Highlight Reels

etc1217

etc1217

SILVER ELITE
Would like some input on highlight reels, especially from parents who went through the process already. What are coaches looking for, besides the obvious good plays? How long should a highlight reel be? Should all the best plays be in the first 5-10 sec of the reel or spread out? What is the true attention span of a college coach looking at these reels?

Any information would be helpful. Thanks.
 
etc1217 said:
Would like some input on highlight reels, especially from parents who went through the process already. What are coaches looking for, besides the obvious good plays? How long should a highlight reel be? Should all the best plays be in the first 5-10 sec of the reel or spread out? What is the true attention span of a college coach looking at these reels?

Any information would be helpful. Thanks.
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Depends on position. For attackers, show speed, footwork, and goal shooting. For defenders, show height and weight, plus speed, footwork and goal shooting. For goalkeepers, show willingness to risk life, limb and facial characteristics - speed, footwork and goal shooting is a bonus.

For bench players, show patience and good attitude.
 
espola said:
Depends on position. For attackers, show speed, footwork, and goal shooting. For defenders, show height and weight, plus speed, footwork and goal shooting. For goalkeepers, show willingness to risk life, limb and facial characteristics - speed, footwork and goal shooting is a bonus.

For bench players, show patience and good attitude.
Click to expand...

I love this line: "For goalkeepers, show willingness to risk life, limb and facial characteristics..." That is awesome. And true.
 
Over the last couple of years, we've been told 3~4 minutes max and no music. Coaches like to see the player with and without the ball in game situations (feedback from coaches).

As parents, we tend to think that scoring and shooting is the best highlights but in reality, the video is supposed to catch the coaches' attention about the overall ability of the player. Consider using footage from several games and not just few games. Hopefully the video leads to a dialogue further down the process.

Instead of thinking about the video in terms of highlights of plays, think about it as highlight of both physical and mental abilities. Here are some examples:
- use of both feet as situation requires it
- movement off the ball in making runs, taking defenders away to create space, anticipating developing plays by attackers and so on
- passing and reading the field with accuracy and methods (keeping the ball on the ground and in front of receiving player running in full stride)
- calmness and decision making under pressure in tight spaces
- heading the ball with control and all directions

I'm sure there are others but those are big part of players capabilities. In addition, make sure you include GPA, SAT/ACT scores, physical info (i.e., height, weight, DOB), grad year and reference names at the end for coaches to contact for further info.

I have made two videos for my kid. One for his plays (e.g., scoring, passing, attacking and defending), and another for his skills (e.g., both feet, decision making, tactical knowledge of the game). Each around 4 minutes and with an intro of him talking about himself. Also have text overlay to maintain focus on the subject and periodic marking of him on the video to emphasize where he is on the field if its a wide angle views. No music or voice over.

These days, it is all likely that they will be watching it on their phone so I use HD/4k footage and crop into SD resolution to effectively zoom into the subject as well as keeping wide view at full HD. Each highlight segments are typically less than 10 seconds.

Last, if the coach is interested, he will ask for the whole game footage. We have provided full game footage to few coaches and gotten positive feedbacks about certain portions of the game video so we know they've actually watched it. If asked for whole game video, make sure you provide a short descriptor for when your player is in the game and any specific highlights within (e.g., Starts and scores in 12.35min sub'ed out 35 min, then re-enters at 50 min and 2nd goal 54.02min of the game, kind of info).

Hope this helps - good luck.
 
Mirage, that may well have been the most informative and useful post I have ever read on these forums. Bravo.
 
mirage said:
I have made two videos for my kid. One for his plays (e.g., scoring, passing, attacking and defending), and another for his skills (e.g., both feet, decision making, tactical knowledge of the game). Each around 4 minutes and with an intro of him talking about himself. Also have text overlay to maintain focus on the subject and periodic marking of him on the video to emphasize where he is on the field if its a wide angle views. No music or voice over.
Click to expand...

Would you mind sharing a link to one of your kids video?? Love to see what it looks like. Thanks
 
etc1217 said:
Would you mind sharing a link to one of your kids video?? Love to see what it looks like. Thanks
Click to expand...

Sorry I rather not do that. It contains too much personal information about my kid. There are plenty of examples if you google for videos out there so you can see the good, the bad and ugly....
 
Fatherpain said:
Does anyone have recommendations for video editing software to use?

Thanks :)
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There are few choices (e.g., Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier) but it really doesn't matter much as almost any will do - as long as you know how to use the software. If not, its a really steep learning curve and the end result may not be what you are happy with, however proud you may be of your own work.

In my particular case, I used iMovie to create clips (including cropping) and remove recorded sounds, then saved as individual files. Next, I combined clips from different footage combined into a major segments (e.g., shooting/scoring, agility and speed). Export the combined segments as mp4 and imported into Keynote (presentation software like Powerpoint but by Apple).

