When shooting game footage yourself using your own personal camcorder be sure to use a superior quality camera to capture the best, most clear footage possible. Here's some tips to follow when shooting your own video footage:
- Start recording early and keep recording about 10 seconds after the play ends.
- In general, closer shots are always better than wider shots.
- Using a tripod will keep your shots more stable and your video more enjoyable to watch.
Consider hiring someone to record your footage if you are unable to do it yourself or contact your local cable company and ask if you could possibly acquire some footage they may have used in a previous broadcast.
You may also obtain high quality video footage by asking your head coach for game, practice or showcase footage. If your high school doesn't have quality films call your opponents and ask to buy their film, sometimes they'll loan or even give it to you. When putting together a scholastic recruiting video to impress coaches think ESPN Plays of the Week and put the best plays first.
Some of our clients have incorporated newspaper articles and quotes from their coaches and team mates into their video. Another great idea is to include a brief autobiographical introduction. It doesn't have to be a recital of a student-athlete's entire academic and athletic records. In no more than half a minute, communicate "I'm a student. I'm also an athlete. I'm looking for an opportunity to get a college education while competing athletically at the collegiate level. Thank you for watching my video." It doesn't have to be a polished Hollywood speech. It can be read from notes or cue cards. Coaches have a better chance of remembering you when you put your face, voice, and story in front of them on the video. When creating your video we also encourage you to incorporate your own creative and unique ideas as well.
As a general rule, a recruiting video should not exceed twenty minutes in length. College coaches are able to make informed assessments of a student-athlete's skills fairly quickly. Nine innings is too much. Four quarters is too much. Provide purposeful footage in small, manageable chunks.
Video footage alone will not make an impression on college coaches. You must also provide factual information about yourself to give the coach more insight on who you are and how to contact you.
Include the following facts, be careful not to embellish any information:
- Personal and parental contact information: names, addresses, phone numbers and emails.
- High school, address and phone number.
- Coach and Guidance counselor's phone numbers and email addresses.
- Age, weight, height, class and jersey number.
- GPA, Class Rank, SAT and/or ACT scores if available.
- Academic and service achievements and honors.
- Statistical accomplishments.
Power Play Films accepts the following video formats to extract your footage from:
- Standard DVD's (DVD+R, DVD-R and DVD+RW are all acceptable formats.)
- Mini "Camcorder" DVD's (Please ensure to "FINALIZE" all DVD's and Mini DVD's).
Power Play Films does not accept the following video formats:
- We DO NOT accept VHS or Mini DV tapes, also known as DVC (Digital Video Cassette). This type of media slows our production time down considerably to triple the normal time it would take versus that of extracting footage from Dvd's, resulting in higher prices. To keep our prices low, we now only accept footage on Dvd's. If your game footage is on this type of media, you must transfer your footage from your tapes to a standard Dvd before submitting your footage to us. Please refer to your camcorder's owner's manual to learn how to accomplish the transfer of your footage to Dvd or CLICK HERE to visit a website that will give you step by step instructions.
We prefer to work from the original video for quality, but we can also use footage from copies.
