Team Videographers??
 

I'm just curious if your team has anyone who films any of the events your team participates in (like regionals, finals, ...) and puts together [so they don't end up as 9 1.5hr tapes of raw footage :D ].

Last year, I regretably started late, filming only our trip to Houston. I say regretably because I didn't have any build material for sponsorship videos. As a result I'm starting early this year, in an attempt to cover everything (Hobby Show demonstration, Kick-Off, Regional, Finals hopefully, and everything in between).

Our team's trip to Houston boiled down to a only 1h07m :D .

I'd like to know if anyone else has put together anything for thier team in years previous, what equipment they've used, whether they found the video break-boxes in Houston useful and so on.

My setup is a Sony D8 camera, 2.2GHz 512MB Sony Vaio with FireWire 400 running Adobe Premiere 6.5. It'll be usefull for editing on the bus ride back.

THX.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

something we found to be very usefull is to have someone record our matches with a camcorder, staying zoomed tight on our bot

then after the match we can review the tape in the pit (we brought a 10" LCD monitor)

this allowed us to see things that you dont notice during the matches, and things the drivers cant see from where they are

for example, last year by carefully watching the tapes we noticed our 'flying squirrel' was folding back when it hit the wall, so it wasnt taking out as many stacks of bins as it could have

in engineering, data is everything - if you can play back each match, in slowmo if necessary, you can see exactly what your bot was doing.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Ha! Finally a topic that I can truly relate to! I'm the video-chick on our team, (also known as the paparazzi). I take video from kickoff all the way until the end of the season, and even of some of our off season events (if they let me get my hands on the camera!) I take video of the build season events (and trust me, with our team, there's always something to take video of, even if it's of Rob, picking his nose...) during the build season, of our matches and sometimes the matches of our next competitors and partners during the regional season, and of basically every random thing at the championship event (including rather attractive boys on some of the other teams....).

From there, I give my footage to Chris, the other senior in our Chairman's group, who puts it on the video machines and edits it. (and yes, normally takes out the cute boy footage) When we're done, we put the weekly footage on a local tv station during our alloted time so that the community can see it. Also, we make an end of the year video to show at the banquet, where our parents get to see some of the, shall we call them, amusing things that we do during the season.

As to the equiptment that I use, I'm not actually sure other than that Chris normally edits his video on a Casablanca editing machine. I have truly never looked to see what type of camera I use. We typically just take our video with the camera in my hand so I can do, interesting shots.....

Re: Team Videographers??
 

hi, i was waiting for someone to post something like this =) getting to know all the other videographers on other teams is a great idea... i started very late last season with W. Michigan regional, but managed to pull something together in pinnacle studio for a promotional video that was okay, but definitely not what im capable of. i was more doing it as a home video type project, but then one of the teachers recommended it as a good tool. If anyone has been to CR, the promotional videos done in the middle of the comps are an excellent source of ideas.

this year im trying to see what im able to with a copy of adobe priemere.. it would be nice if somewhere down the line we could get a copy of that software or possibly FinalCut Pro (mac's) as the animation teams do for 3DSTUDIO etc..

btw, what kind of equipment are you operating on? ive got a jvc handheld, thats no where near professional, and going onto about 3 years old but at the very least it handles mini-dv formats and does decent footage.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

A few of the people on my team including my self do the video ography for a lot of our robotics stuff. I would of attached a sample movie but the attachment feature is foo bared.

As for what equipment we use here it goes...
Camera:
Canon XL1
Canon GL1 or GL2
Sony PD-150

Computer:
Apple G4 - Dual 500 MHz OS 10.2

Software:
Final Cut Pro 3

Re: Team Videographers??
 

wow.. im jealous =P. i think we are probably going to see a wide spectrum of the number of teams that do do the editing, some may use a more home-based approach like me, or may choose to try it out at school (another option im thinking off, with the final cut option) the only problem being i wouldnt be able to work on it at all hours..hehe

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Hah... I feel just like all of you guys- been waiting for this. our team is big, and i mean BIG on video. we tape every event we partcipitate in.. Our 'video cabinet', as we call it, is swollen from a insane amount of mini-dv tapes.. we really didn't use the break boxes at houston, just taped our own matches and pit events

basically, how we do it is: we have our own sony mini-dv camcorder as well as an assortment of sony still cameras. our school's tv lab teacher is really motivated, and after a long struggle with the school board got enough budget to buy 4 new vaios, so we do most of our editing at the tv lab.. recently we've been making dvds to distribute to sponsors, its a really cool way to sell yourself...

Re: Team Videographers??
 

