BYU vs. Utah

I wish that I was able to give access to my highlight videos. With the Utah game being so dramatic and all, the highlight video was pretty sweet. Normally we don't do a highlight video for the Utah game because it is the last game of the season. This year was different because of the postponement of the SDSU game. I was pretty excited to edit the video as I was watching the game unfold. I was so excited about the highlight that I braved cougarboard to hopefully get some ideas for music. 

The problem with the cougarboard guys is that they tend to like the old-school stuff. Someone even went as far as to mention the Carpenters for music for the highlight video. Are you kidding me? The Carpenters? Brutal. So I thanked everyone for their help, but Bon Jovi and the Carpenters just don't get the juices flowing for our football team. The point of the highlights is to pump the players up before taking the field. This usually means rap and hip-hop. I went with something a little more dramatic this time around and included some "300 (the movie)" music along with some Linkin Park. The video was money! It turned out great. I'm going to submit the video to the CSVA (College Sports Video Association... something like that) in hopes of being ranked amongst the best highlight video editors in the country. I'll let you all know how that goes. I think the Utah highlight is one of the better videos I've edited and should do well when put up against other videos I've seen. Oregon is the only other University that really has decent videos. Everywhere else tends to be a little less professional.

As for the Utah game, I can't believe we pulled that one out. It makes the game horrible to attend (I care WAY too much about these stupid sports), but it makes the victory oh so much sweeter. If we blow out Utah, the game doesn't sting at all. We get to go around bragging that we killed Utah, but tell me that isn't so much sweeter to not have to say anything to those Utah fans. All you have to do is look at them, raise both eyebrows and smile. The loss still stings.

The wall comes to life...

This is something I did two years ago and I'm pretty sure I'm safe in posting it. Enjoy.

BYU vs. Wyoming

So you've all heard stories about Laramie and how exciting the fans can be, right? Well my dad comes with me to the away games to help film. Without him we wouldn't have enough camera angles to make a decent highlight. I usually stay on the BYU sideline and my pops stays on the visiting team's sideline. This usually isn't a big deal, but then there was Wyoming.

The only time that my dad had a truffle on the sidelines was when the Notre Dame leprechaun kept jumping in front of my dad's camera in South Bend a couple years ago. (I told him he should have beat the guy up... that would've made SportsCenter...) So at Wyoming my dad was doing his thing and expecting to hear stuff from the fans. If you haven't been to Laramie, there isn't a lot of room between the first row of seats and the player's bench. This makes it so that when you walk behind the bench to get to the other side of the field, you have to get a little up close and personal with the crowd. Two years ago they would yell at him as he crossed, this year, nothing. The fun didn't come from the crowd, it came from what appeared to be Wyoming's graduate assistants. 

There was this one guy who kept standing in front of my dad's camera as he was filming. My dad's first move was to just step to the side and keep filming. Well, the next play, the guy stands in front of my dad's camera and as the play is developing, my dad steps to the side and notices that the guy sidesteps with him to stay in front of the camera. My dad steps to the side again and the guy moves again with him. My dad is no little guy and ain't scared to take on a Wyoming Cowboy. My dad, while filming mind you, lowers his shoulder into the guy and gives him a hard shove. You can imagine how frustrating this would be. My dad finished filming the play and as soon as the play ended takes the camera down and looks to hunt down this guy. As he looks around, the guy was gone! He had split and didn't mess with my dad the rest of the time. 

It's always fun to head to Laramie. You can't leave without some good stories to tell.

BYU vs. TCU

I just wanted to get a quick post in this week. In case you didn't see the play very well, I'm posting a video of when Gooch tore his ACL. It's looking like he's done for the year. By watching the clip below, it looks like it was kind of a freak thing. He didn't really get hit that hard, but it was just enough to mess him up.

Anyways, I'm out for now, but I'm calling for a win in Laramie. 31-14.

BYU vs. CSU

After every home game, the football players are given food which is usually waiting for them as they enter the locker room. The video crew gets some of the food as well. We will go into the locker room and grab enough food for everyone that helps film and then take the food back to the Student Athlete Building where we eat as we make sure the coaches' footage is getting logged. 

Well, there was a minor catastrophe after the CSU game. For the first time (and probably last time) we had Panda Express cater the post-game meal. I LOVE Panda Express. I understand that it isn't authentic, but my American taste buds love it. So I go into the locker room to grab enough food for me and the rest of the crew only to find out that the food wasn't there yet. Heads were absolutely rolling for this one. Making football players wait for food is a sin! No one knew what to do. Players were asking where the food was. We had to give some of them candy bars just to tide them over. When the food finally did arrive, half of the players were gone. They must have had tons of sweet and sour pork left over.

