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HOW
WE FILM, EDIT & PRODUCE YOUTH TEAM CUP FINALS & OTHER MATCHES
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 All
Youth Team Cup Finals are filmed from as near to the half-way
line as possible, using just the one camera on a tripod from a reasonable
vantage point in (or on top of) a main stand of a Non-League Club's
stadium (which is where most Youth Team Cup Finals are played).
For small-sided (Mini-Soccer) Cup Finals, which are invariably played at
venues where there is no ready-made vantage point, we sometimes have a
problem with Team Managers, Coaches & Parents walking up and down the
touchline in front of the camera, 'forgetting' it is there because they are
so engrossed in the game !
We therefore try and use a small scaffolding structure or some sturdy tables
(if we are allowed to), so that our cameramen can film the action from near
the touchline at a height of four of five feet above the Managers' heads.
This enables us to get an excellent unobstructed close-up view of the
action.
Depending where our cameraman is filming the game from, we normally film the post-match presentations of trophies and medals
by taking the camera off the tripod and using it 'shoulder-mounted' at the
presentation table to enable
good close-up shots of the delight (or misery) on players' faces !
All Cup
Finals filmed before April 2001 were recorded using an S-VHS camera which produced a good quality
image, but that was greatly improved when we upgraded to the Mini-DV (Digital) format
thereafter.
Our cameramen then invariably began to use
the
Canon XM2 or
the Sony PD150 or
PD170 range
of digital cameras, all of which produced broadcast quality pictures.
From Season 2007-2008 onwards though,
our cameramen are now using even better cameras such as the
Canon XHA1, the
Sony HVR-Z1E and the
JVC GY-HD251E
and all matches will subsequently be filmed, edited & produced
in the widescreen (16:9) format. Most TV stations now broadcast all football
matches in widescreen, so we anticipate that most of our customers will
already have widescreen TV sets on which to view their DVD's. If you are
watching our DVD's on a standard 4:3 ratio TV set, the DVD's should display
in widescreen with black bars at the top and bottom of the picture.
Sometime during Season 2008-2009, we are hoping to start filming and
producing matches in high definition on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. Our cameras can already film in that
format, but Blu-Ray or HD-DVD recorders and players are not readily
available at this moment in time. Please note that prices for filming,
editing & production in high definition (HDV) are also likely to be a lot
more expensive than we charge for the current standard definition (SD)
format.
.jpg) After filming the match, the camera master tape is edited using computer
software which inserts slow-motion replays, titles and transitions. The
finished (fully-edited) version is then kept as the Master Copy for an
unlimited period of time, both in tape format and on DVD, so copies for
customers can then be run off straight away or at any time in the future (as
per those listed in our Catalogues on this website).
All Youth Team Cup Final &
Other Youth Match DVD's include the full
match with Extra-Time & Penalties if necessary, together with all the usual
post-match presentations, but we do not do a match commentary or film
interviews and dressing-room scenes, mainly because the cost of recruiting
extra cameramen or a commentator is too
expensive for the average Sunday League club.
All copies of Youth Team Cup Final & Other Youth Match DVD's are supplied in presentation
boxes with full colour inserts featuring still-frame shots of footage from
the actual match.
(See the example left).
Youth Matches filmed from March 2004 feature a far superior quality of
picture, slow-motion replays and titling due to the acquisition of new
computer-based editing equipment. The
DVD's produced from March 2004 also include menus
and chapters whereby the goals can be accessed at the click of a button
rather than by rewinding and searching.
(DVD's of matches that were edited & produced
before March 2004
are straightforward copies from S-VHS master tapes, so they do
not include menus and
chapters). |
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HOW WE GET BOOKED TO FILM YOUTH TEAM CUP FINALS & other matches |
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.jpg) Back in the early 1990's, we gained most of our bookings to film Youth
Team Cup Finals as a result of us filming regularly for Enfield F.C. in
the Ryman League on Saturdays. A fair number of Enfield's supporters were
involved in local Youth Football, either with Enfield F.C.'s own Youth
Teams or with clubs in the same League, and having bought Match Videos or
Compilations already, they therefore had no hesitation in using our
services whenever their teams reached a Cup Final as they were fully aware
of the quality of video that we could produce.
With many of these teams reaching County Cup Finals, it therefore
resulted in teams from other areas becoming aware of our services
and booking us to film future matches, so we have gradually managed to
cover Youth Team matches all over London and surrounding counties since
then.
Our contact details and website
address is included on the back of every Cup Final DVD/video insert
(See the example right),
and many bookings that we receive to film matches are from clubs who have
seen another club's DVD or video and got in touch because of that.
