Okay, so now that we're done with the equipment, it's time to show up for the game and start shooting. And so in the next series of videos, we're going to talk about how to set up and be prepared so that by the time the ball is kicked off, you're ready to go with no worries. And then this first one, we're going to talk about the importance of arriving early. And you may be saying to yourself, this is obvious. Why do I need an entire section on arriving early. But as we talk through this, you're going to understand the kinds of things that can go wrong and the kind of ways that you can use the time that you have before the game to get yourself perfectly prepared with no issues.

So when I have people shoot for me, we have a mandate. My shooters all arrive at games, and they're supposed to be there a half an hour before kickoff, they usually send me a text to make sure you're there. And that half an hour proves very important for several reasons. The first one, I'm going to go back to a story about one of my other cameramen, this is one of the first days that he ever shot for me and he arrived to a game about 20 minutes before kickoff. And what he didn't realize was this was a big rivalry game a big districts game, and there was a huge crowd there. So by the time He got there.

20 Minutes before the game, the parking lot was full and they rerouted him to another spot down the block. By the time he got down the block, unloaded as equipment, walked down the street, got through the main gate with all the people there and set up he missed half of the first quarter. And there's no good excuse for me to give a coach if you're late. So we want to do everything we can to avoid it. So right there, we had somebody that was 20 minutes early, who still was late for the kickoff. And so one of the main points here, the first of six points we're going to talk about is that you want to get there early because you want to beat the crowds.

When you beat the crowds. You don't have to fight parking, you don't have to fight anybody in the seats. If there's a situation where you have to shoot from the bleachers. If you get there within 10 minutes of the game, the bleachers are going to be full, you're not going to be able to go to the best position to shoot the game. So you want to get there early enough. Avoid traffic, avoid crowds, get to your spot and set up.

So point one is to beat the crowds. Point two is we want to get the prime spot for filming. Okay, so no more The time we're going to be up above the press box, there's usually an area up there. And what we're going to find is that the other team may have a cameraman there. There may be coaches up there positioning there, the defensive coordinator stands up there, there might be a crew filming for a local TV station or news news outlet. And if you get there five minutes before the game, there might already be three cameras and six coaches up there and there's nowhere for your camera.

So point two is to get there first and get your prime position when there's nobody up there and set your camera up in the spot that you want. And then when everybody else comes up, they have to work around you. So that's the second reason why we're going to be early. The third reason is we're going to get our tripod set up properly and we're going to do a couple of exercises to make sure we have the proper fluidity and motion to our tripod. This is something we're going to talk about in the next module but setting up your tripod, but I'm going to give you a couple of exercises to work with your tripod and make sure that everything is right and so when you get there early, you have time to check those settings. You have time to film what's going on as the team's warm up.

Practice and make sure your camera has the motion that you need. That's point 3.4 camera settings, we're going to make sure our camera is set properly, we're going to make sure the mic is working properly. If you have a memory card in your camera, we're going to check it because I've had people that have had other things on their memory card. Last week's game is still on the memory card, and they forgot to erase it. So by the time they shoot half of today's game, they run out of room. So we're going to check everything that we have to check to make sure the camera is set.

Okay, point number five is kind of similar, but it's troubleshooting. Okay? troubleshooting could be anything that goes wrong. Maybe you have an impending rainstorm, and you have to deal with that. Maybe you've got an issue with where you're positioned and you have to move there's might be any one of a number of things. Something's wrong with your cameras not functioning properly, backup microphones, battery issues.

So we don't want to show up five minutes before kickoff and realize we have a problem because there absolutely is no good excuse that you can have for missing part of the action. This half hour cushion that I'm asking you for gives you time to troubleshoot as well. And the final one is the coach's peace of mind. We've shot for coaches and parents and sometimes if we're not there a half an hour before the coach walks up to the rafters to see if we're up above the pressbox doesn't see a cameraman and all get a text or a phone call wondering why there's no cameraman there. So when a coach looks up during pregame to make sure that his cameras there, he sees it there. And he's not looking 10 minutes before the game realizing there's not going to be any video.

Okay? So those six reasons are the big reasons why you need to be early and I cannot stress this enough. I will add that if you work for the school, if you're an assistant coach or a student, and you're there all day anyway and you're already early, set your camera up a half an hour early. Don't wait until five minutes before just because you've already beaten the traffic and the crowds. So now let's recap the six reasons why you should be early. Number one again is to beat the crowds.

Number two, you pick the prime spot for filling Number three, you want time to set up and practice with your tripod to make sure it's right. Number four, you want to check your camera settings to make sure everything is in order there. Number five, you want time to troubleshoot in case something goes wrong. And number six, you want to put your coach or your parent who hired you at ease so that they know there is a camera there, there's going to be filming the game. So make sure you're there a half an hour before the game, set your camera up and look if you end up standing around twiddling your thumbs. That's a good thing because it sure beats running up at the last minute and trying to set up and having an issue that you have to deal with while the game is being played.