Category: video

The one where I go to the national championship

When the Raiders moved back to Oakland from Los Angeles, my family instantly acquired two season tickets. The next year it went up to five.

Through the end of elementary on through the beginning of college I attended anywhere from 5-10 games a year. We painted up for every game, added a few dog chains and skull-related attire and headed to our seats in section 117, right on the rail of the players’ tunnell. The teams entered and exited the field just to our left, as we hung over the side and shouted various things.

Of course that only lasts so long. After the players come coaches, then trainers, equipment managers, other hangers-on and then the photographers and reporters.

My brothers and I made it a point to cheer for everyone. The guys who carried the bikes, the guys with the massage tables and even the lowly journalists, truly the bottom of the barrel. By the time they came through we shouted mainly for the irony.

Out there on the interwebs is a video of me shouting at an AP photogrpaher shooting video on his still camera, set up on a monopod. It’s the final shot of his video on the AFC championship game. There I am, full facepaint, screaming “Way to go camera-stick guy. Way to hold that camera on a stick!”

Years later I stumbled upon as I was researching photojournalism for myself and looking for tips. At that moment it seemed like I had come full circle, the subject becoming the shooter. But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago, as I was in Arizona for the BCS National Championship (a phrase I hope to not use again for many, many months), that the switch really finished

I had been on the field in pregame, so I knew where everything would be and what I needed to shoot. I knew where to go and was no longer in awe of the giant space of University of Phoenix Stadium.

Then as I walked out I noticed two kids hanging over the railing to my right, peering in for a look at what they hoped would be players. They scanned me, saw the camera and moved on.

There was no cheering for the camera guy, but I saw my brothers and I 10 years ago. I saw us as numerous photographers had over the years. It was a little weird. I thought about calling my mom, but of course, as in any good stadium, there was no cell reception of any kind.

The photo above pretty much sums up everything that happened before the game. I’m the one right in front of Oregon coach Chip Kelly, just to the left of the big guy in the light shirt. You can kind of almost make out the back of my head, as the rest of me is swallowed by arms desperately thrusting their microphones at the coach.

For just more than a week I went from press conference to practice to press conference, trying as hard as possible to not only come up with something we hadn’t written or shot the day before but something the thousands of other media members hadn’t already covered.

My role on the trip was mainly video of those events (the paper also sent two print reporters and a photographer) and then whatever else we could dig up. That included profiles of LoLo’s Chicken and Waffles workers who provided lunch for the Ducks one day and an interview with Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach, who had been part of the first college power ballad earlier in the week.

The game itself was pretty bittersweet as an Oregon graduate, but the experience itself as great.

And n the nearly 10 days I spent in Arizona, there was truly only one time I lost composure and got a little too fanboy.

Standing in line for the media elevator at University of Phoenix Stadium (the school has one of the better online football teams in the nation) I was about 15 feet in front of Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski. That also meant there were around 300 people in between us. I will have to awkwardly meet him some other time, unfortunately.

After I got downstairs to the digital media room, I told our photographer who I had seen. He looked at me and said, “Who?” Sorry, Joe.

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Newspaper video engagement, as measured in time capsules entered

This whole journalism thing can be hard sometimes, especially when you’re trying something new.

New being a relatively loose term. My paper started video just after I got there in 2006, so about four years worth of newness.

The hardest thing for me hasn’t been the actual work. I love doing anything for our Web site, from videos to map to interactive infographics. These are the things I’m passionate about because often I feel these are the best and clearest ways to tell a story.

The hard thing is waiting for anyone to notice.

With video, there are always metrics to let you know just how little your community cares about your work. Clicks, time spent watching, total forwards or any other measure that will tell you that for the most part, no one is watching. Recently that’s been changing with a new metric I’ve been tracking.

That measure is people offering to give me money for what I did.

It’s been slow, but I’ve been noticing over the last nine months or so a surge in people calling or e-mailing to see if they can get a copy of our videos. Since I work in high school sports a lot, this mostly comes from the parents of athletes or coaches or principals at the school.

What I’m hearing is that this is going into a scrapbook or played at an assembly or in the case of one of our teams that just won a state championship, in their time capsule.

For as long as there has been print publications, there has been adoring parents who clipped articles and posted them on whatever passed for the refrigerator. As computers and external hard drives become large enough (and people are getting more used to shooting and storing their own digital videos) they are becoming the refrigerator.

Parents are becoming more tech-savvy, either by experience or attrition, and they are learning to expect that as the newspaper of record, we will have a story, photos and video on anything their children do.

Much of what we do on the Web focuses on the immediacy of the medium. we’re often told to get content, especially videos, up quick and dirty.

This isn’t always the right decision and in the case of how our community is using my sports video I think it’s the wrong approach.

