Video taping sports

Kyle Cassidy May 2007 - http://www.videomaker.com/article/12978/

“Football, Baseball, Hockey, Tennis. Swimming, Cycling, Running and Lacrosse. Sports shooting is an art unto itself, and every sport has shooting hurdles to jump.”

Pre-planning

As with any filming there are things which you have to consider before actually going ahead and filming. Things to consider when filming for a sporting event:

1. If you need electricity make sure it is accessible or bring enough batteries.
2. If using tripods make sure you have enough room.
3. Make sure sun is not in your eyes.
4. Make sure you are able to see what is happening (no one will stand in front).

Camera Settings

If you are lucky enough then you might have a camera that has a “sports” setting on which selects a high shutter speed to reduce blurring. This setting might not work at night events as there might not be enough light. If you don’t have this setting then you will have to manually set you shutter speed to a relatively high setting, like 1/125 of a second, depending on the light and the speed of the sport.

Interviews

When the action has finished you want to have interviews with the sports person to get their views, opinions, recap and analysis of what happened. You can also add voice over’s of the sports person to the action to explain what is happening.

Tips
1. Anticipate the shot. A long shot is good before the action starts it allows you follow easier but when the action going zoom in.

2. Room to move. When zoomed in a person make sure they have space to move around so if they move suddenly you won’t miss it.

3. Noise around the camera. If you use the microphone on the camera then you don’t want the noise around it to get to loud and be distorted.

4. Room to cut. You want to have extra footage before and after the action so you will have something to edit with.

This information about videoing sports is key information for this project as I will be filming sports as the main footage of the film. This information gives me key points to consider when filming the action I want.