New Archiving Service for High School Athlete Highlight Reels

I’ve long had an internal debate about the best ways to provide the service of highlight reels to high school athletes and their families looking to garner attention from college recruiters.  I see families who don’t know where or how to start the process, while others spend hundreds or more without any plan for how to utilize it.   I’ve also seen flashy highlight reels with irrelevant or lackluster material that may prove detrimental to an athlete’s first impression.

By far the biggest problem is obtaining, gathering and maintaining a selection of clips which truly highlight a player’s ability.  Many families stress or lose interest in producing a video because of the time and expense of going through game footage to find usable clips or paying someone else to do it.  As a video professional I am very aware of how time consuming the process can be.  Add to it, saving the clips and keeping them organized for several years adds another level of difficulty that dissuades many families.

In an effort to streamline the process of saving and organizing clips over a one, two, or three year period, I have decided to offer a flat rate archiving feature.  For $175.00 a year, I will organize and store up to 20 identified video clips (:10 sec each or less) for use later in a highlight reel.  When the time comes to produce a highlight reel your clips are all in one place ready to be edited together.  There is no obligation to use Pawpro to edit the final highlight video from the archived footage.

In the end, archiving the footage provides a solution for overwhelmed families, and streamlines the editing process for me.

Please send me an email if you have any questions about archiving, or want to get started.

Athletic Recruitment Videos/Highlight/Scouting Reels: Not All Are Created Equal

See sample highlight reel with all HD footage
Highlight video with animated graphics
Highlight video with basic graphics

Highlight Reel Sample

Not all highlight footage is equally created.  Pawpro produces high quality video footage of athletic teams or individual athletes which may be used as a coaching tool, or to highlight team and personal skills/strengths.  Be aware, this is more than just generic game footage which most highlight and recruiting reel companies are mass peddling to schools and parents.  Many companies produce footage that is grainy and out of focus.   Pawpro videotapes a game with HD cameras, so the footage is crystal clear.  See the difference between HD footage and standard definition (SD) footage in the two stills below.  These stills are both captured from one frame of video footage.  Notice that the field of view is larger with the HD footage, but also the details are sharper.  The difference is even more dramatic when the camera focuses on an individual player.

Standard definition (SD) still from video.
Pawpro (HD) still from video.
Pawpro HD still from video

The great advantage to parents, players and recruiters in today’s multimedia revolution is that your footage can be viewed readily and instantly via a link.  No need to snail mail endless DVDs and hope that they play for coaches and recruiters.  A highlight reel is an essential tool for serious athletes looking to maximize their college placement potential.

For teams and coaches, we do offer full season or multi-game, team video coverage.  Call or e-mail for pricing.

Pawpro Media will graphically and visually highlight your player by editing-down game footage to the best moments.  Videos may also include any stats or contact information.  ( We will compile footage shot by others.)

Highlight reel pricing depends on the amount of footage to be screened,  editing extras such as special effects, animated graphics, music, voiceover, and the number of finished minutes in the completed video.  Game footage pricing may vary depending on the number of games to be videotaped and the distance of travel to the game location.

Don’t expect to get a highlight reel out of one game’s footage.  That’s too much pressure on the athlete and the videographer.  We shoot what happens, we don’t make it happen.  Our best advice for producing the best highlight reel is to pay for a professional sports media outlet to shoot as many games as possible so that the athlete is given multiple chances to showcase her talent in front of the camera.  One game’s footage isn’t enough even for the best athlete.  A professional should ensure that the quality of the footage is high.

Pawpro to produce video for Educational Connections tutoring service in the DC Metro Region.

Pawpro is set to produce a video for one of the leading educational tutoring services in the Washington, DC area.  Ann Dolin, a former Fairfax County public school teacher and author of the book, “Homework Made Simple”, started this entrepreneurial business in 1998.  Twelve years later her company, Educational Connections, is on-track to gross $1.45 million this year, and employs 150 tutors serving students all over the DC region.

Dom Bower Photography Blog

Dom Bower Videos

Pawpro loves the photography tutorials by Dom Bower because they’re easy to understand, cover useful topics, and, at moments, a little tongue-in-chic.  That’s right, chic, not cheek.  He doesn’t take himself too seriously, but he does offer hundreds of instructional videos for the casual user, as well as the serious photography hobbyist/pseudo professional.  He has a couple of YouTube channels and Websites, so you’re sure to find help on most any photography topic you desire.

If you plan on taking photos for your own Website, you can’t beat these tips.  Real estate brokers who take their own photos could really benefit from watching of few of these videos. 

What’s a tag?

Pawpro posts often mention tags.  A tag can take various forms, but essentially it’s a very quick video segment that can be used over a period of time at the start or end of a video profile, advertisement, or marketing presentation.  Think of it as a label in a shirt or a pair of pants, and every pair of pants you sell has your label sewn on.  Plain and simple a tag serves to help brand a service, an individual or business by making it familiar and giving the consumer something to remember.  It may be visually, verbally or musically memorable.

As an example, a tag can be as simple as a real estate agent saying, “I’m Bob Jones with ABC Realty and please give me a call if I can help you with your home purchase.” and this little segment is attached to every video home tour that Bob puts on the Web.  It makes Bob familiar to anyone who sees one of his video listings, they see his brokerage logo and it shows his contact information.  Bob’s not a stranger anymore, and he’s not just a name, phone number or still photograph on a Web page.

For a retail business, a tag may take the form of a memorable tag-line spoken over a shot of a storefront.  Or, maybe it’s just your logo animated with a tag-line.  It can be as simple as an on-camera thank you with telltale noise or jingle .  Pawpro can help you with ideas that fit your needs.

The most important element of a tag is its length.  Keep it short.  Under 10 seconds is my rule, and preferably under 5 seconds is best.

Pawpro’s Tag

The Value of the Viral Ad World

In this world of buzz words such as viral advertising and YouTube’s top viewed videos that come and go in a couple week’s time, how does a business position itself?  Should a business go viral, or not, is the question?

Sample Viral Ad

The viral advertisement and media arena has a value to almost any business.   Search engines now routinely separate and display multimedia content with text content results in keyword searches.  The test in producing virally is to remain true to the nature of your business and the message you want to send.  It’s easy to get caught-up trying to get noticed online, and lose sight of what is truly effective or appropriate .  Viral ad attempts often lead to poor quality and, or bad production choices that don’t necessarily have a marketing benefit.

The best strategy against these pitfalls is to develop a concept that’s realistic to achieve, fits within your budget, and remains mindful of production quality.  Bad audio and poor quality video are a distraction to a viewer, and can detract from a customer’s impression of your company .  Viewers will accept poor quality in a funny family video clip, but not so much from a company with whom they are considering investing their time and money. Always remember, it takes a customer one click to get to your site, and it just one click to leave it.  Keep it simple.