These videos are becoming a record of the event in more of a historical sense. People are watching them not to get the latest news but to relive, days later in many cases, something big for them.

When I do sports stuff I try to add titles, voice-overs and anything I can to make it seem more ESPN and less like something a parent might have shot. They’ve already seen that.

It adds a lot of time. I often don’t get home from a football Friday until 3 a.m. I worked during both time changes these last few months (which conveniently evened up my lost hours).

Now when I go around changing the office clocks I’ll have a little more faith that the extra time is really worth it.

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The one where Chris talks about community engagement and football

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adobemac/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Two days a week I’m the producer and host for the Statesman Journal online sports shows. A third I livestream a high school football game compete with CoverItLive chat.

So it’s a little sad to see 702.tv, a video project of the Las Vegas Sun, go down.

In the post at Poynterinked above, the Spokesman Review’s Colin Mulvany noted “I’ve never seen a newspaper-produced TV show on the Web that has ever been successful.” As much as it pains me to say so, me either.

At the Statesman I’ve produced two high school shows and a college show to go with the Friday night football and there hasn’t been one that has really taken off. Recently though I’ve had one project that has given me a little bit of hope.

This is our first year of incorporating CoverItLive into our high school football livestream. The first few weeks went by without much interaction at all outside a few people noting when the video or audio of the feed was having some problems.

The past few weeks (which not coincidentally I believe came with the two biggest games in our league this year) we have had a number of comments and questions and even, God forbid, commenters* talking with each other.

*Sorry for the Pozterisk, but I’m noticing that the WordPress spell-checker doesn’t like commenters as a word. Odd. Does it want commentators? That doesn’t seem like the right way to go.)

We still get zero questions on our high school and college sports shows, but this tiny bit of interaction has given me some hope that what we’re doing can take off. That there is a possibility that this is a way to bring the community out and together around athletics. Or at least drive up our pageviews and keep me in a job.

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The one where Chris pretends he’s an announcer

This Sunday I got back behind the video camera for my first live-streamed sports event since this past basketball season and my first softball game ever.

I’ve been live streaming — a live video feed of an event on our Web site — sporting events for about a year, doing mostly football and basketball games. When Gannett started up the whole live stream thing it was encouraged to do some sort of announcing. I had yet to give it a shot because one, both those sports move really fast and two, have a ton of people possibly involved on each play. For someone running a camera and making sure a webcast isn’t crashing, it can be hard to accurately track names well enough for a running commentary (especially when it rains during football, which destroys all rosters).

I had tried to set up something with a local radio station, but those efforts fell through, so until Sunday we had been running just straight nat sound with a lower-third and scoreboard shot the only real story-telling techniques available.

But Sunday was the ASA 10B Western National Softball Championship. Not only was it a slower game with only two real players in each play, but it was 10 year olds, a group without as much speed as some others. I figured if I was ever going to pop my announcing cherry, this was the time.

I duct-tapped a roster on to my tripod, set up behind the center field wall, mic’d myself up and hoped for the best.

I remember one of the local announcers describing radio announcing as talking to yourself for three hours. Having video helps fill in the dead time, but I had no idea what I was going to say or what my style was going to be.

The game started and quickly I realized that not only was it going to be a pain to keep a score book while operating the camera, the scoreboard operators were going to be updating the lights when they felt motivated and no sooner. So while I was monitoring audio levels, Internet connection, white balance and a million other things, I’d be tallying not only balls and strikes but outs and even runs in my head. I’m proud to say that only once did an inning end after I said there were only two outs.

I stuck to the basics, giving updates on what people couldn’t see, mainly outs and runners on. I announced that you were watching “the ASA 10B Fast Pitch Western Nationals from Wallace Marine Park in West Salem, Oregon” about 1,700 times in the little over one hour and 40 minutes I was on the air (which I technically was since my Internet was aircard).

I had a little background on the players from covering the tournament for print the day before. One team’s pitcher had already thrown a perfect game, one had a player stay home because she was diagnosed with breast cancer and all had been dealing with this monstrous heat wave that had ripped through Salem.

While that filled up a little time there was still plenty of dead air. There was also silence as I searched for names or during complicated plays where I couldn’t remember off the top of my head who was running around the bases as I made sure to frame the whole thing on my viewfinder.

Overall I thought the experience was fun. I have yet to listen to it as I’m scared to death of the sound of my own voice so I have no idea yet whether it was worth it. I know there is almost no way I could do it for football or basketball, but know I’m at least entertaining the possibility.

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The one where Chris goes fishing

Life in the newspaper business has been interesting this month.

Early in July the Statesman Journal, as with all Gannett assets, went through a round of layoffs. Two of my previous supervisors were fired, taking two of the people that spent the most time trying to actually teach the intern a thing or two about being a journalist.

