CyrusofChaos Presents The Filming of Fencing

[CyrusofChaos]

This video is a little different from my other videos: when I watch videos that other people upload on youtube sometimes it is difficult to tell what is going on in the bout due to the way it was filmed. I made this video to attempt to standardize the filming of fencing in order to make it more easily watchable for everyone. Videos do not have to be filmed this way, these are tips that I am imparting after years of filming fencing. While this video only features clips of sabre bouts and is more directed towards sabre filming it applies to epee and foil as well

[Craig]

Good tips. Thanks for the post (and videos).

[cfgrs]

Loved it as always! On a sidenote, while we've hopefully got people (including yourself) who have taken some good (or bad) video in the past, I was wondering what kind of video cameras you guys have been using?
I've been wanting to get a video camera to tape fencing, but every time I start, I'm always worrying whether the camera will be good enough, or if it's more than what I really need, etc. If you guys have a couple models you've used successfully, let me know!

Thanks!

[CyrusofChaos]

thats a good question and i actually have quite a bit to say about it. the footage that i have from the nacs are all filmed with my camera and about half of the overseas footage is filmed with mikes camera. as you can see the quality of his camera is much higher than the quality of my camera but mine will still get the job done as long as you remember to zoom properly

i am planning on getting a new camera soon and when i do i will make sure it has the following features: my camera will have a 16:9 video ratio, not the 4:3 ratio that my camera now has. for those of you who do not know this is just wide screen rather than regular television screen which goes better with youtube and just generally looks better

another thing that is extremely important to me is that the new camera i get will be able to connect directly to the computer so that i can take the footage off quickly. right now the camera i use has discs which have to be finalized, ripped, converted, and sliced before i can do everything i need with them. i would say that when i sit down to upload bouts from a nac it will usually take more 5+ hours to do it all. that is not 5 hours of continuous supervision, but 5 hours of sitting there pressing buttons every once in a while which is usually punctuated by studying or video games or something but it is still a royal pain. when i use mikes camera i can copy the files and upload them immediately. it is an unbelievable time saver

check how long the battery on your camera is. a camera with a battery of 30 minutes is practically useless because you will have to change it annoyingly frequently. and considering i usually get about 1.5 hours from nacs and 2.5 or so hours from world cups this is a lot of batteries necessary. with my camera i can get through a world cup with 3 batteries or 2 if i am crafty about it and with mikes i can do it in 1 battery easy

if you watched the video you will also know that i think ZOOM IS IMPORTANT TOO: having a zoom that works quickly and zooms far is important to me

i dont think i missed anything but if there is a question i didnt answer post it here and i will do my best to address it

hope that was helpful?

[edew]

Any particular camera brands? Names? Models? Boom mike good?

[multum in parvo]

Cyrus of Chaos,

Thanks for your hours of informative videos. Your analysis helps me understand what's going on in saber bouts (I fence epee).

I take my Nikon Coolpix to film tournaments and I have loaded a number of clips (I upload individual points of interest, rather than whole bouts, since uploading takes a very long time on YouTube).

Most recently, I filmed a tournament using an HD videocamera. On the plus side, the picture is much more crisp and light than the Coolpix footage. The downside is the time it takes to upload the footage (first you have to digitize the tape by uploading it through your video camera and a Firewire connection). It's an extra time-consuming step.

Does anyone have any recommendations on point-and-shoot still cameras with HD quality video for filming fencing? As with Cyrus, I like to be able to plug in the camera without the middle step of digitizing. Or perhaps people know of a small HD video camera that can upload video via a USB port instead of Firewire (for tape).

Thanks again for your efforts, Cyrus. Here's my channel, FYI. Cheers.
http://www.youtube.com/user/zyzybaluba3000

[Inquartata]

You forgot one very important point: If possible you should insert slow-motion clips which play while the bout is continuing, so that viewers miss some of the actions. This after all is how NBC does it, so how can it be wrong?