We also receive a lot of bookings for filming Cup Finals because our
prices are so low in comparison to other video companies. We prefer to
charge a low price for filming, editing & production and charge relatively
high prices for extra copies rather than the other way round. This ensures
that amateur clubs can afford to have their game filmed in the first place.
This is explained in more detail on our
Pricing page.
Over the past few years, and
especially since we started producing matches on DVD, we have received
numerous compliments from satisfied customers who are impressed with our
finished product, and we often hear that the youngsters who have played in
the matches we film watch their DVD's almost 'non-stop' afterwards and love
showing them off to their friends and relatives.
Click here to see
just a few of the testimonials we have received. |
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FAMOUS
PLAYERS WHO HAVE APPEARED IN OUR YOUTH MATCH VIDEOS |
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We
have filmed hundreds of Cup Finals for Youth Teams of all age groups since
1990, with several of these matches featuring players who have gone on to
become Premiership stars and even Internationals.
The most famous of these are undoubtedly Chelsea & England's
Ashley Cole, who we captured on film playing
for Westward Boys in 1992 and 1993 and for Hackney & Tower Hamlets Schools
in 1996, and his Chelsea & England team-mate Joe Cole, who
was filmed playing in two Cup Finals for Chapel Boys Under-12's in 1994. We
have also filmed the likes of Tottenham's Ledley King,
Charlton Athletic's Luke Young & Chelsea's
Shaun Wright-Phillips playing for amateur Youth
Teams in their early days, all three of these players being England
Internationals of course.
In addition to those five players, there are numerous others on the books
of Premiership or Nationwide League Clubs who we have filmed playing
in Cup Finals for various Youth Teams since 1990 and there will certainly
be many more who will make a breakthrough in the next few years.
Our Youth Team Cup Final DVD's & videos are therefore very popular with the players who
actually played in the matches, especially when they can show their
friends or relatives a DVD or video of themselves playing with or against
somebody who is now famous ! |
WHY
YOU SHOULD CHOOSE US TO FILM YOUR CUP FINAL (or
any other match) |
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When
a Youth Team reaches a Cup Final, one of the first ideas that
comes to mind is to capture the event on film. However, that usually
means relying on one of the players' parents to carry out the task using a cheap hand-held 'palmcorder' which
is normally only used for occasions such as 'larking about in the
back garden' or at weddings & christenings.
Of course, filming a football match is a very different matter, especially
when your son (or daughter) finds themselves 'clean through' on goal,
causing you to get too excited and film the sky, the back of
somebody's head in the crowd or close-up shots of a few blades of grass on
the near touchline instead of the ball going into the back of the net
!
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This is where Hughes Video
Services come in, as we can offer you the following:
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- FILMING OF THE WHOLE MATCH
(including Extra-Time & Penalties if necessary)
- FILMING
OF POST-MATCH PRESENTATIONS OF CUPS & MEDALS
- SLOW-MOTION
REPLAYS OF GOALS & MAJOR INCIDENTS
- TITLES
& CAPTIONS including BOTH TEAMS LINE-UPS &
FORMATIONS, GOALSCORERS NAMES, SUBSTITUTIONS, LATEST SCORE, etc.
- STEADY
CAMERAWORK WITH GOOD CLOSE-UPS AND EXCELLENT SOUND & PICTURE
QUALITY
- COLOUR INSERTS FOR EACH COPY OF
THE DVD (or video) INCLUDING STILL-FRAME
PICTURES TAKEN FROM THE ACTUAL MATCH FOOTAGE
- WE CAN FILM MATCHES ON ANY DAY
OF THE WEEK (Evening Matches included)
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Basically,
we are very aware of how football is covered on T.V. and we make every
effort to transfer their ideas to our coverage of Amateur &
Semi-Professional Football. Some of the ideas we have picked up on are
when to cut away to the crowd or the Team Managers, when to zoom in on the referee (after he
has made a 'contentious' decision), when to put in a slow-motion replay,
having the current score displayed in the top left-hand corner of the
screen,
and the use of titling effects to merge a team line-up into
a formation with the players warming up in the background. Most
importantly though, unlike other video companies who attempt to film
football matches with just the one camera, we do not film cut-aways of the
crowd while the ball is in play !
Obviously, we cannot reproduce the sort of coverage that they manage on
Sky (with 20 cameras dotted around the ground and hi-tech graphics in abundance), but for Amateur & Semi-Professional
footballers the most important thing is getting the match filmed properly
for an affordable price and we manage to do that rather well !
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We do not put
a commentary on our Cup Final
DVD's and
we no longer film pre-match build-ups such as coach journeys or interviews with players
and managers. The reason for that is the lack of additional
personnel available to carry out such jobs, together with the extra
editing work it involves. Ultimately, it results in clubs waiting twice
as long for their finished product, while we also
have to charge them twice or even three times as much as normal to pay
for the extra cameramen, commentators and possible hire of equipment.