The game went well. I was a little nervous going into this game. We hadn't played a tough opponent for weeks. Sometimes bye weeks can kill your momentum. We came out swinging though and were smart enough to give the ball to Harvey. Anyone else amazed by his consistency? He's just a good person too. Watching some of his behind the scenes interactions with others just really impresses me. He's really down to earth and doesn't let the success get to his head. You can tell he is trying to do the right things and has his head on straight. 

BYU is going to win the conference this year. No doubt. 

BYU vs. Eastern Washington

BYU's football team played Eastern Washington last week. I'm originally from Southern California and I don't do well in the cold weather. The game this week was brutal. By the end of the game it had snowed so hard, my camera could barely see through the snow to film the game. As I looked up to the press box, I noticed that the snow was so thick, I almost couldn't see the press box through it all. Probably the heaviest snow I have ever been in. 

The highlight of the game though was when Harvey Unga ran the ball towards the goal-line and was hit out-of-bounds into one of our camera guys. The camera guy is actually my brother. We've been ragging him pretty good ever since. I included a copy of the clip, so check it out.

As a joke, we made a copy of the clip and put in Harvey's locker. We left a note on the DVD that said something to the effect of, "Watch this DVD. Don't expect to be in the highlight video this week. We camera guys stick together..." Something like that. Don't worry though... Harvey will definitely be in the highlight video this week.

BYU vs. UNLV

This past week BYU played UNLV. I was nervous going into this game because UNLV has played tough when they're at home. (Just ask Utah.) I didn't know what to expect from UNLV and if they "showed up" it could be a tough fight to the end.

We arrived in Las Vegas on Friday afternoon. I was stoked because I got an aisle seat with no one in the middle. Sometimes I get stuck in a middle seat. Not fun. We leave from the Provo airport to save the team from driving all the way to Salt Lake to fly out. I guess since they charter the plane it makes sense that we make them come to Provo. This year has been nice because we've been chartering JetBlue. I guess JetBlue removed a row of seats in order to expand their legroom, and that, along with the DirecTV, has been wonderful. When we got on the plane we had L&L Hawaiian food to tide us over 'til we got to Vegas. There was pulled pork, glazed chicken, and a type of steak. Way good. They feed us so much on these trips. It also seems that there is a never-ending supply of Gatorade on these trips. 

We landed in Las Vegas and then got on the bus which took us to our hotel. The traffic was pretty bad so I watched an episode of The Office on my way over. (Did anyone else think that the DVD box floating around the screen to start off last week's episode was ingenious? Loved it!) When we got to the hotel I helped set up the team meeting rooms with the video equipment and also tested the highlight video to make sure the sound levels were fine. For the New Mexico highlight we used a song from the movie "Step Up". I think the song is called "I'mma Shine". I actually really liked this song for the video. It went well. 

After all the setup was done, I went out to dinner with my pops (he comes to all the away games to help film). We went to the RIO buffet. Good stuff. When we got back to the hotel I had the option of getting a "snack" before I hit the sack, but opted out since I still hadn't recovered from the meal on the plane and the buffet. Now, when I say snack, I really a dinner after dinner. This is no snack. They typically have hamburgers, chicken fingers, french fries, fruit, ice cream, more gatorade. :) They're always feeding us. 

The next morning I had a sweet omelette and some other typical breakfast stuff. I watched some football in the hotel, had lunch, and went to the game. UNLV's setup is a little different than most. They say that the setup is what it is because of the XFL team that used to be there. They have the locker rooms right off of the field. I guess they used to have the XFL practices to the opposite side of the locker rooms as the stadium's field. They had a practice field in what is now the parking lot, so they wanted the locker rooms right in the middle of it all. It makes for some easy access to the locker rooms. We had some battery issues this week with our cameras s0 it was very convenient to have the locker rooms so close.

The game started out close, but our defense played great which made the mistakes on offense not so critical. This next week we play Eastern Washington (a I-AA school). It looks like we are taking the game seriously and I suspect an easy victory. 

I'm calling it 41-14. 

Highlight Videos and Football

One of the best things that one can do to become a better videographer is to consistently work on editing projects. I do my best to keep busy by editing weekly highlight videos for Brigham Young University's football team. I notice that there are those who edit "highlight videos" of BYU football using TV footage. This is mostly done by people as a hobby. While this may help to become a better editor, this does nothing to improve one's ability to shoot footage, work with cameras, manage live events, log & capture, etc. Using TV footage for highlight videos really hinders the "art" of creating a highlight video. I like being able to film the game myself so that as I edit, I am able to create my own works. I have noticed that my ability to edit has improved because of being on the field and filming the games myself. I feel that I receive ideas for how I will edit this week's video based on what I see through the lens as I film. While we still get the broadcast melt to have extra footage, I do what I can to use my footage and that of my fellow workers so that the video feels like it is ours.

