Essex Sport Juniors: Six Videos from a Half-Day Shoot

Five classes, one videographer and half a day of filming. For Essex Sport at the University of Essex, we created a series of promotional videos introducing its junior sports activities.

Each class received its own film, and we brought all five together in a separate overview video. It was a focused sports videography project: capture the energy of the sessions and give each activity its own place in the campaign.

Watch the Essex Sport Juniors film

The overview film brings dance, basketball, futsal, tennis and cricket together in one edit.

Watch the Essex Sport Juniors promotional film on YouTube.

Fitting five classes into one shoot

We started at 10am with the dance class, then moved on to basketball, futsal, tennis and cricket. Careful planning meant one videographer could cover all five within half a day, keeping the on-site production cost down.

That half-day describes the filming, not the entire production. Turning the footage into five individual videos and a combined film was a separate editing task.

For a multi-activity shoot, the timetable is the place to start. Which sessions happen when? Can one operator get between them? What coverage does each film need? Working through those questions helps establish whether a compact shoot is realistic before anyone commits to it.

Keeping the edits energetic

We chose a fast-paced style, with upbeat music sourced and licensed specifically for the project.

For this kind of film, the pace should help communicate the activity rather than obscure it. There needs to be enough time to understand what is happening, even when the edit moves quickly. A parent looking at junior classes needs a sense of what their child would be doing, not just a succession of dramatic shots.

Our guide to filming sports videos explores the filming and editing decisions behind capturing movement clearly.

Why make individual videos as well as an overview?

The two formats have different jobs. An overview introduces the range of activities; an individual film lets someone concentrate on the class that interests them.

For a campaign like this, a basketball video could sit alongside information about basketball sessions, while the overview could introduce the wider junior programme. Someone interested in one class would not have to search through a film about everything else.

It is a practical starting point for promotional video production: decide what each finished film needs to do, then plan the footage required to make it. The aim is not simply to produce more edits, but to give each one a reason to exist.

What to plan for a similar project

Start with the activities, the timetable and the finished films you need. Include the intended viewing formats and any interviews or photography in the brief before agreeing the filming schedule.

When children are taking part, discuss permissions, supervision and filming restrictions with the organiser in advance. Our school and education video production follows the same principle: agree who can appear, who must not be filmed and how the content will be used before the shoot.

One videographer suited this brief, but that is not a template for every project. Overlapping sessions or simultaneous photography and video may need additional people. Our Hive Kids summer camp project offers a different example, with a photographer and videographer covering activities alongside interviews and staff portraits.

You can also explore junior activity films, university sport and match-day coverage from our wider work in the Essex Sport video production portfolio.

Planning a film for your club or activity programme?

Tell us which activities you want to promote, where the sessions take place and when you need the finished videos. Talk to us about your sports video project and we can work out the coverage, crew and edits around your brief.