Serious question: Are you talking about auto-zoom, or manual zoom? ( Or do they even have the latter any more? )

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Most of today's video cameras have a powered zoom. The better ones have the ability to disconnect the servo, and manually move the zoom ring back and forth. The best ones have the added ability to set the zoom speed, so you can pop in quickly and get back out even more quickly.

Something else Cyrus might have recommended for nascent chroniclers of competition: the ability to edit. Nothing ruins a good fencing video for the viewers more than wild fire hose spraying of the venue while looking for a shot on which to settle. Such as the opening sequence in Cyrus' example. There often is a lot of down time in between points. (Unless it's an NBC program, then there are .003 nanoseconds between touches, apparently.)

It's good to cut out the dead time, not to mention the zooming in and out while looking for that piquant body language shot. But the viewer needn't be subjected to your hunt for the perfect set up. And that brings up another tough issue: AVC video.

Most of the current crop of semi-affordable HD video cameras record on a codec known as AVCHD. This record mode compresses a lot of material into a small file, and works pretty well if (and it's a big if) you primarily hook your camera up to a monitor and just play back the video without editing. Try to edit it down, though, or lay it off onto a DVD, and you'll discover most consumer level editing programs hate that format, and choke on trying to convert it into something useful.

One of the things digital video was supposed to do was eliminate the "generation" issue of video tape: every time you made a copy or an edit of an analog videotape recording, there was degradation of the image. After 2-3 "generations" the video visibly softened. Digital copies were supposed to virtually eliminate that. However; there is no universal standard for the codec or video recording format, which often means to get your video from the camera to the edit to the delivery vehicle (like a tape, DVD or onto the web) the video must be transcoded multiple times to different formats...and each transcode degrades the video quality, often dramatically.

So it's equally very important to think through not only what camera you'll be using, but what system you'll operate to deal with the video once it's out of the camera, and then how you are going to display the video to your viewers. For that, unfortunately, there's no one-size-fits-all needs and budget answer.

[cfgrs]

Any particular camera brands? Names? Models? Boom mike good?

Seconding that, anyone have particular successes of failures with particular camera models? (If you've got clips uploaded with them, bonus!)

[darius]

Somebody could make a killing by creating a high-end consumer-grade cam in the $1k-2k range that encoded a non-AVCHD format to Flash media.

I want the direct access of tapeless media, but don't want to mess around with AVCHD - as it is, I've got a bunch of footage from the last two NWFC camps, but have to find an app which can transcode AVCHD to something that Final Cut can play with.

[xavier]

Somebody could make a killing by creating a high-end consumer-grade cam in the $1k-2k range that encoded a non-AVCHD format to Flash media.

but have to find an app which can transcode AVCHD to something that Final Cut can play with.

Check this: http://documentation.apple.com/en/fi...2%26tasks=true
http://support.apple.com/kb/ta24840

[xavier]

Thanks for the video. Well done.
I wanted to add a few things.
(I don't have much to show to prove that I know what I'm talking about, but I work in the TV industry and deal with footage every day)

Before worrying about the quality of the camera people HD, SD, prosumer, consumer, it's important to use it properly. Like it was mentioned in the video, angle is very important. But also one should be careful not to move excessively. Shaky movements are difficult to avoid when capturing live sports. I would recommend the use of a monopod (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16830996295). It is very easy to use and transport.
I would also suggest to limit the zooming.... Fencing is too fast for someone to have time to zoom in an action. When watching Youtube videos you'll notice that most of the time the zoom in is late on the action....
Remember also that if you use an editing software, you'll be able to zoom in, especially since most footage now is HD, the quality of the video won't be very affected.
Try to keep the green and red lights in the shot. I find it pretty annoying when I watch fencing and can't see who scored.
Another solution, again if you want to use an editing software, is to add the lights and score.
Check out what was done on this bout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zatj0fpqDs4
NOw, if you want to buy a camera. One thing to consider is that you'll be mainly shooting indoor... You need to test the camera in the store because you'd be surprised to see that a lot of cameras, even the expensive ones, are not good at shooting indoor.

Hope this helps.