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DIY Media Days
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by Nicole Watkins, University of Chicago Director of Communications/
CoSIDA New Media Committee, newatkins@uchicago.edu
As part of the CoSIDA Capital One Continuing Education Series, Watkins has written a two-part series on producing quality and consistent video content with limited staff and resources.
This is part one of the two-part series. See Part 2.
Video – whether it be highlights, or student-athlete/team profiles, interviews, etc. – can be daunting for a small sports information office. Most of us were not trained in video production, and while I consider myself lucky to have a photography background, I’ve learned pretty much everything I know about video from other people or the internet.
But I’m here to explain that it IS possible to push out great video content in a small shop, if you have a few items at your disposable: namely decent equipment, a willingness to learn and a little bit of manpower.
It’s all about your strategy.
Overview
With two full-time staff members and minimal student-help, we’ve produced nearly 100 videos from August 2017 to Dec. 31. Some are 2-5 minutes, some are 15 seconds. Some feature really cool, on-field “B Roll” footage, and some are just cut from the game film.
The main thing to take away is that video creates the most engagement – it gets people excited, it gives inside looks to teams and players, and it’s SO shareable. We’ve even been lucky enough to get two clips on ESPNw’s Top 10 list.
– think of the exposure a small, Division III school is getting with something like that.
(
http://www.espn.com/espnw/video/21687477/espnwtop10)
And when we worked with our University office, a video created by us that was directly embedded on the UChicago Facebook Page (featuring 236,000 followers) got incredible numbers: 38,000 views and 179 shares.
https://www.facebook.com/uchicago/videos/10159544669950650/
It IS doable in a small shop, you just have three main things:
- decent equipment b) a plan and c) consistency.
In this day and age, I think it’s a facet of new media you can’t ignore – it adds so much to the story we’re trying to tell our fans.
Office Dynamic
We are lucky enough to have two full-time staff in our office, which seems like a luxury in Division III. That means that my cohort and Sports Information Director Nathan Lindquist work together, but unlike most offices, we didn’t just divvy up our 20 sports. Instead, we split stories on a week-by-week basis, and when we have singular home events, I take on new media duties: photography/graphics, video and social media, while Nathan focuses on game management/statistics.
Video Strategy
I think it’s important to start the year or semester off with a strategy of what content, and what amount, you want to produce.
I decided that in my first year at UChicago, I wanted to hit a few baselines:
- One Season Preview/Outlook video for every varsity team
- Post-contest interviews and/or longer highlights after home events (when possible)
- Short action clips for social channels when longer highlights aren’t possible, or perhaps after a loss.
- NCAA Tournament preview videos
- Student-Athlete Profiles – (2-3 for the year)
So far, we’ve done pretty well, and it hasn’t felt overwhelming. We had four teams make the NCAA Tournament this past fall, both soccer teams reach the NCAA Final Four, the women made the title game and we even had a national champion cross country runner.
So how do we hit the marks?
1) Equipment, Settings, Production
I work with decently affordable equipment. While we have two identical nicer cameras that we use for live streaming, Sony PXW-70s XDCams ($2,059, B&HPhotoVideo:
https://bhpho.to/2BfPCzx) I tend to only use those for interviews that are not on game days, as well as B Roll for season previews.
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE: We set up our UChicago backdrop, I have two LED lights I use for lighting:
It’s basic enough, yet professional enough to produce the interviews show within this video:
(2018 UChicago Track & Field Season Outlook)
https://youtu.be/Ph9cv9x83G4
HIGHLIGHT FOOTAGE: The B-roll in that video, however is all shot with an SLR – a Canon 7D Mark II (it was $1,349 at the time) with a 70-200 2.8 mm prime lens, non-IS version ($,1249 new). That camera does shoot in 1080 and 60 fps, but doesn’t allow you to use the Auto-Focus Servo option, so I shoot in 720/60 fps for most sports. The reason I shoot in 60 fps is to produce the high quality slow motion you see in the action. Interviews are shot in 1080/30fps. I was lucky enough to “find” an old monopod lying around our office, so I use that while shooting highlights in order to stay low and steady.
EDITING: I taught myself how to edit in Adobe Premiere Pro using YouTube tutorials. It took 1-2 days to figure out the basics, and when I get stuck now, a quick YouTube search usually does the trick to show me what to do.
See Part 2.