Making Highlight reel video
 

Hi,
I make highlight tennis videos using Pinnacle Studio for the iPad. This works great but takes a long time. I was just wondering how brodcasters can make a highlight Reel in as short time as they do. Is it a certain technique, or different type of software. Partly curious and parly wanting to see if I can streamline my workflow process. My videos end up being about 5-15 minutes.

John Gerard

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

Well, it depends on what you mean by "broadcasters," but most of them don't edit on an iPad, for one thing ;)

If you'r talking about the highlight reels that show up during half-time on live broadcast, there's a whole room full of people putting that together as it's happening, with the animations and switches already rendered and ready to drop in. It's completely different.

I don't know how to use Pinnacle Studio, but I can all but guarantee that it is slower than an NLE on a full-sized computer. How do you even output a reel once you've edited it? Through FaceTime?

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

Working with the software that you have and on an iPad is a definite disadvantage. Other than equipment, the key is logging. You need to log the clips that stand out as they happen so you don't have to waste as much time going over everything again.

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

Lets just say that running an Abekas/Mira or EVS system is worlds apart from where you are at. Competent replay ops will replay, feed Chyron, cut, label, and queue clips ready to edit, on the fly, so a designated editor can sit in a separate room and already have the clips in the timeline pretty much as its happening (not quite but close enough). When I used to run replay it was my job to track all the highlights and when its time for a package I would feed them to the director from multiple sources, one by one, and we could cut through them on the fly. You screw up? Yep, it goes out anyway.

How they do it in production is quite a... erhem... monetary upgrade.

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

Thanks for the thoughts.
I am thinking more in lines of techniques such as how they grab the clips they are going to use in the highlight video so quickly. I am not as concerned with harware per say. I can edit videos as fast as I could on my Dell PC running Adobe Premiere Pro. But it take a long time finding the right clip, marking/ cutting the in and out points then cutting out the part of the video I don't want to use. Then going on to the next section of the video, Repeating the above process, etc. rearranging the final clips and so forth.
if that better explains my question. They, the broadcasters, seem to have a highlight video which I think is usually about 30 seconds or a few minutes long ready to show at the end of a tennis match. My videos end up being 5-7 minutes in length. Maybe they are not using traditional software like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro? Now as I write this reply I am thinking maybe they are able to mark the in/out points and just grab that part of the video as a clip. Putting said clip in a new timeline not needing to spend the time to cut out the unwanted sections. That in itself would save a lot of editing time.
Any additional thoughts?

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

I'd tend to select the clips needed, creating a sub clip of each, put these into a bin, quickly arrange them in some rough order as a storyboard edit and then start the fine tuning in the timeline.

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

Watch a NASCAR race sometime, then go to the track and if you can get into the compound take a look at the 55 foot video truck. I have never seen so many bodies crammed into a small space in my life.
Besides the director and 7000 associate directors there are replay people probably 1 or 2 hundred, and editors another 4 or 5 hundred and when they see a shot they want it's already on their timeline.

Of course the numbers I'm using aren't real but they have a lot of people in the truck and they all have one job to do and that's to find shots to use for highlights and replays. In our little corner of the world which was the robotic cameras (you know the ones on the outside wall at the turns and on the flag stand or fence down the track from the flagstand and even in race control) if our camera was live when an crash occurred, man it was new years eve in our little trailer. Not that we wanted anyone to get hurt but we knew our work was going to be highlighted. Especially if you got it from beginning to end.
Anyway one of the ADs in the big trailer would have that shot pulled for the highlight and replay package and it would take them about the length of time it took me to type this sentence to have it ready for air.
We as poor humans can not compete, no matter how fast we can edit, they have the money to buy the gear and get the people to fill the seats to do it a whole lot faster. Also keep in mind, this is ALL they do regardless of whether they're an AD, editor, logger, or whatever.

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

John,

Are you needing to create these in a live situation like broadcasters do?

I guess I do not fully understand your question/situation.

Broadcasting is a team and there are people on the team that gather great shots during the broadcast. These clips are put together by talented editors for the highlights.

What is the secret? - Getting great shots and also having a great eye to find, place and edit those great shots.

1) If you are filming with only one camera (as opposed to many within a broadcast) you are at a complete disadvantage to begin with.

2) The length of the highlights should be directly related to the "quality" of the clips/shots. A 5 min highlight reel better have a lot of great gameplay or it will lose its impact. Is this part of your question?

Re: Making Highlight reel video
 

Those lead in reels to halftime, outro highlights from the quarter etc are queued up by replay and sent to Chyron or the TD and are dissolved/cut either by the TD under graphics, pre-timed by the replay op for a straight playback, or controlled by the replay op themselves. There is no editing software like FCP/Premiere/AVID that spits out a new video for them to roll. This is all encoded on the fly, in real time. All the video is written to disk somewhere, the switcher is just taking a source from somewhere and punching over it. Even if you see effects/burns/light leaks over it and say "That has to be done manually in an NLE!" its probably just presets overlays in whatever font/graphics package they use. If a replay op in 1st quarter goes "Wow, that shot is spot on" He marks it and starts building the highlight package as the game continues on and preps it for the future and builds individual team queues, entire game queues, etc. Its a continuous process.

Its pretty hard to understand how this works if you've never seen a production environment but thats the answer to "how do they do it so quickly?"