P2 sports shooting/editing help

[tallylight]

Our station just went tapeless. We're now shooting panasonic P2. I was a little overwhelmed yesterday after shooting an entire college bball game when what seemed like 8 million clips popped up for me to try and sort through and edit with.

I have always kept a great log when shooting tape and will still do so with p2 cards, but does anyone have any helpful advice on how to efficiently organize and quickly edit after shooting a whole game?

I'm already having nightmares about football season.

[svp]

Here's a suggestion for shooting sports. The P2 cams have a pre-record option that can be set anywhere from 6 to I think 20 seconds. What that means is when you press the button to roll, it captures everything up to 20 seconds before you hit the button. Set the pre-record to 20 seconds and just follow the game without recording. When you see a great play, hit record and you have it. Now the only clips you have are the ones you want. You can also got into the thumbnails during timeouts and freethrows and delete individual clips you don't want. Its actually doesn't take that long to do. You'll get the hang of it. I personally would go with setting the pre-record to the cams max and doing it that way.

[shooterguy]

I ran into this problem during football. What I did was record like I normally did...if I have a play that could be a highlight, after I stopped recording, I flipped on my color bars and recorded again..just for a couple seconds.

When I got back to Avid, I opened the media tool and switched to thumbnail view and grabbed the clips that preceeded the color bar clip. That way I didn't have to bring everything in for the show.

The pre record is a good idea, but I needed to record everything for our half hour football show...to make it easier on the sports editor, after the 10 news, I would bring all of my clips in then put everything into a timeline. He could then drag the sequence to the left window and scrub through like it was all one clip and make his edit from there.

[D.St.]

This trick applies to tape as well, but it makes P2 a heck of a lot easier.

Ditto on the Pre-roll option (I usually keep mine on 8 secs, but the 800 model will do up to 15 seconds). If you're working with a reporter who's on press row, sync a digital watch with your time code. Put the time code on free run, and sync it with time of day. When a play happens, have the reporter write down the time code. That saves a ton of time.

By yourself? If you have a 700 or 800 (I'm not sure if the 500 or 2000 have this option, but the 200's don't), but if you have a shot you know you're going to use, use the shot marker option. Once the game is over, copy all of the marked shots over to a separate card and voila!

[shooterguy]

The 200's have a shot marker..you have to set it up as one of your presets. I've never found a way to use it though...it'd be nice if those marked shots somehow showed up in Avid.

[shootist]

The 200's have a shot marker..you have to set it up as one of your presets. I've never found a way to use it though...it'd be nice if those marked shots somehow showed up in Avid.

shooting sports is about the only time i use the shot marker. while shooting, when you get a play you think might be a keeper...hit the shot marker before you stop recording.

at the end of a hs football game, i might have 15-20 plays i like...and are marked. using the thumbnail menu i call up my marked clips....highlight each....and copy them to an open card as i walk to the car. at the car my copy is complete and i have one or two cards with all my raw and one card with just my 15-20 potential highlights. at the station, i bring that one card into avid.

from media tool, i drag them all into the bin...put them into ascending order (right click on "start" column)....highlight them all and drag into the timeline. then i throw out the shots i don't want and trim the ones i do. when the sequence is done, i consolidate (why spend time consolidating what you don't really need?) whole process from when i hit the door is about 5-10 minutes for a 1:00 vo.

only gets cumbersome if you forget to mark that 60 yard TD or 360 slam. then you have to back to the raw and start hunting. so.........don't.........forget, that is.

[News Grunt]

I prefer to use the pre-record function when shooting football. I would probably do basketball the same except I would probably set the length a little shorter. When shooting football games I set my prerecord to 12 seconds. If the play doesn't go anywhere, I never hit the record button. Usually if it is a highschool game I get back and every shot in my bin is either a highlight or a cutaway. It literally takes me 2 minutes at the most to edit down the 1 min of highligts that I need for the show.

Now when shooting college where you need to keep more plays it is still very helpful because you don't have the trash 1yd runs when you get back. Shooting the colorbars as your next clip will also work. If your editor recognizes your markers then that would be good as well. Our editors don't recognize the markers so we cant use that function. Once you get used to them, you will love shooting sports on your P2. Atleast I do.