Sports Video for Review

Greetings all,

I was hired by the local high school to film football games and produce highlight DVDs of each game for use by the coaches in pregame motivation rallies. We produced 12 DVDs last year, and 15 this year. This video is my favorite one. Our team is in white, and we played out of town. The game came down to the final 3 seconds.

I just wanted to get some constructive criticism from people in the industry. All the parents, coaches, and players love the films, but it's nice to get some criticism from people that know about these things.

I realize this isn't wedding footage, but it is a non-repeatable event. Mods, if this should be posted elsewhere, please forgive me and move it appropriately.

Thanks to all for any feedback. Enjoy.

Tivy v. Clemens on Vimeo

[Ken Diewert]

Hey Aaron,

Well, since you asked for feedback...

How many cameras do you use. I noticed a wide shot, and then the sideline shots. I enjoyed the highlight shots, though I (personally) would have liked to see a little more dramatic editing of the final minute and less of the first 59 minutes, just because it was such a huge comeback (what was it - down by 10 pts with a 1:42 to play). Nice graphics by the way.

Of course the old standard was 'NFL Films' where they had enough camera coverage to lock in on over-cranked close-ups of the ball slowly spiralling thru the air to the receivers hands. Or the extreme closeup of the muddy, sweaty, lineman locked in a 3-point stance.

All-in-all it's great stuff. Maybe you could mix in more ambient audio. Yelling, helmet contact, crowd noise etc.

[Aaron J. Yates]

Thanks a lot for some feedback, Ken.

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

How many cameras do you use. I noticed a wide shot, and then the sideline shots. I enjoyed the highlight shots, though I (personally) would have liked to see a little more dramatic editing of the final minute and less of the first 59 minutes, just because it was such a huge comeback (what was it - down by 10 pts with a 1:42 to play). Nice graphics by the way.

I have two A1s on the sidelines operated by me and my other regular camera operator. We also get copies of footage made by the team (football trainers) that consists of a wide shot from the press box, a tight shot from the press box, and an end zone angle on a 20 ft. crane. Unfortunately, the cameras provided by the team are poor quality consumer cams, and the operators are not trained, so a lot of the footage is not usable.

As for the dramatic ending, I agree with you, we should do another edit focusing more on the drama at the end of the game. We were actually down by 13 with 1:42 to play, I believe. This is the film our clients received, and they wanted a 6-8 minute film of the highlights of the entire game. We kind of had to rush things toward the end to fit it all in. But I think we could have done a better job now that I watch it again after a few weeks.

We filmed on Friday and Saturday nights and had to have the film captured, edited, graphics created, rendered, and delivered on DVD by Wednesday every week, so we definitely could have benefited from a little more time on the edits. We're still part-timers dealing with 9-5 jobs while doing video on the side.

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

All-in-all it's great stuff. Maybe you could mix in more ambient audio. Yelling, helmet contact, crowd noise etc.

I had a hard time getting good ambient audio this year. Inevitably, while filming on the sidelines, both of our camera operators end up near some of the boosters who tend to talk to each other the entire game and yell on the good plays. I might figure out a way to get a shotgun mic away from the conversations and see if that works out better.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. We had to do a lot with a very small budget, but overall I think they turned out decent.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Aaron J. Yates

Thanks a lot for some feedback, Ken.



I have two A1s on the sidelines operated by me and my other regular camera operator. We also get copies of footage made by the team (football trainers) that consists of a wide shot from the press box, a tight shot from the press box, and an end zone angle on a 20 ft. crane. Unfortunately, the cameras provided by the team are poor quality consumer cams, and the operators are not trained, so a lot of the footage is not usable.

As for the dramatic ending, I agree with you, we should do another edit focusing more on the drama at the end of the game. We were actually down by 13 with 1:42 to play, I believe. This is the film our clients received, and they wanted a 6-8 minute film of the highlights of the entire game. We kind of had to rush things toward the end to fit it all in. But I think we could have done a better job now that I watch it again after a few weeks.

We filmed on Friday and Saturday nights and had to have the film captured, edited, graphics created, rendered, and delivered on DVD by Wednesday every week, so we definitely could have benefited from a little more time on the edits. We're still part-timers dealing with 9-5 jobs while doing video on the side.



I had a hard time getting good ambient audio this year. Inevitably, while filming on the sidelines, both of our camera operators end up near some of the boosters who tend to talk to each other the entire game and yell on the good plays. I might figure out a way to get a shotgun mic away from the conversations and see if that works out better.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. We had to do a lot with a very small budget, but overall I think they turned out decent.

A good time to get audio is in game practice. Show up to a practice (with coaches knowledge of course) and shoot footage specifically with the audio in mind. Then render out the audio as a WAV and ditch the initial video & audio.

Then chop up the audio into "bytes" or "hits" of various lengths. Then dub those over to taste.

Note, that this approach might not work for tight deadline edits (aka by wednesday).

[Alec Moreno]

Not bad Aaron. Your editing was better than most football highlight flims I've seen.

Since you asked for constructive criticism, I'll point out the one thing that stood out to me more than anything...your headroom. Tilt all the sideline shots down a bit and you'll have much better looking footage.

Here are a couple clips from a one hour game film I produced for a local team. I shot it with one camera and edited it using pure ambient audio. Maybe you'll find some good ideas here.

Index of /samples/CHSfootball

Like Aaron, I'm open to any comments.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com

[Tripp Woelfel]

Nice job. I thought it was quite nicely done, and I'm not a stick and ball sports guy (except for the Red Sox). The editing was concise around a good flow that tells the story very clearly. No small feat that.

I'm going to go with Ken's comment about having more ambient audio. Without it, it leaves the viewer one step removed from the action, and you want to draw them in as much as possible.

I also really like your graphics. I'm guessing AE or at least Photoshop. Very clean and informative. You might want to think about another way to transition in and out of the graphic at the start of the piece. The drifting off move could be replaced with something punchier. If you watch any network sports broadcast you'll see what I mean. If you have After Effects, it's not hard to do. Your NLE might have some transitions and/or tools that might work too.

All in all, nicely done.