Excerpt from Xtreme Video Magazine (www.xvzine.com).

Layered on top of the production effort that went into bringing X Games IX to the airwaves was a small army of reporters, photographers and videographers who were covering the event for their respective, third-party media outlets. It wasn't easy, I can tell you-especially if you were working alone. Every event was crawling with a corps of very hard-working professionals, but I don't think I saw anyone-including the athletes- working harder than Renata Falzoni.

Falzoni demonstrates how she shoots while riding a bike, with her camera clipped to carabiners attached to her shoulder straps.

This was Falzoni's third X Games for ESPN Brazil. Typically, they would have sent a crew of five to cover the the Games, but this year there was a conflict with the Pan-American Games, so she was flying solo.

Falzoni is hard to miss. For one thing, she's simply everywhere. I first noticed her covering the surfing down in Huntington Beach, and then again, the next morning, some 160 miles north in Stallion Springs, covering Downhill BMX at Woodward West. I was impressed, having made the arduous journey myself. For another thing, she has a very distinctive camera style. She'll shoot the action in front of her, spin the camera around in her outstretched palm, and then shoot herself doing color commentary. On top of all that, she could invariably be spotted somewhere on the sidelines, right up in front of everyone else-if not actually in the FOP, or Field of Play, getting her shots. Falzoni has a well-honed reporter's tenacity, and she gets her shots any way she can.

Falzoni was never far from the action at X Games IX.

I witnessed one example of this tenacity, first-hand. While covering the Downhill BMX competition at Woodward West, Falzoni was right where the action was, as always, trying to interview a rider at the finish line. But ESPN didn't issue us our fancy, color-coded media badges until we got to the Staples Center later in the week. Until then, all everyone had were these nondescript black wristbands. It didn't matter what outlet you worked for, or whether you were a videographer, photographer, or writer like myself-we all had the same, generic black wristbands. And in spite of her camera and ESPN Brasil hat, the finish line wrangler wanted her out. Not one to back down easily, Falzoni pled her case until a higher-up from ESPN came by who recognized and could vouch for her.

Falzoni started out as a news photographer in Sao Paulo in the 1980s, where she developed her visual eye. An avid cyclist, it was also when she first started to ride around on her bike, taking pictures-a habit she continues to this day. She travels with her bike, and when possible-like the last two summer X Games in Philadelphia-she doesn't use a car at all.

An avid cyclist, Falzoni takes special interest in the bike events, footage from which will be cut into her own cycling-centric show on ESPN Brazil.

Later, she worked in radio, filing live traffic reports from her bike on the streets of Sao Paulo. She got into television in 1995, and bought her first DV camera, a Sony VX700, a year later. Her goal since has been to implement and perfect the Crew of One. And from what I saw at the X Games, she's got it down.

Still, she has encountered plenty of resistance along the way, noting, "The politics is the hardest part." At first she found that a lot of broadcast news and sports people equate quality with big cameras, big crews, and big budgets. "What I do is think, carry little weight, and work fast," she says, animatedly pointing to her head. That's finally starting to change as she's become more established and DV technology gets better and more prevalent.

But the political problems persist. Because she does so much by herself, she has some of her colleagues looking over their shoulders. "People think I take away jobs," she says. "But that's not true-I create jobs," she adds, noting that her unorthodox production style takes twice as long in post as would more conventionally-produced footage. She says it takes 100 hours of editing time to cut together a 24-minute program from her stuff.

Falzoni's light-and-fast style enables her to grab an interview at the spur of the moment, such as here with in-line skating phenom and fellow Brazilian Fabiola Da Silva.

I caught up to Falzoni again, typically, just inches from the bottom of the enormous Vert Ramp inside the Staples Center, where Tony Hawk would soon wow the crowd with his patented 900. Between shots, she gave me a rundown of her gear. These days she carries a Sony PD150, which she likes for its hard handle on top and on-screen audio level meters. She uses those to monitor her two microphones.

One is an AKG C420 headset mic, which is designed for singers, but she finds useful not merely for its hands-free ease but for the closeness of its pattern that mitigates ambient noise. She complements this with a Sennheiser MKE300, which she finds to be a good performer in wind. For interviews, she has the Sennheiser rigged to pop easily off the top of the camera, and she'll quickly pass it to her subject to use as a hand-held.

In her pack she carries a wide-angle lens adapter, a fish-eye lens, and two extra batteries from which she gains five extra hours of recording time. She also carries eight DV tapes, and always keeps a FireWire cable on hand in case she is able to talk another cameraperson into sharing some prized footage with her.

Falzoni does her thing, inches from the foot of the Vert Ramp.

Given the wear-and-tear she puts on her gear, it's not surprising that she goes through cameras. "Two years is long, one year is OK," she says with a shrug. The hand straps and the eyepieces are the first to go, usually, but she's quick to stress that she takes care of her gear as best she can. She's never lost a camera due to impact-which is miraculous-and she proudly adds that her wide-angle lens adapter is five years old. When the cameras die, she says, it's usually the result of rain, humidity, and/or dust.

Falzoni does her own editing on the road, cutting together 45-second spots on her PowerBook G4 using Final Cut Pro 3, and emailing them back to Brazil, where they air daily. And she'll have her work cut out for her when she gets back to Sao Paulo. The thirty hours of footage she'll shoot at X Games IX will be intercut with ESPN's coverage, which is shared with international affiliates. But ESPN Brazil won't air anything until she gets back, because she's one of the personalities used to dub the commentary in Portuguese.

Her footage will also be featured in a weekly show called Super Acao, which focuses on action sports, as well as her own semi-monthly show, called Aventuras com Renata Falzoni. For more information, if you understand Portuguese, see www.espn.com.br and www.falzoni.com.

Even on the off-days, Falzoni is still working. Wednesday was a practice day at the Staples Center, and she spent it riding her bike to Venice Beach-a good fifteen miles from her downtown hotel-shooting lifestyle footage to round out her coverage. This included, you guessed it, on-camera commentary. And no, her hands weren't on the handlebars.