Sharks Access: Media Day

Sharks Access: Media Day

[Music] Back in midepptember, the Sharks production team put together its annual media day that they had been planning for months. Many people, many days in confirming months. Uh, this one started about mid June, end of June, beginning of July, but you blend that in with the NHL draft, and you don’t really know what kind of time it actually starts. But um yeah, it’s an internal team only except for some lighting and grip people here, but uh it’s the entire San Jose Sharks production team and uh it’s a grind. What exactly are we making here? This looks awesome. Where does all this get seen? Yeah, so this is everything from teal open, black open, fill in the blank open, um make noise prompts, everything from in arena that fans are going to want to be able to see and interact with. But what you don’t see behind me are all the other rooms that are going on in multiple locker rooms, which are games, read rooms, promos, thank yous, season tickets, you name it. Fill-in- thelank props. We’re shooting an entire season in one day is what media day actually is for us. What’s the actual media day like? It can be a bit of a car wash on one end and then it’s a hype squad. Um, we want every player who steps onto this ice every single year to just be just like, what is this? Where am I? This is not the ice rig that I just left. All right. We want them to have so much fun. And then we have fun with that. That that energizes us. And then we help direct them. We have uh uh Rebecca and Brendan working with the players and getting them to uh take advantage of this entire space to bring out themselves and their personality and not just be like almost like an interview. It’s this is a chance for them to have fun, which then all of us can take all that and make really wonderful things with it. These are all the clips you’ll be seeing on the scoreboard, on promos, on social, and so many places throughout the course of the next several months. But seeing it all come together here today for this very first and only time was pretty rewarding. When you design something on a screen and it’s just this little tiny thing and then all these wonderful folks take take this dream and build it in front of you, it’s a it’s a sight. So, we take pride in doing all of this oursel and I think that’s what really separates us from a lot of the NHL teams and that’s not being shady by any means. What we do is all our own idea and we take inspiration from Instagrams and YouTubes, but everything is genuinely ours at the end of the day. When you see another set, it looks like a Star Wars tie fighter, but that came from an accident. When we built it, we said, “Wow, that looks like a tie fighter.” We didn’t say, “Let’s make it look like a tie fighter.” So, you get the creative juices flown for multiple months, and everything lands on its feet. We try to incorporate like we we’re first we’re given the brand guide like what is what what are the sharks trying to say this season? Where are we going with our messaging? So, and that goes from either are we going heavy 3D or we going flat. This year it’s super flat and it’s big and it’s loud and it’s fun. And we want to bring that to the players as well as the audience. So we design a stage in such a way that the players can skate through and feel energized and have just have a good time spending in and then that just translates out into the final product which fans get to see. [Music] All of this is fun, yes, and uplifting, yes, but it also comes with some extreme pressure. The entire roster is only available here for a few hours, which means the production crew has to get everything they need from every single player in just a few short minutes each, maximum five. Five minutes each. And respectfully, it is also player dependent because we know that some people are sponsored athletes and they have other obligations than some other players, but it is no more than 5 minutes and it is full gear out on the ice and then they have to go and change and do jersey only and go hit some other locker rooms and also hit our affiliate with NBC Sports. So, it is not just an R show. There is plenty of stops for them to be able to hit along the way. So, one directly behind me is going to be our teal open as well as our heritage jersey open. The set’s just going to flip for creative. Over my right shoulder is going to be our photography one station, which is again covering all three jerseys from multitude of poses from full body, angle up to waist up, excuse me, to head shot. And then behind that is our black jersey set, which is strictly black uh open, but it’s with smoke, mirrors, reflections, kind of getting some crazy culture ties, some San Jose vibes, but uh different to match exactly what we we know the fans are going to love. Heat. Heat. [Music]

Brodie Brazil walks you through the making and execution of the 2025 Sharks Media Day.