We do something similar, covering important pre-/post- season activities along with all of build season and competitions (well, as much as our videographer last year was around for). This was then editted into a few versions: a short "video-brochure" for drop-in fundraising use, an hour-long documentary for possible broadcasting (our video from last season will actually get broadcast on local cable at the end of this month, finally), and a much more informal archive for intra-team purposes (including all the stuff unfitting for public display, for whatever reason).

Last year, we had one very busy guy who couldn't attend a lot do all the filming on his Canon ZR-something (40 i think). He editted on his iMac with iMovie (sounds amateur, but it was surprisingly well done). This year, we may have up to 3 camera people running, which should get us a wider variety and coverage of shots to work with. We also might switch to Premiere/Final Cut, depending on availability and whether we learn enough to use it, though we haven't yet hit the point where we feel we need the high-end software.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

i have been taking video for my team for the past three years, and i have not found the break-boxes to be very useful. i prefer to take the video myself, that way i can zoom in on our bot. each year i put together a little montage using iMovie, but this year i am trying to learn final cut pro. i have also put together a short video to show to prospective mentors/sponsors, and to possibly show on public access tv. last year, after every match, our drivers and programers would meet to watch the video and see what could be improved for our next match. this was especially hepful since we were still fixing our autonomous mode at the competition.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

We had a videoographer at Phoenix, he also did interviews, and just got finished with a 2 min promo. video. Our old VCR messed up the tracking, we have to get another one. It only showed me one thing, lol, how much of a dork I am.

This year my friend Vernn and I plan to tape a lot, not really for the team, for our own entertainment. LOL, we just watched the stuff we taped last year, yup, good times.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Wow. I left to get my skates sharpened and already theres 6 replys!

This year I'm thinking of putting together several pieces:

1 / 2 / 5 minute promotional segements.
--one set for sponsors, one for students
30 minute segement for the regional.
30 minute segement for the final.
1 hour movie of the entire season.

I was thinking of burning them onto DVDs (and perhaps selling the 1 hour movie as part of a fundraiser). Our school has a G4 lab with DVD-burns and OSX. I don't have much fimiliarity with DVD authoring software, and I'm looking for suggestions [software and composing the DVD]. iDVD is free although I'm asumming thee will be as much flexibility as in iMovie [close to zero].

A VERY valuable lesson I learned in the days following our team's trip to Houston was to log everything. Right there and then. I had spent the following week trying to log everything, that otherwise would have taken me an additional moment when filming.

I had filmed all of our heats, and the Curie final heats [to know what our team had to live up to next season]. Although we weren't able to screen it in the pits, it still gave us a valuable tool use in analyzing our strategy and driving.

For filming matches, tight shots are definatley the way to go, but showing more of the field at times allows the viewer to see what the robot is responding to. The stands are the best place to film from, because by zooming out you'll get a nice panaramic bird's eye view of the field.

Something to keep inmind for the kick-off/regional/final: The breakboxes had XLR audio out and S-video out [I believe].

BTW, if your team has and footage online, post a link.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

In the past, many of our matches have been recorded with a standard digital camera by our advisor. This year, however, two dedicated rookies seem to have fallen into the role of videographers, working hard at various off-season competitions. In the past, review of previous matches has proved a useful tool.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Its really great in my mind to see all this feedback coming in about videographers =) its always funny to see a random person moving about when everyone else is around doing work or at the field buzzing about with a camera making sure stuff gets documented. That's not to say we dont do work with robots, but this is really rewarding too.

just a thought, does anyone here plan out sequences and shots? im talking about making a storyboard with the specific purpose in mind of creating a promo video that has a set structure and what not, or do you take a lot of source footage and then gradually edit it down when the time is right. Basically do you plan out exactly what kind of shots you want to take? or do you play it by ear most of the time. like i menitoned above, last year for us was pretty haphazard, but im looking forward to doing a much better job this year.

also just wondering how much leeway did the schools give you with usage of the media labs? i know im usually able to come in before/lunch/after school. but im not sure exactly when the time would be. im debating between whether or not to try and finish everything at home or to use the school's facilities. two different formats (priemere or final/imovie)

DVD's are a neat idea, hope to see it work out!

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Not to create any more of a stirup but our schools Digital Media program is one of top in the nation. Also the listed equipment earlier is just a small chunk of what we have.

take a look at our stuff http://www.rbdigital.net/

Re: Team Videographers??
 

In 2002 we attempted to assign a couple of students as 'videoist'. It didn't flow as nice as we had wished because there was just too much material to go over. Throughout the 8 competitions I drove in, my parents recorded our matches, and several times at longer competitions, it was nice to review the footage so we could recall a certain teams' capabilities.
I would recommend it to any team to try and have at least one match recorded of each team. That way if you have to work on alliance selections, you can at least see a visual of the team, and hopefully their 'appendages' were working during the recorded match.