The highlight videos that I create are internal only. In other words, no one is allowed to see them but the players and coaches. (This is because of some of the broadcast rights that go along with the footage that we shoot.) Last year we tried to work out how to distribute these videos, but we discovered that it would take a lot of work with some "high-ups" to make it happen. I think that there are some contractual obligations to CSTV and others that hinder the distribution of any of these types of videos. 

The videos are shown in a pre-game meeting prior to the team getting on the bus to head to the stadium. The team comes to the meeting very focused. The meeting starts by us showing a highlight video of the previous week's game. (I'm pretty sure this is typical of all division I schools.) After the video is finished, one of the captains will usually say something to the team and lead them in break before they get on the bus. The fun part is getting all of the equipment taken down before the buses leave us behind. (They left us once in South Bend... well, actually, it was a city outside of South Bend where the hotel was... we lost the police escort to the stadium, so it took us quite a while to get to the stadium... you can imagine the traffic on game day at Notre Dame...) We have a projector, speakers, DVD player, sound board, and lots of cables that we have to take down in a just a minute or two. We have it down pretty good (we're going on three years now). Once we get all of the equipment on the bus, we head to the stadium and shoot the next game to make the next highlight video. 

It makes for long nights and fun weekends. Producing highlight videos is a tedious process, but being able to edit consistently has allowed me to improve my efficiency. I've been able to cut out about 10 hours worth of work since the first year that I did the highlight videos for BYU. This week we go to Las Vegas to play UNLV. I plan on giving a report on how the game goes. I may turn this blog into a BYU blog since I have a game each week to talk about. We'll see how it goes...

Logging Footage with Final Cut Pro

Have you ever tried to log some footage and had trouble getting the log and capture setup to recognize that your camera/deck is there? Perhaps you see that the window shows "VTR OK" but you still see color bars in the log and capture window. The camera/deck is playing but you don't see an image on the screen. This can be one of the most frustrating scenarios. You want to simply get the footage to start logging so that you can continue to work on other things in the background. Maybe you're missing part of the big game because you can't get your camera working right. 

Is it the camera? Is it the computer? Is it the connection? As it turns out, all of these things need to be in complete harmony or you won't be able to log anything. The first thing that you should check when you're trying to log the footage is that the camera has the correct settings. If you captured in HDV then make sure that you don't have the down-convert settings on. Make sure that the firewire setting is set to HDV and not to DV. Make sure that the camera is in VTR mode and not camera mode. 

The computer settings need to match the settings that the camera has. This is actually very simple in Final Cut Pro but can be frustrating if you don't do it right. Under the "File" menu, click on the "Easy Setup" option. In the window that will show up, find the setting that you configured your camera to display. From here you should be all set to log and capture.

If you find that these steps didn't get your camera to be recognized, you'll usually be able to fix the problem with a simple restart of the camera and the computer!

Introduction to NLE

NLE: Non-Linear Editing. NLE is a type of video editing that does not require the splicing and joining of tape or film. In a linear editing scenario, the editor must find a clip or segment of film and set in and out points on the clip. This is done with many clips until all necessary clips are ready to be pieced together. The clips are then joined together IN SEQUENTIAL ORDER from the first clip to the last. It is necessary to have an in point and an out point in the timeline (or the reel) and an in and out point on the clip as well (thus, four "points" altogether). Linear editing can be a very tedious process. 

With the aid of computers, non-linear editing is made possible. Non-linear editing requires only three "points" when incorporated into the timeline. For example: if an in point and an out point are set on a particular clip, that clip can be placed on a timeline where only an point is specified. Because of the nature of the digital interface, it is not required to set an out point on the timeline because the out point is figured by the non-linear system based on the out point of the clip. Not needing to figure out where to set out points on the timeline can save the editor a lot of time. In another example, if in points and out points are set in the timeline, than it is only necessary to set an in point on the clip that will be placed. The editor need not set the out point as well because the out point will be figured based on the out point of the timeline.

Examples of popular non-linear editing solutions are Avid, Final Cut Pro, and Adobe Premiere. I am an avid Final Cut Pro user (and have been since version 1.0). The benefits of using non-linear systems have brought Hollywood producers on board to master feature films using non-linear solutions. Napoleon Dynamite was edited using Final Cut Pro. The new version of King Kong was produced using a program called Shake along with Final Cut Pro. The speed and ease of use that non-linear editing brings to the table has allowed this form of editing to dominate the production industry.