Client:
US Lacrosse
Project:
5-minute ceremony opening video plus 10 3-minute intro videos
Request:
We need a video to open a ceremony dedicating the 50th year of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. It needs to include historic footage from the previous five decades as well as introduce the 10 new Hall of Fame inductees. In addition, we need a 3-minute intro video for each of this year’s inductees by editing an interview by each inductee’s chosen presenter. Also, we need a half-hour interview with each inductee for our archives.
Time Frame:
2-months with 3-4 different interview dates including several interviews the night before the event.
Budget:
Moderate
Description:
US Lacrosse is the national governing body of the sport of lacrosse. Each year they host a Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Before this year’s event, they have only used a short opening video a few times. They have always done the introduction to each inductee live—this year they wanted to substitute the live intro to an edited interview with each presenter. For the opening under 5-minute video they wanted to highlight the fact that this was the 50th year. US Lacrosse has a ton of archive photos and some video footage which we could access.
Obstacles:
The toughest part of this assignment was the limited time to find all of the best archive photos and footage for the 5-minute opening video. The next toughest part was finding b-roll for the 10 intro videos for each inductee…especially with the short turn-around for several of the interviews which would take place less 16 hours before our deadline.
Solutions:
I spent several hours on multiple days trying to track down the best photos and videos from the archives along with key US Lacrosse staff members. We needed to find players, coaches, referees and contributors to the sport to appropriately balance the different roles people entering the Hall of Fame represent. As we received different photos and videos on each of the inductees we sometimes slanted the interview with the presenter toward what b-roll we had available. I also researched the Hall of Famers on line in order to track down other photos and to contact their former universities and teams to get more authentic images. I established a general format for the interviews and edited stories so that there was symmetry in the videos and to help simplify the editing process with the quick turn-around.
Favorite Element:
I love what our post-production person did with the graphics—creating the stadium with the gold text gave a dynamic effect to the final product. I also think the opening music nailed the emotion of the event. The intro videos were a lot of fun and each had its unique twists and turns. My two favorites were Karl “Rip” Rippelmeyer and Brian Wood. Rip’s intro by Tom Mitchell fit my format perfectly. Joe Devlin showed some great emotion in his intro of Brian Wood and we had some great footage to fit his stories.
