In this next section, we're going to talk about the tripod. And I'm going to just jump right in here and say that the tripod is the single most important piece of equipment that you're going to use in order to shoot football. Well, more so than the camera. Okay, cameras come in different types, but they're all HD and they're all pretty good. They're all serviceable for what you're doing. But the tripod makes the shooter if you don't have a tripod with fluid movement, left and right, up and down.

If you have Herky jerky motions and flimsy movement that's always bobbing up and down. It's really going to affect the quality of your footage, and your ability to follow the action. So the tripod is essential. And just to demonstrate that point, I'm going to tell you a quick story about one of the people that worked for my company. He came out on a trial basis and did one game for me. And the footage was really lacking.

It was shaky and bumpy. And I just didn't think I could give that to a client and use him on a regular basis. While he was disappointed to hear that but he told me that the tripod that he used was his roommates or his was somewhere else or whatever the story was. He promised me that the next week He would have a better tripod, and his footage would improve. And I said, Okay, I gave him one more chance. So whatever he did, whether he bought a new one or whether we got his actual one back, he shot the following week, and the footage was spectacular, beautiful movements left and right in and out, it was terrific.

And that's when I really realized for the first time that the shooter is made by how good his or her tripod is, so the tripod is essential. So in an upcoming section, we're going to actually set the tripod up, and I'm going to show you how to adjust it settings to work best with your style and your ability to move left, right up and down. But in this section, we're quickly going to talk about the kind of tripod you should be using if you're not using it already. What you want to try to avoid is what you're seeing here on the screen. And these are tripods for sale in an electronics store. These are mostly flimsy plastic tripods that were meant for still cameras just for setting up to shoot something that's not moving.

They don't have the ability to move the camera left and right very well and they can't elevate much more than About right here, and as you're gonna see, it's really important for your tripod to have the ability to have higher legs and even higher middle section that goes up because there may be an instance, if you're shooting from the bleachers and you don't want heads in your way, you might need to elevate that camera really high. What you're really looking for in a tripod is something like this. And this is what I use. This is a sturdy metal base tripod. It has a fluid head, which allows smooth movement Up, down, left, right, and the best thing about it is that elevates. Here's a shot of the tripod at full elevation in case you ever needed it to go especially high.

If you have a tablet or a smartphone and you're using that you still want to get a really good tripod because the mount is something that you can purchase separately, you mount your tablet or your phone to the Mount, and then you attach it to the tripod. So it doesn't really matter what kind of camera you're using. The key as I've said before, is the tripod. And the tripod has the ability to allow for the kind of smooth movements that give you more freedom to focus on the topic. concepts that I'm going to teach you and not worry about shaking or holding the camera steady or keeping it from bobbing up and down. This is the most important thing.

And in an upcoming module, as I said, you're going to learn how to use it and set it properly so that it works with you, not against you.