Filming a Sponsorship Spot: Dirt Mountain Biking

[NickD]

I'm going to be filming a promotional spot for a professional dirt mountain/trick biker for a competition in which he will attempt to gain sponsorship. I'm basically going to be starting from scratch, and will be meeting with him within the next couple days to discuss what he wants to see, but I want your advice in the following categories:

• Shots
• Soundtrack
• Editing

What kind of shots do you recommend I get, what kind of score do you recommend I use, and how do you recommend I edit (any specific techniques or tricks?)

NickD

 

[LethalWolfe]

I'd hop on youtube and look for any extreme sports videos (skateboarding, snowboarding, bmx, mountain biking, roller blading, etc.,) to get an idea of what are exciting, and boring, camera angles to shoot from.

For the overall style I'd say think edgey/MTV. That means lots of coverage, lots of cuts and lots of variety of angeles and shots to keep it visually interesting (wide, medium, close-up, extreme close-up, mount a camera on the rider if you can do it safely, etc.,.).

Most of all though, make sure you and your client are on the same page about the look and feel of the piece. Nothing would suck more than if you gave the client a pumpin' MTV-esque piece and what he really wanted was something unconventional like the Gears of War/Mad World commercial.


Lethal