10 Things I Learned From Videoing Soccer

I just created a video scrapbook for my 4 year old son’s soccer team. Throughout the season I videoed various parts of the game. Then, I used my Mac (iMovie) to create a montage of the various plays and showed it at the end of season soccer party.

These are the top 10 things I learned when creating the soccer video.

1. Get plenty of close ups of the players. These are some of the best shots since you can see their facial expressions.
2. Video funny things they do on the field… such as skipping, picking flowers, watching the planes fly by, etc. Then, you can have a bloopers section on your video and set it to music such as “The Little Rascals” or “Linus and Lucy”.
3. Get shots of the crowd (parents) watching the game. This may not be that important to the child right now. But in 20 years, he/she will have fun looking to see who was in the crowd cheering them on.
4. Video the setting… such as signs and landmarks. Once again, in 20 years you might not remember exactly where you played. You don’t need a lot of this coverage. But a little is good.
5. Plan your video before you shoot it. For example, if you want to play a certain song in your video and you want the plays to go along with the video, you will need to make sure you get that coverage. For example, I videoed a lot of the kids falling down. It seems like they were always tripping over each other and the ball. In my video scrapbook, I showed various clips of the kids falling down and played the song “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba. The lyrics go like this… “I get knocked down, but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down.”
6. Video the coach. Video the coach and the kids in the huddle. Make sure you get the audio of the coach. These clips make great transitions between songs.  Make sure you give a copy of the soccer video to the coach when you finish. He/she will definitely appreciate it.
7. Don’t worry about videoing each game in their entirity. That would take too long to edit. Plus, to me, that’s not important. My goal was to show the kids having fun playing soccer.
8. Use a tripod. I thought I had a pretty steady hand… and I do. But when the kids made a good play, I would cheer and those clips ended up being shaky. Ugggh!
9. Move around. Don’t shoot all your video from one spot on the bleachers. If possible, shoot video from each end of the field, the center, etc. It will make your video scrapbook a lot more interesting. Plus, shoot at different angles, such as sitting down, standing up, standing on a chair, etc.
10. Learn from your mistakes. After each game, watch the video and see where some improvements can be made. If you see something you like, keep doing it. By the end of the season, you should have some great footage!

Just remember… your video scrapbook doesn’t have to be perfect. Whatever you create will be a treasure for years to come. Have fun!