We
prefer to offer a basic and affordable service whereby only one
cameraman is used to film the match and the presentation ceremony only.
By doing this, we can cover more matches for more clubs.
- As part of the Child Protection Act guidelines,
we do not do
any filming in the changing rooms for Youth matches. We only
capture the Team Manager's Half-Time team-talk if it is done out on the
pitch (and where it can be captured easily from our cameraman's vantage
point).
- Our cameramen
film all matches as a complete neutral and show no favouritism towards
any one side (such as refusing to zoom in on a goalscorer because he
is playing for a team who have not initially booked us to film the
match). This is because the team who have not booked us may decide after
the match that they would like to share the filming fee and order
copies.
- In general, we only film matches within a
50-mile radius from our base in Edmonton, North London, and our pricing
structure covers that distance. As a rough guide, the most Northerly
point we cover is Cambridge, to the East is Colchester,
to the West is Oxford, the South-West is Basingstoke and the South-East
is Ashford (Kent).
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DOES YOUR CLUB HAVE A
WEBSITE ? |
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If your club books us
to film a match, we will give their club website a free listing on our
Links page |
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INFORMATION
WE REQUIRE WHEN YOU BOOK US TO FILM YOUR MATCH
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Once
we have all the above information, we then check on the availability of
a cameraman and once that is confirmed, we then send you a Confirmation
of Booking letter by e-mail which will give you all the necessary details.
The Confirmation of Booking letter will also instruct you whether to pay
the cameraman on the day or whether to send a cheque to our office. This is because some of our cameramen are
freelance operators who we prefer to pay ourselves once they have given
us the camera master tape from the actual match. |
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CHILD PROTECTION ACT
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If
you are booking us to film your Youth Team's Cup Final or any other
match for players under the age of 18, you MUST obtain permission from
the Competition/Cup Final organisers and the parents of all
participating players from BOTH teams. This is a Football Association
requirement. Some clubs, Leagues and County Football Associations have
ready-made forms for this purpose whereby each participating player is
listed and the parents sign the form next to their child's name which
then gives their consent for the game to be filmed.
To download, print and fill in
our own Parental Permission Form (in PDF format), please
click here.
Please be aware that some Leagues have chosen to place a total ban on
the filming of all Youth matches under their jurisdiction, even though
that is not actually part of the Football Association's guidelines.
Under no circumstances will we film matches where permission
to film has not
been granted by the organisers.
For more information regarding Child Protection in Youth Football,
please click
here. |
INFORMATION
WE REQUIRE ON THE DAY OF THE MATCH
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Your
cameraman for the match will normally arrive at the venue an hour before
the kick-off. On doing so, they may find that the person who has
booked us to film the match is busy doing a team-talk or getting
changed. In that case, the cameraman will quite often go straight into
the stands or onto the side of the pitch to look for the best vantage
point from which to film the match from, so it is best to approach him
when you come out onto the pitch if he has not introduced himself to you
first. |
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To enable us to produce a DVD of the quality that
we advertise, it is essential that on the day of the match our cameraman is
supplied with an official match programme (if there is one)
and given the following information regarding your team: |
- YOUR PLAYERS FULL NAMES (no
initials or middle names) and CORRECT NUMBERS OF SHIRTS WORN ON THE
DAY. (Please watch out for any mis-prints of players names in the
match-day programme).
- YOUR TEAM’S STARTING FORMATION
(e.g. 4-4-2, 3-5-2, etc. and who played where)
- YOUR TEAM’S COLOURS PLAYED IN
ON THE DAY. (These colours will be used on the presentation box for
the finished copies unless you inform us that you were wearing a change
of kit and you would prefer your normal colours)
- CAPTAIN’S NAME
- GOALSCORERS (in order of
who scored)
- SUBSTITUTIONS MADE (who
came on for who and at roughly what time in the match...this is
especially important if any half-time substitutions are made)
- BOOKINGS or SENDING-OFFS
(if any)
- TEAM MANAGER’S NAME
- REFEREE & ASSISTANT REFEREE'S
NAMES
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At
most of the Cup Finals we film, we find that the Team Manager is
normally (and understandably) too busy to write out all the above
details for us, so we strongly advise clubs to appoint another club
member as being responsible for providing this information for our
cameraman. It is always best if a club can find somebody to write things
down as the match goes on, especially for details such as the correct
shirt numbers for players, substitutions made and the goalscoring order,
as these can all be easily forgotten after a match and it
is extremely difficult for us to guess which player is which if we do
not have the correct shirt numbers available when we are editing the
footage. |
Site
Designed & Maintained by Laurence Hughes
e-mail:
laurence_hughes@yahoo.co.uk
© 2008 Hughes Video Services
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