Part of the change is also that I’m moving to my fifth job at the paper in just more than three years. I’m now going to be a multi-media sports reporter. As part of that new title I took my first deep-sea fishing trip.

Every year our outdoors writer, Henry Miller, spends a day at sea on a leg of the Oregon Tuna Classic. Fishermen (fisher-people? There were a few women sprinkled through the competition) take off to get the five biggest fish, with first place getting a decent check. Most importantly, all the fish caught go to the Oregon Food Bank.

I met Henry at a park-and-ride near a truck stop in South Salem at a dark 2:45 a.m. He loaded me up with motion-sickness remedies and we took off for Newport.

Henry has been at the paper as long as anyone at this point. Along the drive he had a story for every random town, obscure turnoff and random logging road. One highway had a great fishing spot he found when he made a wrong turn, one town had business dying because they made the main road one-way a few months back and he knew to slow down in a certain spot because that’s where the most deer come through (and sure enough, we didn’t hit the one we saw).

We pulled up to the docks a little after 5 a.m. and boarded the Secret Island, a 60-footer owned by a man named Tron (his only explanation was that he was born in 1969). We took off for the 60-mile trek out to sea to find the tuna.

The first thing Henry asked when he proposed the adventure about a month ago was “Do you have your sea legs?”

The answer, apparently, was no.

It took about an hour and a half to get out to the area where the tuna would be, during which time to sat holding my video camera and my head between my knees. Which of course was fair game for the experienced seamen, who let me know I was looking a little green.

When they stopped and started setting up I pulled out my camera and started shooting video. On the small boat a tripod was out so I used a shoulder mount we bought for football years ago. Still, the motion of the ocean made framing and tracking shots difficult, but not impossible.

The guys set up 12 poles and two hand-cast lines and then trolled. Fish started coming out pretty quickly, though only one at a time, a big disappointment. As it was explained to me, since tuna are school fish normally with a bunch of lines you can expect a bunch if you get one. But that wasn’t our fate.

After the first fish we waited. Which gave me plenty of time to sit around and think about my heaving stomach. Soon enough I found my way to the side of the boat and so did my dinner.

Now, when you’re planning on vomiting (which I definitely was coming into the day) it’s important to plan out your last meal, which I definitely did not.

The night before I had a nice spinach salad. It tasted great (and great for ya!) but when it came back up it looked like a prop from Ghostbusters. So I threw up again.

But after that the day was perfect. The time line went something like this:

10 a.m.: Throw up. Cures existence.

11 a.m.: Vomit, pray to never see water again, throw eggs at nearest seafood restaurant.

Noon: I want to live at sea and eat nothing but sushi.

After I got it out of my system, every neon green particle of it, the day was fantastic. The guys on the boat were funny as hell, the act of deep sea fishing is actually pretty cool and they even let me reel one in.

Of course Henry asked me to come out again. I’m still figuring out if that’s a good idea.

Video after the jump.

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Video: Watching a journalist become a ball player

One of my favorite parts of summer in Salem is the return of professional baseball. Two steps up from the bottom, but professional baseball, dammit.

The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes are the Short Season A (SSA for those in the know) affiliate of my team, the San Francisco Giants. With the team actually developing prospects recently, a few current Giants (Tim Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval, Fred Lewis and a cast of dozens) have trod the dusty Earth of Volcanoes Stadium.

Last week fellow Statesman reporter Gary Horowitz decided to live the life of a minor league player for the day, leading up to what we saw as the main event, live batting practice.

The assignment was an event in the office. Our high school’s reporter made time in his day to come out, we had a photographer cover it and then there was me, armed with a video camera.

I’m fairly happy with the video. I mic’d Gary up but unfortunately the lav didn’t want to work more than a few feet away so there is some static here and there. I needed a shot of him getting into the box that never happened because he kept getting thrown in at random times to hit and I  kept trying to get his interactions with the players instead of following the cage. At the time [players felt more important but looking back (especially during editing) I would have loved that set up shot.

Overall though I think it captures the feel of the day. Gary wanted desperately to make contact, the players and coaches had a good time watching him try not to embarrass himself.

Click more to see the video.

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OSAA wrestling wrap

I spent Saturday night at the Rose Garden in Portland for the OSAA Wrestling State Championships at the Memorial Coliseum.

My first year at the Statesman Journal they held the tournament in Salem and I was there almost 12 hours a day for all three days. I probably shot video of 50 matches, though not all of them made it from the camera to our Web site.

It’s still one of my favorite events to cover each year. With five mats going during the nearly four-hour championship night it’s just this huge mess of whistles, screaming refs, parents and coaches and every second some kid is reaching a dream. It can be amazing to watch.

