Behind The ScenesNCAAB

Krewella sets fun tone for NCAA Women’s Final Four game intros

NEW ORLEANS — It’s NCAA Women’s Final Four time and that means Creative Content Unit Associate Producer Tara Baker is making magic in the edit room producing a variety of “teases,” “bump(er)s” and “opens” for the 2013 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game telecasts.

Last season, she showcased the personalities of the teams in photo-booth inspired teases that aired throughout the tournament. This year, the team’s personalities are framed within the energy of a music video.

ESPN teamed with the electro-trio music band Krewella for the intro to the network’s coverage in New Orleans. The band shot the intro video to their hit song Alive for hundreds of people in a New Orleans’ Bourbon Street setting at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Fla.

ESPN Music director Kevin Wilson secured the band, the shoot was directed by Creative Content Unit Director Sammy Silver and post-production Senior Editor Jay Fiedler edited the concert video “beds.” The video debuted during the NCAA Regionals but an extended, jazzed up version incorporating in-tournament highlights, specialty shots of the four advancing teams and audio from top players and coaches were seen Sunday during the semifinal telecasts.

Friday, Baker spent time with each of the Final Four teams — No. 1 seeds Connecticut and Notre Dame, as well as No. 2 seed California and No. 5 seed Louisville. With a New Orleans-inspired brick wall, colored lights and smoke swirling around the room, the players danced and grooved to Alive and played to the camera.

Connecticut and Louisville will clash in an all-BIG EAST NCAA National Championship game — Tuesday, April 9, at 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and WatchESPN. Prior to tip-off, an hour-long preview special — the NCAA Women’s Championship Special Presented by Capital One — will be hosted by Kevin Negandhi, Kara Lawson and Carolyn Peck.

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