In this article, we’ll be sharing some tips on what you need to know to produce the best quality sports content. Whether it’s for social media, promoting a brand or personal use, you’ll benefit from being prepared and taking your time to study how to get started. Most sports content is filmed outside, but you can also film great sports content in a film studio London if you know what you’re doing.
Understanding the Sport
The first step to being a great sports videographer is understanding the sport you’re filming. Being passionate about the sport will help you stay dedicated and focused when you’re working on your project, and it can also help you form connections. More importantly, though, understanding the sport will help you to know the best angles to film from and the areas to focus on during the action.
Most sports videographers tend to stick to a few specific sports which they’ve developed a deep understanding for over the years. Their knowledge of the sport is invaluable when it comes to creating the best content and choosing the right shots.
Choosing the Right Equipment
The quality of your content is going to be affected by the quality of your equipment. When you first start out, you might only be using basic gear, but that doesn’t mean your content isn’t going to be good. You don’t necessarily need to break the bank, but you will need to make the right choices in terms of the type of equipment you use.
For videographers, it’s recommended to use a video camera rather than a DSLR when it comes to shooting sports. Most DSLRs are only capable of recording in short bursts, which could mean you miss out on the perfect shot. In addition, they have rolling shutter issues, which can create artefacts when shooting high-speed action. Of course, if you want to save costs, you could use your phone camera, but the quality of the film you shoot is normally going to be much lower.
Selecting the Right Shot
For film content, wide shots are almost always preferable to close-ups. Although videographers will naturally want to have their subject clearly within the frame, you want to ensure that all of the on-field action is available. Closeups do have their purpose in sports content, but wide angles are normally better.
Keep your audience in mind when choosing how you film and what kind of shot you use. If this is for promoting a brand or a specific player, closeups can be useful. However, if you’re filming to show the game for coaches or other purposes, wide shots are more important.
Use the Right Frame Rates
In recent years filming at 24 frames per second has become the standard for most videography work, with most feature films and TV shows also filmed at this frame rate. However, while it gives a cinematic look to your shots, it’s too low when it comes to filming fast-paced action such as sports content.
Filming with a higher frame rate will allow you to capture more of the action as more frames are taken per second. It’s recommended to film sports content at 60 frames per second, as lower frame rates cause motion blur and a loss of quality in the picture.
Another thing to consider when filming is the shutter speed. As with frame rate, low shutter speeds can result in motion blur, where the action is happening faster than the shutter can capture the action.