Shooting wrestling video is really all about luck, especially in at the Oregon state championships. OSAA, the state high school activities governing body, restricts shooters to one side of the mat so the other can be reserved for companies with contracts for the event (such as NW Game films and the sponsoring Oregonian). Proud to say I’ve been thrown off of more wrestling mats in three years than I can count.

That means there is a limited space an either side of the coaches to shoot from. There is little room to maneuver if say a ref is blocking your shot of a pin.

But the format is perfect for video. Most matches are around 10 minutes of total video, which makes for quick editing (provided you can spot when something big happens — every year I need a crash course on scoring before the event).

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How to shoot high school basketball video

(Or more appropriately, how I shoot high school basketball video)

My first real journalism job was as a sports writer at the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore. Shortly before I got that job the paper had discovered I could shoot and edit video.

Of course I could do them both together, right?

Until then I had just shot news video, so when I got the assignment to start shooting high school basketball that winter (almost three years ago) I went everywhere I could looking for tips. I hit the B-Roll.net forums, SportsShooter.com and anywhere else that listed even a few hints.

So now, three years later, here’s what I wished I had known then.

Location, Location, Location

No matter how good your camera or how polished your skills, your basketball video will look terrible through the back of the ref’s neck or sitting on a shacky set of stands.

Most college and NBS shooters set up under the basket and shoot sitting on the ground. I’ve found in high school that doesn’t work as with fewer refs the zebras claim the whole baseline as their playground. And many high school gyms have one or both baselines as a walkway. So while possible to claim that area (because you’re a professional journalist doing your job, damn-it!), it’s not always the easiest spot.

I always claim a corner, normally at the bottom of the left baseline. I stay a few feet back and to the left (back, and to the left …). Make sure you have a clear shot of a scoreboard and hopefully the two benches.

The other option of course is to go up stairs and shoot from the middle. I’ve never been a fan of this. It takes you too far from the emotion of the game. You’re reaction shots are going to be looking down, not at the same level of the players. If you think of the replays you see on ESPN, normally you see the u-top to start and then the second on is from the floor to show emotion. That’s what you’re looking for.

Always use your sticks

While a lot of sports shooters like to go sans-tripod, I always use something for basketball. Where I set up is usually out of the way and my tripod doesn’t claim a lot of real estate. If it doesn’t feel safe enough with three legs, there are a lot of goof mono-pods that can do the trick.

Having a steady shot just adds a look of professionalism to your shots. There isn’t that shake that can be jarring, especially when following a quick game like basketball.

Framing and following

Basic, but I normally try and keep full bodies in the shot with a little shooting space. Once the ball is in the air follow it as best you can. When someone drives to the basket pull out a little bit and be ready to follow the rebound.

When teams are trying to set up a shot always follow the ball, not the player. That ball is what we’re all there for anyway. It will help keep the shot steady because you won’t be falling for every crossover and ball fake.

Follow the shooter

This is part of the emotion I was talking about when I going over shooting from the floor.

After every basket follow the scorer for a few seconds. It will help set up the voice over and every once in a while you’ll get a nice scream or a chest bump that will help the video pop.

Shot lists are a must

I’ve never shot a game without a notebook and never left without a complete set of game notes. If you’re putting together highlights a strong set of notes are absolutely irreplaceable.

My notes normally end up looking something like this:

1241 32-12 S 23

Basically it’s just timecode, score, team and player number. When I get back to the office to edit I pick around 15-20 plays, find the timecode and load the 15 seconds prior into Avid.

And having everything written down really speeds up the process of writing voice overs and deciding what plays to keep. Take a few minutes at halftime to look over your notes and see where the ark of the game has gone.

There’s more to the game than the game

In Salem ever high school has a cheering section, but Sprague has developed a reputation as the oddest and most entertaining of the area.

While it’s almost required at each high school that a group of seniors show up in ’70s era short-shorts and jerseys, Sprague takes it to another level.

There is the sumo wrestler, the shaker of salt, afro-man and of course Pooh Bear. Not only are the costumes good but the chants aren’t half bad either.

These guys are tailored made intros and help break up what could otherwise be nothing but highlights. Same goes for coaches and other fans.

Fans are also good when (especially in girls games) free throws start deciding things at the end. A free throw is often boring. A fan reaction almost never is.

Still, know a little bit about the game

It’s always good to know a little not only about the game of basketball but th two teams playing. Are they an uptempo matchup, or will there be lots of post play? When the point guard has it at the top of the key is he trying to swing it outside or push it down low? This can help you anticipate action and make sure you know where the big play is going to be.

Here’s my most recent video. Not my best, but I think you’ll see some of the things I was talking about.

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