Introducing video
April 20, 2008 by Jason Guarente
The New Era is dabbling in video as a way to bring fans closer to the team and enhance interest in the Web site. It’s also makes Barnstormin’ more diverse and, hopefully, more interesting. This is an interview with P Zack Parker, who is the team’s likely opening day starter.
It was conducted last week at the Lakeland spring training complex.
No one is more fond of pitching in Lancaster than Parker. He went 6-1 with a 2.49 ERA in nine games for the Barnstormers last season. More importantly, he rediscovered his love of the game here after some injury-related struggles in the Colorado Rockies system.
Over the course of the season, I hope to do more videos and get a little better with the camera work. This was my first effort and, well, I didn’t know what I was doing. The next one will focus on C Lance Burkhart. What do you think of this concept? Any feedback here would be appreciated.
I think this is a great idea. You have my vote.
I think it is great. After interveiwing everyone, you should make the interveiws into one DVD and put it on sale. I would buy one. I can’t wait for the next interveiw with Burky. I’m looking forward to it. Great job,Jason.
Jason - for the first time out, that was terrific.
take it from a video professional. or rather, someone that works in the field….. Makes me feel like my schooling and 14 years worth of experience were worth nothing
2 (minor) things: pay attention to the background. During the interview, nothing was happening behind Zack, which you would think is fine (since the attention should be on the guy your interviewing). But an interesting background adds to the overall viewing experience.
- I know why you used the same footage of Zack pitching a few different times
If you’re out there with the camera, shoot 30 seconds of him talking with other players or a coach or some other drills. You’ll have ample material to cover the cuts and no one will know the difference!
Jason,
I am thinking about making a separate blog for the Stormers…the concept would be a blog where the fans can write their own stories about the team, the games, the ballpark, etc. I am thinking of calling it “The Intentional Walk Off” in reference to that famous Odom masterpiece. What do you think?
Lookin’ good Jason. Great idea! Looking forward to more of these.
Scottie,
Thanks for the feedback.
Yeah, I didn’t have enough “B-roll” as they call it. That’s just a product of time constraints. The first few days here are brutally busy. As the week moved along, I had more time, so you’ll see a little more variety in the Burkhart video. Feel free to give me a critique on that one when it’s posted.
The videos during the season should have batting practice or something else in the background. That’s not really possible here because of the fences surrounding the fields. Zack was nice enough to be the trial run. Hopefully, I’ll get better as I go along. I was actually a TV major for two years, but that was a long time ago.
Dawes,
That’s a fine idea if you can get some writers and they stick with it. One thing about a blog, a good one takes constant work. It’s far more difficult than I realized when I started. I’ll be happy to plug your site on this one OR I could give you a separate page — like the Meet the Team page — if you want.
Thanks Jason.
I intend on putting the work in..AKA listening to every game when I can’t make it out and recruiting other bloggers to write if they feel like they want to. If not, I will run it myself. I just registered the wordpress … stormerfans.wordpress.com I haven’t done any work on it yet, but I intend on using my design abilities to make it look nice and I have some ideas already for content, so I guess I can email you once I feel like it looks the way I want it to. Might be a couple of days, but I will let you know… and if you ever want to use any content from it…quotes or pictures or anything, you are free to them…thanks for helping and the advice.
Great Job Jason! I liked the video with Zack Parker!!!
i was a tv major too - a long time ago.
I thought it wa a pretty cool major. Until I realized half the Penn State football team was also in my major….