Football Live Stream

When Absolute Live Productions got the call to Live Stream the high school all-star football game in Southern California, needless to say we were more than excited. The team at Absolute Live Productions loves producing & live streaming sporting events. We had not produced football live stream in a number months. Live streaming sporting events offer a number of fun challenges, such as multi-camera switching, slow-motion replay, announcer comms for play-by-play and color commentary, graphics, lower thirds, Live Text etc.

Typically Absolute Live Productions will use four or five cameras to produce a professional quality live streamed football game. On this occasion however there was only enough budget to hire two professionals so it left us with an opportunity to bring in some new and upcoming talent to the camera position. It’s always fun when you can bring a soon to graduate film, or broadcast student along to perform what usually is a position reserved for one of the professional crew from our roster. Even without the budget, we volunteered to donate the other two cameras to the football games live stream production. With the extra two cameras we would have far more options to choose from during the live event. We decided to use two female students, Ruby, a graduate student from Chapman University’s film school, and Violet, Ruby’s younger sister, a devoted liberal arts student from The Big Island of Hawaii.

When the game started we knew that if we only pulled a few shots from those camera positions, it would  still be a big advantage to have more than two choices.  In the end, we were all impressed with their abilities to understand and follow the sport. With a little bit of rehearsal our technical director commented that he would have both of these young camera people back for another game. Since Ruby’s talent and focus leans towards creative writing, we asked her if she would write 500 words on her observation of what filming and live streaming football was like. I thoroughly enjoyed her comments and wanted to share those with you here on our website. Needless to say if I ever get the opportunity again to be able to hire inspired creative writers to run cameras at a sporting event again, I just might do it.

The Views and Observations of a Female Camera Op.

(By Ruby Fink)

There was a moment when I stepped out of the car and viewed the emerald football field that I was transported back to my high school years. The similar bleachers, the field encompassed by a spongy red and white track, and the crisp white lines and goal posts in contrast to the green grass. Of course, there was no Coyote Pride symbol, the familiar mascot of my Calabasas High School, but the feeling of déjà vu remained. I suppose it was a standard layout for all public high schools, but the result throughout the day was that I had to remind myself that I was not revisiting my old stomping grounds.

In the time it took for our small film crew to unpack the live stream equipment from the van and begin to set up, the field began to fill with groups of young boys dressed in dark red jerseys, tight white pants, and helmets. With different coaches to supervise each group they began to perform a series of drills, passes, feints, long catches and short throws. Others practiced blocks, forming up into two opposing lines and then at the coach’s whistle throwing themselves at the other line with the aggression of one fighting for the last slice of pizza.

I was sent to film said athletes with a camera that weighed more than I was used to. While it was the newest, shiniest toy to fall off the camera conveyor belt, it was still a major task to hold it steady, never mind the impossible task of holding it with one hand while adjusting my zoom lens. Which left me two options: to zoom in before I pressed record and move closer and farther away in order to get the action, or to change the zoom in the middle of recording and hope I don’t miss something or that the editor can cut around the times when the camera starts wobbling as one single arm takes on the full monster weight of the burden in my hands.

football

In this state I was able to come to a few realizations: Firstly, like when driving a car, objects in camera are closer then they appear. So when it seems as if a whistling missile of a football is coming at your head at I don’t-know-how-many miles per second, there is a good chance it won’t hit you. Rather, a young boy will jump into frame to catch it; therefore it is best to hold your ground to get said shot rather than flinch and stumble back a safe distance. That is not to say the football can’t hit you, I was standing at a safe distance and a bouncing bugger of pigskin came and hit me in the shin, but at least it wasn’t thrown by a strapping lad who could bench press me with one hand. Secondly, always be aware of what drill is going on. If you are in the middle of the field getting shots, the football players will try and move around you, but if they happen to be focused on catching a ball, you can be almost run over, which is not as good as not-run-over-at-all but better than being hit-and-squashed-like-a-pancake. So keep one eye focused on the camera and another on the field.

As for the game we were hired to shoot…well I don’t understand the ins and outs of football at all so I’m not sure who won. But a group of boys in different colored jerseys raced around the grassy field in a desperate battle to get a small leather ball from one side of the grounds to the other, and a crowd of supporters cheered wildly and I focused on getting as much action as possible for my crew-members in the booth. At the end of the day, my part in the whole sequence was I was an observer and recorder to something that impacted some and others not at all.