It's the fourth Emmy win for the Communications professor, who's been a part of three NBC Olympic Games teams.
Negin served as a digital replay operator and digital media manager at the Olympics for the team that won the Outstanding Technical Team Studio Emmy. Negin was responsible for helping facilitate the transfer of footage from the massive database where it’s stored to editors, who used it to create features that aired on the network. Negin also oversaw the delivery of the finished packages from editors to the tape room for playback across daytime, prime time and late-night schedules.
“The chance to be in the same room with representatives from NBC engineering and production, AVID and EVS and to be able to troubleshoot technology and workflows that have never been attempted on the scale of a production like the Olympics is a wonderful opportunity,” Negin said. “Not only does this provide me with a professional challenge unlike anything I have ever done before, but the experience also gives me rich insights that I can bring back to the classrooms and studios of Elon and share with students and colleagues.”
Negin was also asked to arrive in London a week before the opening ceremonies so he could be trained on the new technology developed by Avid for a Media Asset Management system and so he could help prepare a group of interns for the process of logging and clipping incoming media.
“What is interesting is that in spite of the massive shift from tapes and analog media into the completely digital realm of hard drives and files zipping all over the production facility, the essence of the entire operation is telling stories,” Negin said. “Some stories might be to sell a soda or credit card or foot-long sandwich, but more often, the human stories that come from every Olympics are a much larger part of the process.”
London was his third Olympics experience with NBC. He previously worked the Beijing games in 2008 and the Vancouver games in 2010.
The Emmy, which was awarded in May, is Negin’s fourth. He won the same award for his work during the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, and he also landed another two Emmys for his efforts as a video coordinator with the Philadelphia Phillies and for promotional writing for Fox 29 in Philadelphia.
Negin teaches Digital Media Convergence, Sports Broadcasting and Sports & Media in the School of Communications, in addition to leading a section of Elon 101. He also advises the student-produced TV program “Elon Phoenix Weekly,” a half-hour show highlighting Elon athletics that airs on Saturday mornings on ESPN2.
Professionally, Negin has worked as a digital replay operator and editor for HBO, FOX and ESPN. He also spent three seasons as the video coordinator for Phillies TV and two seasons as the broadcast coordinator for the Philadelphia 76ers.