I'm going to be honest with you right from the start: I was not always calm under pressure.
Early in my career, a camera going down mid-show, a missed cue, a talent who froze on air — any of these things could send my heart rate through the roof. I'd feel the heat rise, the hands tighten on the intercom, the urge to bark into the headset at whoever was closest.
Live sports production didn't give me calm. It forced me to find it.
Over 25 years of directing live television — news, documentary, and sports — I learned that composure under pressure isn't a personality trait you either have or you don't. It's a skill. And like every skill, it has to be built deliberately, often through failure, almost always under the worst possible conditions.
The Night the Signal Died at the Conn Smythe Dinner
From 2003 to 2006, I served as Associate Producer and Director for the Conn Smythe Trophy Dinner — one of the most prestigious events on the NHL calendar. I also edited the final show. It was exactly the kind of production that looks effortless from the outside and is anything but from the inside.
One year, we had a remote camera positioned to capture the guests arriving — NHL executives, hockey legends, the kind of people whose entrance sets the tone for the whole evening. We tested the wireless signal in the room earlier that day. Clean. Rock solid. No issues.
What we hadn't accounted for was what that room looked like four hours later.
A full room of several hundred people — every one of them carrying a mobile phone and a BlackBerry. The moment the crowd filled in, the wireless signal from our remote camera dropped completely. We tested in an empty ballroom. We broadcast into a room full of wireless interference we never saw coming.
We tested in an empty room. We broadcast into a full one. Nobody thought about what several hundred BlackBerries would do to a wireless camera signal.
That's the kind of moment that can unravel a production and a director simultaneously. The camera was gone. The guests were arriving. The show was live. And everyone in that control room was waiting to see how I was going to handle it.
The answer — the only answer — was to cut away, call an audible, and keep the show moving. There was no fixing the signal in real time. There was only the next right decision.
The Control Room Is a Pressure Cooker
If you've never been in a live sports or event control room, it's hard to describe the environment. Multiple cameras feeding you simultaneously. A producer in one ear, a technical director beside you, a clock counting down, and a room full of moments you're responsible for capturing — in real time, with no second takes.
The event doesn't pause because your camera signal dropped. The clock doesn't stop because your graphics system just crashed. The broadcast goes out regardless. And everyone in that room is looking at you for the next call.
In those early years I made every mistake a young director can make. I over-communicated when I should have stayed quiet. I second-guessed decisions that needed to be made in half a second. I let one bad cut rattle me into three more bad cuts. The anxiety was contagious — when the director loses composure, the whole room feels it.
The Lesson Nobody Teaches You
The turning point wasn't a single moment. It was a gradual realization that panic never fixed a single problem in a live broadcast. Not once. Not ever.
Camera goes down? Panic doesn't bring it back. Cut to another angle. Deal with it.
Signal drops? Panic doesn't restore it. Cut away. Keep moving.
Wrong graphic on screen? Panic doesn't pull it. Take it down. Move on.
Every single problem that has ever happened in a live broadcast has exactly one solution: the next right decision. Not the perfect decision. Not a replay of the last five seconds. Just the next right call, made clearly, communicated calmly, executed immediately.
Once I understood that, everything changed.
What "Calm" Actually Looks Like in the Room
People sometimes mistake calm for detachment — like the director who's unfazed somehow doesn't care. That's completely wrong.
The most focused, intense directors I've ever worked with were also the calmest voices in the room. Not because they didn't care — because they cared so much that they couldn't afford to waste a single second on emotion that didn't serve the broadcast.
Calm in a control room is a form of leadership. Your crew takes their temperature from you. If you're rattled, they're rattled. If you're steady, they're steady. It's that simple and that consequential.
I learned to lower my voice when things went wrong instead of raising it. I learned to slow my cadence on the intercom when the situation was speeding up. Not because I wasn't feeling the pressure — but because the person on the other end of that headset needed clarity, not urgency.
What I'd Tell Every Young Producer
Test for the real conditions, not the ideal ones. The Conn Smythe camera failure taught me this more than anything. An empty room is not the same as a full one. A quiet rehearsal is not the same as a live show. Always ask yourself: what does this environment look like at maximum capacity, maximum chaos? Test for that.
Prepare obsessively so you can improvise confidently. The more thoroughly I knew the rundown, the equipment, and the venue before a show, the more bandwidth I had to handle the unexpected when it arrived.
Debrief honestly after every show. Not to assign blame — to understand what actually happened and why. The director who never reviews their mistakes is the director who keeps making them.
Give yourself permission to be imperfect on air. Perfect broadcasts don't exist. The goal is a great show, not a flawless one. Releasing the pressure of perfection frees up enormous mental space for the next right decision.
Twenty-five years later, I still feel the pressure. Every live show, every tight deadline, every moment where something could go wrong — it's all still there.
I just stopped fighting it. And somewhere along the way, it stopped fighting me.