Why Parents Should Not Video their Kids Games

This may sound like a shameless plug for using our company to shoot your kids sports events, but it’s really not that at all. Case in point – I tried to shoot my sons middle school football game last week. The video was terrible. It looks as if I’ve never shot sports video before, even though I’ve shot thousands of hours of sports video. Like many parents that contact us to shoot their kids sports games, I too found myself forgetting to follow the play with the camera. I was too engaged in watching my son and would often forget to pan the camera as the play proceeded. Solution: find someone that is not emotionally involved in the game – definitely not another parent whose kid is playing. But, someone that doesn’t care who wins or loses. Be sure they use a full HD video camera, true optical zoom, medium-wide framing to ensure all the footage is captured and keep the camera rolling except for half time. Starting and stopping the video camera saves battery life and card space, but it also introduces the opportunity to forget to turn the camera on when play resumes.

Now, I’m not going to say if I’ve ever forgotten to turn the camera back on, but lets put it this way – even the best videographers make simple mistakes. One mistake that is also unforgivable is not using a tripod. Always, always, always use a tripod and find the highest (and safest) vantage point. We often see parents holding their phone to video a game, but we can only imagine the motion sickness their viewer gets when they watch the final video. Last, but not least, be careful about the comments you make if you shoot your own video (remember you’re not supposed to shoot your own video, but we know some will anyways) because sometimes those words may come back to haunt you. Whether you are critical of refs, players, coaches, other parents or your own kid—this could be a disaster that is easily avoided. Hire a professional to shoot your video – it saves lots of grief, stress and helps you maintain the valuable relationships you cherish.