First post of 2018 and I'm going to talk about working a media day for a professional sports franchise, as I've received numerous social messages asking how something like this works. In January, Nashville SC our newly awarded Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise conducted it's media day for the upcoming 2018 season, where the team will play in the United Soccer League (USL) before moving up to MLS in either 2019 or 2020. For those unfamiliar with the American soccer league structure, the USL would be similar to AAA baseball, just one level below the "big leagues." Many USL players have played in MLS and other top level leagues from around the world, so these are elite level athletes.
SPARKNOTES VERSION (for those who are not going to read the entire post)
These points apply the same if you are working with your local high school team:
It takes several people to make this happen, the photographer is just one of many
Have your gear in order and really know how to use it
Plan ahead and then plan some more
You are a professional - the client comes first, never betray their trust
Be thankful you get to make a living doing this
PLANNING
In addition to the crew, there are 30+ players and coaches who will be turning up, along with front office employees, possibly ownership, along with selected members of the media, so the venue has to be large enough to accommodate 50-70 people. Once it's been selected, dates and times need to be coordinated with the venue, crew, coaches, and players. Then you have to figure out the type of content you are going to capture, which in this case was both still images and video. These are professional athletes, so always make the best use of their limited time as they have busy schedules.
There were close to 10 people on this shoot doing various tasks. Overseeing the planning were James Cannon, VP of Marketing & Communications, Austin Gwin, the Director of Communications and PR, and Lucy Gonzalez, Head Graphic Designer. The 6-7 pages of documentation I received about a week out was very thorough and contained everything from an extensive shot list to a down to the minute schedule. Nashville SC is part of the USL, so the league has a specific look required for certain images which appear on the team website. All professional sports leagues have requirements like this as do most major media outlets (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, ESPN, etc.)
THE SHOOT
The players were scheduled to arrive at 2:00 PM and had a hard deadline of 5:00 PM to finish as they had another event scheduled for later in the evening. This meant we had less than three hours to capture everything. Along with most of the crew, I turned up about two hours out to get everything set up and dialed in so we would be ready to go from the moment the players turned up a few hours later. There were 25 players split into five groups, with five stations for them to visit. This was great planning as no more than five players would be at any station at a given time, and with an equal number of groups and stations, the players would always have something to do with no "dead time."
Before going forward with anything, player (and crew) safety is ALWAYS the most important thing. Don't assume a player can do something before directing them, always ask. Maybe they've just had a long training session and are exhausted, maybe they haven't warmed up or stretched, or maybe they are 100% ready to do anything. ALWAYS ASK.
Another VERY IMPORTANT thing is the images I take should always be considered confidential. This means they don't turn up on my website, social media, blog, etc., before they show up on the client communication channels. Additionally, I don't text them to my friends or even family members. Same with mobile phone images of the day. Anything I post publicly from the shoot is always cleared with communications personnel before posting. If in doubt, don't post! Not only is this professional etiquette, it is essential if you want to keep working with high profile clients as trust is paramount. The old adage hold true: "Those who speak, don't know... and those who know, don't speak."
Getting back to the five stations... they were: headshots, action shots, hype video, social media video, and media training. I did the action shots along with the "gatorade" close ups - super tight headshots where the players look really intense! Assisting me was Lucy Gonzalez, the head graphic designer for the team. I shot tethered to my MacBook Pro and she manned the computer and as we shot them, she gave the OK. It made sense to have her with me she is the one who will have to generate social media, program, stadium, advertising, billboard, and promotional graphics with what I shot on the day.
At the second photo station, Mackenzie Crooks took care of the headshots which were used for player bios on the website. Will McCarty and Andrew Fair worked two additional stations as they oversee digital content and social media for the club and were assisted by Sandra Galvez. The video they both shot will be used in the stadium and on social media (Instagram stories, etc.). The final station was media training.
In addition to all of that, the final 30 minutes of the day was used to shoot about half a dozen of the players wearing Nashville SC apparel. These were done as lifestyle shots rather than as catalogue-style shots.
POST
We got everything we needed on the media day and got everyone out on time. The final task was to make selects, edit, export, and upload everything to my SmugMug server where James, Austin, Lucy, Andrew, and Will can download and access everything. It is ESSENTIAL to have a naming structure so specific images can easily be found as there were over 600 selects from the day. In addition to names, each image file was assigned a series of keywords which are imbedded into the metadata when exporting from Lightroom. Player name, jersey color, what they are doing, date, year, etc.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I cannot stress this enough, but as I said in at the top of this post, this is a group effort. If you want to work at this level - or any level - and get asked back, you have to know your stuff, know your gear, and be able to work quickly as well as adapt to changes on the fly. But most of all, you have to be someone people want to have around.
The Nashville SC media day was a success. Yes, we got tons of great content which will used throughout the season, but everything worked because of all of the great people involved. First class professionals like James, Austin, Lucy, Will, Andrew, Mackenzie, Sandra, Coach Gary Smith, his staff and players, Chris Jones and Court Jeske.
I count it a privilege get to work with all of them.
GEAR (for those who care)
I shoot with Nikon equipment. On this shoot, I used my D810 for all of the action and "gatorade" images. The D810 shoots 36 MP so the files are huge. This allows for cropping without losing resolution. It's great when something is going to be used in a large format like a digital billboard around town or the massive 4,200 sq ft signature guitar scoreboard at First Tennessee Park, where Nashville SC plays their home matches. I also used a D5 for a few of the product shots, but almost everything was the D810.
The lenses I used were the Nikon 24-70G and Nikon 70-200 VR II, both f/2.8. I shot tethered to my MacBook Pro and used Adobe Lightroom to capture the images. Files were put into folders by player name as we shot. For strobes, I used four self-powered heads, each with a standard reflector. Settings were usually 1/200, f/8, and ISO no higher than 320. These settings cut out the ambient light which means the flash duration freezes the action. The strobes both Mackenzie and I used were all the same brand so using different channels for the two stations worked perfect.
Mackenzie shoots Canon and shot her station with her 70D and a 24-120 f/4 lens using similar camera settings. She shot on white seamless and used a traditional three light setup. The two large umbrellas were used to blow out the backdrop while providing rim lighting on the subject, and a beauty dish was used in front.