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AFM Magazine


Dual-View Plays of the Football Game Tape

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A dual-view football game tape can help both coaches and players and can be produced with less than a thousand dollar investment.

My dual-view method simultaneously shows two views of the same play in a football game:

1) The sideline game film shot from the press box. This is the typical high school medium shot showing the halfback on one edge of the frame and the linebacker on the other edge.

2) The second view shows an extreme wide view shot from the same angle as the first view.

Most football programs have a choice between some combination of a sideline camera view and an end zone camera view. My method shows two views of the same play at once; both the tight shot of the play and the wide shot, throughout the game.

Here is how I do it: I shoot the game from the top of the sideline press box. Instead of just one camcorder, I shoot the game with two camcorders mounted on one tripod; one videographer, one tripod, two camcorders. After the game, both tapes are put into a video editing software program.

1. TRIPOD
I use a very good professional video tripod. You can purchase a prosumer or professional video tripod at a specialty photo store or buy one online at photo sites that offer a professional and consumer video section. Local specialty photo stores can help you choose the best tripod for your equipment and can show you tripod accessories that will fit that model.

There really is a difference in types of tripods. A video tripod has a smooth moving fluid head which is built to move in many directions without jerky motions of the camera so it can easily follow motion in many different directions smoothly. The bubble level on the fluid head of a video tripod helps in setting up the camcorder leveling, especially in all the different away game press box situations and uneven floors or roofs.

Leveling the camcorder prevents the football field from looking like the players are running uphill or downhill on the screen. Video tripods are rugged, lightweight, convenient to use and dependable. Plan to spend $175-$475.

2. SHOOTING
I purchased a Bogen/Manfrotto 828 Bracket at bhphotovideo.com for $65. This is a foot long horizontal metal padded bracket with two connections.

It fits to the top of the tripod. Its original purpose was for studio photography. That bracket will allow you to place two camcorders onto the same video tripod. Our high school had one good camcorder for shooting games and I scrounged up another camcorder to screw onto the other end of this bracket. The camcorders do not necessarily have to be the same but if you can afford to buy a two or three chip camcorder for your second camera, you will not regret it.

Each half of the games I shoot is slightly less than 30 minutes. I use 80-minute mini-dv tapes and never worry that I will run out of tape at the end of the game.

I shoot the game tapes in 16:9 video format. In editing, I can easily set the crop marks of the editor to crop out the top and bottom of the game film which only shows both sideline teams anyway. I am left with a long narrow rectangle of the playing field which is all I am really interested in anyway.

My dual-view allows two camcorders to simultaneously follow the play.

One camera is used for the typical tight to medium shot. The other camera is used for the wide shot. I adjust the wide cameraıs zoom control to cover about 30 yards. I never change that. I need the two camcorders to start and stop as close to the same moment as possible. With practice, I have gotten good at doing this using both hands pressing the start buttons at the same time. If I do not start and stop the camcorders at the same time, they will not synchronize on the screen. You can fix that in the video editing program.

To avoid moving the cameras or bracket when pushing in the start buttons, I lock the pan lever before each play starts. When I see the center break the huddle, I press the two start buttons simultaneously, and then I gently release the panning lever and follow the play in the viewfinder as usual.

When the last player gets up from the tackle, I gently lock the pan lever and simultaneously press the stop button of each camcorder.

3. EDITING
When the game is over, I have two game tapes. I open my video editing software on my computer and I ³capture² each tape onto the hard drive of my PC. I use a Dell workstation model instead of a consumer model PC. From experience, I have found that in the PC world, the workstation handles video better. In order to place each of the two videos onto the same screen, you will need a video editing program with a timeline that allows for multiple video tracks.

For you Mac users, iMovie does not allow for more than one video track on its timeline. The minimum video editing program that allows for multiple video tracks on a MAC is Final Cut Express 4, which costs $199 from Apple.

That price is even less for most college students if they buy through their university bookstore.

Suggestion: If you are not familiar with video editing or do not want to learn, try this. Go to your school media center and ask for the student who is a real pro at video editing. If you do not have a media center, ask your players if any of them or their classmates use video editing programs. Just about every school will have video editing programs.

For the Macintosh, they will probably have Final Cut Pro. For the PC they will have Adobe Premiere, Vegas Video, or Avid. These are all capable of doing what I about to explain.

Remind the high school student video editor that colleges give scholarships or provide work-study money to work in their sports video departments.

There are too many video editing programs to explain how each places two movies onto one screen. I use a PC and my video editing program is MoviePlus 5 by Serif. It only costs $79 at Serif.com.

Look in the help file or tutorials files of your video editing program.

Look for how to ŒHow to Create a Split Screen Effect.' In MoviePlus 5, you can learn how to do this in their tutorial titled ³Childıs Party.² Remember, if your video editing program does not allow for at least two video tracks, find another program that does.

What is done is this. We have two movies. Each movie has its own separate video track in the editing program. Video editing programs allow you to put one movie in the upper half of the screen and the second movie in the lower half of the screen.

What if the two camcorders are not turned on and off at the same time? The normal and wide shot will show the play at different times. If that happens, the video tracks needs trimming in the editing program.

4. DUAL-VIEW SIDELINE & END-ZONE CAMERA
Can the sideline camera and end-zone camera be synchronized to show the same play on the screen simultaneously? Yes, but the amount of time to edit that would be many, many hours, even for a gifted editor.

If both cameras were never turned off, the editing would be easy. A camcorder with a 30GB built in hard drive shoots seven hours of video in the highest quality setting. Turn each camera on during the start of the National Anthem and turn both off the last second of the game clock.

Using this method, you will tape the entire half time show of the band, from two views. The band will love you for it. In the editing program, cut out the halftime show in the game tape. Burn DVDs of just the halftime show and you can sell them to the parents of the band members.

Once, in my game tape, I included the halftime show because the band was really talented. The coach called me the next week and thanked me for taping halftime because he said he never got to see the halftime show.

5. OFF SEASON DUAL-VIEW PRACTICE
The football season is over so you now have many months to practice creating the dual-view before next season begins. You already have all your games on your hard drive. Use your video editing program to practice putting two separate games on one screen. Then practice shooting whatever sport is currently in season using two camcorders on one tripod. Practice turning the camera on and off at the same time.

Shoot one scene, turn the camera, and shoot another scene. Put each camcorderıs movie onto its own video track on the timeline. Then practice trimming the start and stops points so they match. Then practice learning how to size the two videos in the Preview Pane. MoviePlus 5 has preset horizontal split screen settings in the Envelope tab listed under 'Transform.' You can read their instructions ³To create a split screen effect² from their ³CHILDıS PARTY² tutorial.

Designate track one as ³double split-screen top² and designate track two ³double split-screen bottom.² After creating the top and bottom split screen, practice using the Transform and Crop commands. Each video track has a drop-down attributes list. Practice using the Transform and Crop command to adjust your two images correctly in the Preview Pane.

6. CONCLUSION
My motivation has been to solve the problem of missing some portion of a football play while spending as little money as possible and using what equipment I already had. You can do the same. If you do not care about projecting both movies at once on the same screen, my dual-view shooting will still give you two views of the same play. You can burn a DVD of each sideline view; Normal Shot and Wide Shot.

Good Luck.











Richard Solomon has shot the football game videos for Ladue Horton-Watkins High School in St. Louis for six seasons. His sons Alexander and Benjamin graduated from Ladue in 2004 and 2006 and each won the Outstanding Lineman Award their senior year. You can reach Mr. Solomon at: ohmyback@earthlink.net.





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