Making Skills Video

[PlaySundaySoftball]

Daughters team is at the age that we need skills video for recruiting purposes. Any suggestions for video recorders, models or maybe features that work good for this,,,and probably more important than the camera is software for editing. I am pretty good with the computer, but would like something that is still relatively user friendly. Team is considering purchasing camera and software to try and make our own. Good idea or bad idea? I know you can hire professionals to make the videos, just curious to hear what others have to say. Thanks

 

[fastpitchthunder]

Most of the girls we know have started making skills videos around 9th grade (14-15yo)

As far as suggestions for video cameras and software, I'm not much help there. One of my AC's works as a producer and editor in TV and is going to be recording and editing our videos when we start making them. Hopefully someone will be able to give you feedback on editing software.

 

[T.J.]

As far as software goes I would check out Adobe Premier Elements. I purchased that about 6 years ago after researsching the market, and I have found it easy to use and lived up to my expectations & needs. I purchased it to make a 2-hour movie and it worked beautifully; but haven't used it for your intentions. Definitely ask around, Im sure everything has advanced significantly the past 6 years; so do some homework but don't pass by APE. Whatever you get be sure your computer will support the memory demands. I actually had buy a brand new computer to run APE.

I bought a digital Canon movie camera that same year too and it was sufficient for my needs; not sure what's available today.

Hope this helps; good luck.

 

[T.J.]

One more note...make sure the camera you buy can be hooked up and downloaded to your computer. I'm sure with today's technology that is pretty standard, but you want to make sure of it. I needed to buy a special cable (Fire Wire I think it was called) to hook my video camera up; it was no big deal, but it's just another thing.

Also, video will take up TONS of your hard drive memory space, so be prepared for that; I maxed out 140 Gigs. And you will need a decent amount of RAM for some of these softwares. There is a process called "rendering" which demands a lot of RAM, otherwise the program might lock up (regardless of the manufacturer). This is why I bought a new system, to meet these type of memory requirements. Todays computers might have plenty of all of this already so you might be ok, but 6 years ago they didn't.

 

[Scl1991]

We used a simple home camera. Then hooked it up to my computer. I am NOT tech savvy in the least. I used whatever software came preinstalled on my computer--it opened when I hooked up the camera! I played around for maybe 1 and 1/2 hrs, and had a video done. No music, not needed. Only graphics were the contact info at beginnng and end. No need to pay anyone or spend big bucks. I would recommend a tripod. Post on a private YouTube link and send out the links. That's it. What would I do differently? Make it shorter. Under 5 min, that's plenty.