A priori, we no longer introduce Rémy Tissier to Grands Prix enthusiasts! From broadcast to broadcast, his voice has accompanied them for almost two decades now and, over the years, he has become an absolutely essential character. from the paddock…
And yet, who really knows what is behind his comments? We took advantage of a quiet moment in Misano to carry out this interview and try to shed light on many facets of this profession and of this man whose experience is to date rarely equaled.
Rémy, how long have you been commenting on the Grands Prix?
“The first Grand Prix I commentated on was at Le Mans, with Frédéric Viger who worked at the time at Motors with Jean-Luc Roy, and the second was at Barcelona in 1995 with Jean-Luc Roy. I must have commentated with at least 10 or 12 different accomplices in my career, even if the majority was done with Philippe Monneret for 11 years, then with Philippe Debarle and, more recently, with Sébastien Charpentier. For now, it's my 13th Grand Prix with Randy, and he's not the worst consultant. One of the reasons is that he is very young, he is the youngest I have ever had, and he is still active. He rides endurance, he rode the KTM MotoGP that he developed, as well as the Suzuki GSX–RR. I think that in fact, the longer the top athlete is still active, the better he knows his field. In particular, Randy is very knowledgeable about the motorcycles he talks about on the air. »
You say you started with radio. What contribution does this experience bring to your job today since, after all, the spectators hardly see you, except a few moments before the start of the sessions?
“It’s true, even if now we are seen a little bit, but more and more, at the beginning and end of each session thanks to a GoPro camera in the cabin. Indeed, and this is what I say to the pilots present with us and who are sometimes very stressed, it is an almost radio comment, on images, all the same. The three years I spent in radio helped me enormously. For example, in radio you can't draw a blank. In addition, you must image so that the listener can imagine what you are seeing. In television, we have the support of images, and the viewer too, so we don't have to rush or talk all the time. For example, during slow motion, the images can stand on their own. »
We hardly see you, so we can imagine that the quality of the voice is very important. Is this workable?
“The voice, when we went to our journalism schools, we very quickly saw those who had it and those who did not. Voice is crucial. If it annoys, for example by increasing the treble, it is a handicap. Afterwards, there are techniques for applying it and for modulating it. Modulating is very, very important. If you're constantly bawling, it gets boring very quickly. If you really listen to a session, I can speak loudly about an action but also drop my voice in the space of a second. I attended the Dijon Dramatic Arts Conservatory and learned to shunt my voice. It's a very special exercise to use your voice, compared to commenting live. It's easier to commentate live, at least for me. What's exciting is that you're living it. I have the qualities and faults of someone who is spontaneous and whole. Would I like it, do I have the temperament to produce a written paper, an in-depth analysis based on lots of data, two months later, for a magazine? It's not my personality and it won't sit well with me. »
Was it a passion since your childhood or did it happen by chance?
“I have always been interested in motorcycles. My brother competed against brothers Marc and Philippe Joineau who were doing the Paris-Dakar rally because coming from the Côte-d'Or, it was easier to do motocross towards home. And through my brother and his friends, the first champion I fell in love with was called Jacky Vimond. At the time, there was no television broadcast of motocross, and we had to wait on the radio for the results. So I started by following motocross races. I had been a commentator for Radio France, at the start of my career, on Yves Demaria's first victory. At the time, it wasn't live but rather interviews with Nagra. So yeah, I really loved motorcycling. It started before I was 14 since I had a Peugeot TSA, before buying myself at 16 at Jeunet Motos, without my father's authorization, a Honda -mother in Saône-et-Loire because my father wanted to take her back to the store. »
If it hadn't been motorcycles and football, what other sport would you have liked to commentate on?
" Boxing ! It's a sport that I love. It's fast and it suits me. »
The general public doesn't necessarily realize it, but you're obviously not just following your passion. You are a true conductor of an entire structure, with its very professional organization and rules…
“There are a lot of rules and very often, those who come into the cabin with headphones on realize the difficulty of our job. Sometimes we have absolutely tiny cabins, like for example in the Czech Republic where three of us can hardly fit. In the headset, there are always people speaking in different languages, for example in English for the counts, plus the control room who speaks to us from Paris. There are really a lot of things that can interfere. Now, we also have four screens in front of us, with a lot of information to process, such as abandonments, stolen starts, etc. Thanks to the progress that Dorna has made in this area, you can follow a particular driver and it's sensational, but the moment you have your eye on this screen, you can't look at the other screens to see what's happening. is happening there. In terms of sound, there are buttons to adjust the volumes, like for example the one for Vanessa in the Pit Lane. Add to that someone who speaks to you very often through the headset, and that's already a lot to manage when everything is going well. There is also the exercise which seems like nothing but which is very difficult of simultaneous translation. You should know that if you ask a professional translator, they will tell you that they are exhausted after 10 minutes. And that’s his job! This requires extreme concentration. And for us, that comes with sometimes several hours of airtime. At the time, with Philippe Monneret, we sometimes commented for up to seven hours straight! Afterwards, there may also be a technical problem and stress which further complicates things.
There are plenty of exercises in the commentary. We don't comment on an FP1 session in the same way as FP3 which, in MotoGP, has already become a real qualifying session, notably for Johann Zarco who absolutely wants to avoid Q1. Then, with Randy, we gain momentum in Q2, before falling back a little for the Warm up. But we comment on the race completely differently from the rest of the weekend!
Another exercise, the race will be rebroadcast, so you should not rush before speaking. In the written press, you can rewrite your text before it is broadcast. There, once it's said, there's no going back. »
