5 Mistakes Parents Make When Filming Their Kid's Game

We get it. You’re a proud parent. Your kid made an incredible play and you want it on video. So you pull out your phone, hold it up over the crowd, and hit record.

The problem? That footage is almost useless for recruiting. College coaches will close the video in under 10 seconds if it looks amateur. We’ve filmed over 4,000 games and produced 1,500+ highlight reels. Here are the five mistakes we see most often.

1. Filming from the Bleachers

The angle is wrong. From the stands, you’re shooting down at a steep angle through a crowd of heads. Coaches need to see the full field and your athlete’s positioning relative to other players. A sideline shot at field level, or better yet, an elevated wide shot from a tower, gives coaches what they need.

2. Following the Ball, Not the Player

Parents naturally track the ball. That’s what fans do. But a recruiting video needs to show YOUR kid. Coaches want to see what your athlete does when the ball is on the other side of the field. Are they cutting? Communicating? Getting into position? A camera locked on the ball misses all of that.

3. Shaky Handheld Footage

A phone in your hand moves. A lot. Especially when your kid scores and you start jumping. Coaches watching shaky footage on a laptop will get motion sick before they see any talent. A tripod is the bare minimum. A professional setup eliminates this problem entirely.

4. Bad Audio That Drowns Everything Out

You probably don’t realize your phone is picking up every conversation around you. The guy behind you talking about his fantasy league. The air horn. Your own commentary. None of this is useful and it makes the video feel unprofessional.

5. No Identification of the Athlete

The coach opens your video and sees 22 players on a field. Which one is yours? If there’s no arrow, circle, or jersey number overlay in the first 5 seconds, the coach closes the tab. They don’t have time to figure it out. We cover exactly what coaches are looking for in our post on what college coaches actually want in a recruiting video.

What Works Instead

Get someone on the sideline with a proper camera on a tripod. Better yet, hire a professional who knows what coaches want to see. A 2-3 minute highlight reel with the athlete identified, shot from a good angle, with clean editing will do more for your kid’s recruiting than 10 hours of phone footage from the bleachers. Wondering what this costs? We break it down in the real cost of a college recruiting video.

Ready to give your athlete a real shot? Call us at (443) 871-5624 to talk about our recruiting video packages.