In Keynote, imported segments (segment per slide) are annotated and any kind of animation/transitions overlaid on top of the mp4 imported segment. Created 4~6 slides each containing a segment of video as mention. Keynote allows the user to automate the slide show into a single video. Exported the slide show as a single video at the right resolution of choice.

Final Cut and Premier will allow you to do all of what I did within but I don't own those and don't know how to use it so I did what I knew.

Plan on spending hours and hours, and redoing over and over again. A small mistake or not quite right things will require going back to the source and fixing it and recreating the new video again.

I suppose it can be a Xmas to New Year break project, if you'd like....

If any of this sounds bit too complicated or more than you want to take on, hire someone to do this. Its your kid's future.
 
For attackers, don't forget to show off the ball movement, assists (crosses) and defensive skills. A highlight reel of just shots going into the goal is useless. What helped get my DD recruited was her ability as a forward to play good defense and chase down players after she or a teammate lost the ball. Remember, forwards are the first line of defense when the ball gets turned over in the attacking third.

Another thing we included in her 4 minute highlight video was a short 30 second clip of her working out. We included very short clips of her lifting weights, intense agility training, and high level speed training. Remember college players are expected to put in some time in the weight room and gym. Players that know their way around weights and the gym are an asset to the coach and are players that they do not have to train how to lift weights or do gym work. One of the things that she got a lot of positive comments on and got the coaches interested in her video was a 5 second video clip in the intro of her doing a 40 yard sprint while pulling a large truck tire attached to a 20 foot rope attached to her by a harness.

We had a short introduction at the beginning with several short 4-5 second "wow" clips. By "wow" clips I mean the tire pull, bicycle kick goal, corner kick goal, 30 yard cross right to the feet of a teammate who scores, and some fancy footwork around three defenders with a scoring shot at the end. You want to grab the coach's attention and make them what to keep watching the whole video. A college coach gave us this bit of advice.
 
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mirage said:
Over the last couple of years, we've been told 3~4 minutes max and no music. Coaches like to see the player with and without the ball in game situations (feedback from coaches).

As parents, we tend to think that scoring and shooting is the best highlights but in reality, the video is supposed to catch the coaches' attention about the overall ability of the player. Consider using footage from several games and not just few games. Hopefully the video leads to a dialogue further down the process.

Instead of thinking about the video in terms of highlights of plays, think about it as highlight of both physical and mental abilities. Here are some examples:
- use of both feet as situation requires it
- movement off the ball in making runs, taking defenders away to create space, anticipating developing plays by attackers and so on
- passing and reading the field with accuracy and methods (keeping the ball on the ground and in front of receiving player running in full stride)
- calmness and decision making under pressure in tight spaces
- heading the ball with control and all directions

I'm sure there are others but those are big part of players capabilities. In addition, make sure you include GPA, SAT/ACT scores, physical info (i.e., height, weight, DOB), grad year and reference names at the end for coaches to contact for further info.

I have made two videos for my kid. One for his plays (e.g., scoring, passing, attacking and defending), and another for his skills (e.g., both feet, decision making, tactical knowledge of the game). Each around 4 minutes and with an intro of him talking about himself. Also have text overlay to maintain focus on the subject and periodic marking of him on the video to emphasize where he is on the field if its a wide angle views. No music or voice over.

These days, it is all likely that they will be watching it on their phone so I use HD/4k footage and crop into SD resolution to effectively zoom into the subject as well as keeping wide view at full HD. Each highlight segments are typically less than 10 seconds.

Last, if the coach is interested, he will ask for the whole game footage. We have provided full game footage to few coaches and gotten positive feedbacks about certain portions of the game video so we know they've actually watched it. If asked for whole game video, make sure you provide a short descriptor for when your player is in the game and any specific highlights within (e.g., Starts and scores in 12.35min sub'ed out 35 min, then re-enters at 50 min and 2nd goal 54.02min of the game, kind of info).

Hope this helps - good luck.
Click to expand...

Spot on, the only thing I would add, is it takes approx. 40-45 short clips (3-4 seconds), I used video from 6-8 different games, (I used HS and film from Las Vegas), only made 2 highlight video's, Freshman year and early prior to her Senior year (June). I was in the process of a 3rd however, the offers started coming in during the summer prior to her Senior year (this year) as most of the coaches had seen her play by that time at Las Vegas Player's Showcase. I had people telling me every 6 months you need to update the video. (Guess they thought it was free and easy!) I think the 1st one I did was too soon so, probably Sophomore & Junior year are best with an option of one in their Senior year if needed. As they get closer to graduation, coaches will be at a lot of the games, it doesn't matter which tournament as long as your kid is communicating with coaches. There are several companies that can film, the issue becomes the editing....best of luck!
 
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