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L-P video crew an integral part of team's success

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Contributed by: Danny Summers on 9/22/2006

Alex Byrd and Elliott Shindel arrived at Lewis-Palmer football practice with a camera and tripod in hand.

They headed for the end zone and set up under the goal post, looking for the perfect location to shoot the day's events.

"Whatever they do as camera people, they do a good job," said Lewis-Palmer senior slot back Eli Hammond. "They help us with all the mistakes we make so we can watch them the next day."

Byrd and Shindel are part of the four-person crew that handles the video work for the school's football team. Their partners are Byrd's brother, Christian, and Danny Dauwe.

The foursome is as much a part of the football program as the managers, water girls, stat people and ball boys, Lewis-Palmer football coach Tony Ramunno said.

"This is my 17th year as coach, and I've always had students do filming," Ramunno said. "They've developed a network. They do it for a couple of years, and then they train other guys to come in and take over."

Alex, a senior, and Christian, a junior, are in their third seasons with the program. They are in charge of videotaping home and away games, dubbing game film for opposing coaches, and putting together the year-end highlight reel.

"They do a real good job," Rangers senior quarterback Will Dockins said. "It's cool reminiscing at the end of the year and seeing some of the things we did over the course of the season."

Lewis-Palmer offensive coordinator Monte Gutowski is amazed at the professionalism of the video crew.

"They fade in and fade out and get all the plays," Gutowski said. "It looks professionally done. I don't know how they do it."

Many of the area schools use professional crews, or parents, to videotape games and put togeth- er the year-end highlight reel.

"The Doherty guy couldn't follow the ball," Lewis-Palmer senior defensive lineman Curren Vite said of a videotape he watched. "He'd start filming during the middle of the play and miss half of the action."

Rangers senior linebacker Anthony Hornback looks forward to watching the game film the Byrds shoot.

"Our guys zoom in and out at the right times, and they get all of the plays," he said.
Alex played football for the school as a freshman but gave that up to pursue boxing and handle the video chores for Ramunno. Christian, a fencer in his spare time, got involved with video production as a freshman.

Shindel, a senior, is in the school play "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," and takes a filmmaking class at school. Dauwe also is involved with fencing and makes home movies.

Before next season, Christian and Dauwe will have to find two new video people to replace Alex and Shindel.

The crew shoots the games from different angles. Alex and Shindel position themselves on a scaffold in the end zone, while Christian and Dauwe sit on top of the press box with three cameras - one for offense, one for defense and one for a wideangle shot.

"The end zone stuff is coach Ramunno's personal copy," Alex said.

There is a high speed dubbing studio set up in Ramunno's office at school. As soon as the game is over, the crew makes copies of the game film for the opposing coaches.

"Wind is probably the hardest thing to deal with," Christian said. "It moves the camera away from where you want to film."

Following the final game of the season, the video crew will begin cutting footage for the highlight reel that will be shown at the football banquet in December.

"We spend a month working on it," Alex said, "four hours a day after school, sometimes on Saturdays.

"We all take different game footage. We look for the best clips of good runs, breaking tackles and great catches, and then put it all together with music that makes the most sense. We stay away from country and classical music."

The highlight reels were sold to the general public for $15 each last year.

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