come to the stadium to train to do life-size tests.
According to our information, he has decided to add to the matches of this 2020 edition a "sound of silence" for viewers.
“When the players play, the audience is silent.
But that doesn't mean that there is no noise.
There is always a background sound, which mixes breathing, coughing, rubbing, etc.
», Explains Laurent-Eric Le Lay, the sports boss of France Televisions.
“We found this
sound of silence
from last year and we will add it live to the images captured on the courts,” he adds.
A process, already tested a few weeks ago at the US Open, which will soften the reverberations.
But also the loud sound of the rain drumming very loudly on the new retractable roof.
The rain makes a hallucinatory noise on the central.
And the roof, with openings on the side, does not fully protect against drops pic.twitter.com/BYZojLjiAs
- Quentin Moynet (@QuentinMoynet) September 24, 2020
France Télévisions has also prepared sounds of applause and reactions of all kinds, recorded during previous editions.
In case.
“We have not yet decided whether we will use them or not, adds Laurent-Eric Le Lay.
It will depend on the atmosphere that the 1000 spectators present will set.
Eventually, the sound of their applause will be amplified for viewers.
But let it be clear: we will not add
Allez Rafa
or the
Allez Yannick
ritual
.
We do not want to create anything fake, "warns the sports boss of the public group.
