Courtesy Cincinnati Ballet
It sounds odd, but directing hundreds of basketball and football games, and dozens of WEBN Riverfest firework telecasts, was great training for David Ashbrock when WLWT-TV asked him to direct
The Nutcracker at Home airing 8 p.m. tonight.
As with broadcasting sports and pyrotechnic explosions, you only get one chance to shoot the Cincinnati Ballet dancers in action. This is exhausting to perform. The dancers are Olympic athletes, to be sure, but this takes a lot out of them, and they didn t want to do it again. We did no more than two takes, and most with one take, says Ashbrock, the Emmy-winning director.