Football Cameras
Watching a lot of World Cup this summer and I find that what I’m craving is a different camera plan. For 70% of the game we are seeing it from an objective high angle view of the field. Even on a 4k television it’s hard to know who you’re looking at. Basketball follows a similar strategy but because the court is so much smaller, you can make out who has the ball. Even in basketball, we are outside of the action.
In football, every once in a while we catch a glimpse of the ref’s camera, or a view from the sidelines, or behind the goal. These kinds of angles start to explain the geometry of the field as the players see it and that’s where I want to be. Looking at the game from a vantage point that helps me understand the players choices and athleticism. Imagine if we could be down on the field, seeing the lanes and the plays from their perspective.
The game has so much drama, I want the camera to reflect that. The question is, how do you get cameras into these positions and not disrupt the game. The further the camera is away from the action, the more we have to zoom, which compresses space and distorts the relationships I want to grasp better.
Cameras attached to players with stabilization? Drones? There’s no easy answer. Maybe there’s a purpose built team or robots that are very good at staying out of the way and covering the action or maybe there’s a realtime solution that allows us to scan the action and place the camera anywhere in the reconstituted scene. It doesn’t exist yet, but I think it will be possible soon…
The goal is to be inside of the action and see the players think about their choices and understand the plays from their vantage point.