For many videographers, the onset of cool weather means gearing up to shoot sports videos. Not only is producing sports videos a lot of fun and a great way to get involved in your local community, but it can also become an excellent source of income for your production business. Consider marketing these videos to the players or families during the year, with delivery at the end of the season. Here are four types of sports videos you can produce for fun or profit:

Game/Event Coverage
Probably the most obvious way of shooting sports is shooting an actual game, match or other competition.

Practice and Training Tapes
Professional athletes trying to improve their skills regularly rely on video as a training tool. Consider shooting a practice session, or parts of a practice session, for some of your local athletes.

Video Scrapbooks
Another good project for those who want to create sports videos is the creation of video scrapbooks or video yearbooks. This is a bit more involved since you will shoot a series of games or events all year or for an entire post-season to gather highlights for use in the scrapbook reel.

Personal Highlight Reels
You might also consider producing a tape highlighting a particular player rather than an entire team. These personalized highlight tapes may be of greatest interest to talented players with professional sports aspirations.

Spicing up your production
Television sports spectators expect to see lots of graphics on the screen. If you shoot sporting events, you might consider spicing things up with a few graphics. Here are some hints to help you score a touch down this season with your viewers.

The first step in preparing for any shoot is to know how the footage you are shooting will fit into the final production. That includes knowing which shots will need room for graphics. Start by determining what types of graphics you will use and the placement of those graphics. Will you be keying in lower thirds for name supers? Will you need overlays for player head shots and stats? Are there any graphics that will frame the image? Do you need to use scoreboards and game timers. Knowing where you will place your graphics before you shoot your footage will help you record video that will work well when it's time to edit.

Using Lower thirds for name identifiers
Name identifiers, no matter how intricate, should be positioned in the lower third of the picture. With this in mind, shoot interviews at a medium closeup (head to chest), to allow space for the graphic without covering the face of your subject. This is especially important at the beginning of the interview. If the interview requires you to zoom-in for a closeup to emphasize emotion, make sure it is not during a time when you might want to key in an identifier.

Using Overlays
Player profiles and head shots are typically set in an overlay graphic. One way to plan for an overlay is to use a dry-erase marker to draw the box on the LCD and use it as a guide to frame your shots. Shoot your player straight on, or scan team photos and add player statistics over the graphic section of the overlay. This tip is especially helpful if you produce a daily or weekly program and want your graphics to always be the same size from program to program.

Using wipes and effects
Video can help you re-experience those moments that make sports so enjoyable. But you won't want to see your sports videos over and over again if you overuse special effects. Use effects to emphasize a logo or a wipe to transition in and out of video re-plays, but don't over use them or the viewer will have a difficult time focusing on the action instead of the effects. Using scoreboard graphics Imagine that you are taping from the sidelines with your telephoto lens trained on the football. The pass is made and a touch down is scored in the last :03 seconds to win the game. It is impossible for you to shoot the play, scoreboard and the game clock all at the same time. To recreate this magical moment for your viewers you need a scoreboard graphic with a clock and an area to re-run that fantastic footage you shot of the game winning touchdown. That's where graphic templates come in handy. With a scoreboard template all you need to do is fill in the the scoreboard with text, cue up the clock and add your footage. Now you can capture all the excitement of the play for your viewers.

A few tips to make your edit a bit easier
is to be sure to shoot more than just the game itself; coaches and players on the bench, victory dances, high fives and mascots can provide excellent highlight footage. Halftime shows, cheerleaders, fans in the stands and closeups of players' facial expressions would be likely shots to include in your video.

Producing sports videos can be a lot of fun, and even more so if you know in advance how your footage will be used. If you go in with a plan and the tools to implement it, you will have a great time and a successful final product.