By Steve Mavin
We produce a lot of content here at Rabbitohs Fan TV so we’re taking you behind the scenes our latest creation from start to finish to give you an insight into how our work is done.
First and foremost we have to give credit to the South Sydney Rabbitohs for including us as media which allows us the access to the players and staff.
Monday the 22nd August 2022 was media day at Ironmark High Performance Centre, Redfern and there were 16 players from the top 30 squad available for an hour after training for interviews.
Darren Brown was in Bali so it was Grand Chappell and myself left with the task of trying to talk to as many of the boys as we could manage in the time allowed. Each player had a name card where they sat along a row in the grandstand (see above) and it was no suprise to see a crowd of journalists waiting near the one marked ‘Latrell Mitchell’.
Our camera set up and audio gear is of professional quality now with thanks to our friends at Georges Cameras. We shoot in 4k using a Canon XF 605 Camcorder on a Manfrotto Tripod and our sound is produced with Rode Wireless GO II microphones. I also take high resolution pictures with my iPhone 13 Pro Max or our Sony A6400 to use for videos thumbnails or our website and socials.
Grant and I were both wearing microphones and one for the interviewees so we made our way along the line chatting and recording any player who was available with Grant asking the majority of the questions and me operating the camera and chiming in with the occasional question if I saw an opportunity.
Moving around was quite tricky with our equipment and all the other camera crews scattered in a variety of spots. I had to apologise to reporter Michell Bishop for striking her front and centre with our tripod leg as I spun around and Grant was oblivious to Danny Weidlers chat with Cody Walker and walked straight through the channel 9 camera shot mid interview!
We were the last to speak to Latrell and it was worth the wait because not only was it a good interview he kindly gave Rabbitohs Fan TV an unprompted shoutout at the end.
It was Grants idea to ask the players to send a message to fans and after we had finished we both decided that a compilation clip of the boys talking directly to members and fans would be a great piece of content that people would enjoy.
Although we intend to live stream the majority of our content going forward we will still need to record our videos so that selected content can be edited later and that’s what we did here.
The post production side of our business is mostly my domain so to briefly explain, I take the camera home and transfer the video files from the camera SD memory card to our Windows laptop then get to work editing.
Occasionally I can edit videos by just trimming them in the Movies & TV player but for more extensive edits I use Adobe Premiere Pro, a program that is a brilliant tool for creating and joining separate video clips with transitions together. I am by no means an expert and have only scratched the surface of Premiere Pro so I can achieve the basics, there is a whole lot more to learn when it comes to that program but for now it serves us well with what I know.
The final video is a 1 minute 24 second clip of the players talking to fans and while we always share everything we make to our Rabbitohs Fan YouTube Channel we sometimes share on our other platforms. I decided on this occasion for maximum exposure we would share to all of our socials so this video can be seen on our Instagram, TikTiok, Facebook, Twitter and LinkdIn pages.
So as you can see our video production can be quite a process but the feedback we often hear from fans is very rewarding and makes it all worthwhile.
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