World Cup round 1: Highlights

Posted by Jan Kocbach, 19 Jun 2007@10:00

simone_s.jpgI was asked to make a video with highlights from the first World Cup round to be shown at the international coaching seminar at the free day between the first World Cup round and the Jukola relay. Being only one man with one camera, I knew that I had to do something untraditional to catch the interest of the audience, which mostly consisted of trainers and part of the world orienteering elite.

I decided that I would try to show the audience how the winner in the women’s class, Simone Niggli-Luder, experienced the race. I wanted to show the competition as she saw it, and get her comments alongside. I had a few problems, though: The organizers would not let us see the maps until 10 pm in the evening, so I could not get Niggli-Luder comment her race with the map in front of her (she had to leave before the maps where released). Also, I did not get her exact route choices as we had no map to look at. But nevertheless, a big “Thank you” to Simone for helping me out with her comments about the race here - she gave me all the help she could!

When I finally could run through the course at 10 pm, the rain was really pouring down, and it was ice cold. To top this, I run through the course with the camera mounted the wrong way the first time (pointing into the air and showing everything upside down), so I had to make a rerun to get usable material. When returning to the lodging, there were only 12 hours until the coaching seminar started, so I was not able to put too much work into the details for the video.

Nevertheless, I think this is an interesting concept, which with further development could be used to show the action and beauty of orienteering. Short clips of this type could be included in TV broadcasts from orienteering events. Longer clips could be used as a training tool to develop orienteering technique. I am planning to work along both lines - the next step being to integrate a GPS into the setup…

Comments
Please leave a comment about suggested improvements to the concept. Things I know: It is too long for a casual viewer (I might make a shorter version), and the music maybe isn’t top notch - but this one is free to use.

The video: In the footsteps of Simone Niggli-Luder
Below you see the resulting video. You should definitely download it and see it in full quality (it will take some time, but it is worth it). At the coaching seminar it was shown on a big screen, and that’s the way it should be seen. What about putting it up at the next club evening? If you have problems downloading the video in full quality, please contact me to get help.


Links

Jukola video competition
A small not about results from the Jukola video competition: I am still waiting for the final result list from the Jukola organizers - and will publish results as soon as I get them.


Possibly related posts

7 Comments

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Comment by viewer

June 19, 2007 @ 11:31

I think tou should play the headcamerafilm and the routhechoise in splitscreen the whole movie. It’s boring to watch the headcamerafilm first and then the route. It’s sort of a repeat.

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Comment by Jan Kocbach

June 19, 2007 @ 11:35

As far as I can see (and have planned), headcamerafilm and routechoice are shown in splitscreen in most of the movie. If you refer only to the last 2 minutes of the film (the last few controls), then that’s due to limited time in the editing.

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Comment by Kristian

June 19, 2007 @ 14:50

If possible I think the map should be in the direction you are running, not north/south the entire time.
Then it would be easier to compare the map with the terrain shown by the camera, especially for viewers with less orienteering experience.

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Comment by Jan Kocbach

June 19, 2007 @ 14:53

Kristian: Thanks for your comment. Yes - I agree. It is on my list of things to do, but it requires some extra work to let it work smoothly.

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Comment by dwojak

June 19, 2007 @ 23:46

In my opinion the transparency of line is to weak, so it is hard to read features under line, it could be due to weak copy.
You can make the line more transparent or replace it by dots or something.
Anyway, congratulations for very good video, especially in so short time.
I am looking forward for new videos.

16729

Comment by Samo

June 20, 2007 @ 20:51

Hi Jan,

Good position of the map could be also left or right upper corner of the screen. In this way you avoid to visually cover the terrain details (stones, etc). If possible to have in the corner drop down box to use it only when you want to show a comparison of terrain with map animation/map image. To show map/terrain detail-control feature or mistakes which everybody could see/hear in the video; maybe also image of route choice on the whole leg. At crucial legs also image how much time runner lost/win on the leg.

In my opinion is no need to show image of the runner every time when he/she say something. Sometimes could be good to use just sound; audio/map audio/video. I prefer too see image of the runner full screen at the start/finish. I think that combination of three images: video/map animation/runner image gives a viewer too much information on one screen. I think that two of them in combination with audio are enough.

Video/editing is very time consumed so it is good to define which concepts are good to use it to tell the story. My favorite could be: Runner image - video/map - Audio/route choice on the leg or up to three route choices with marked mistake on the leg/full screen (not more that 3x times) - then showing only audio/terrain explanation with possible drop down box where you give viewer a close look where and how mistake was happened (image or map animation). Where runners ran without a mistake it is probably enough to show only terrain image or terrain/map animation in the corner like you did it. Sound good if you will be able to use correctly oriented map.

Runners usually speak about their mistake on the leg or how accurate they ran and I think that for post race video is appropriate use of runner’s audio/map or runner’s audio/video very important. It will be good to see which combination of different concepts really work together and how much time is good to use each one on the timeline.

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Comment by Jan Kocbach

June 20, 2007 @ 21:29

Samo: Thanks for very good comments. I agree with many of them, and limited time was the reason for not doing some of them. I will try to improve when doing my next attempt;-)

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