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The Brakes - of course.
All our customers - thank you for your generous
support, without you there would be no point.
The Supporters Club and the support from the
committee members.
Our sponsors - thank you for your support, past and
present, it has helped us keep going:
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Clear-Time.co.uk
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Data-Ware.co.uk
- David Hucker
Associates
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PhilsBBS (UK) Limited
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Carl Thomas - BrakesWeb
the Club Shop team - past and present
the Club's Official Webmasters - past and
present
Simon Hutchinson of BrakingNews for creating the
original Brakes Videos web site, before handing it over in Oct'05.
Jason Clough for his great sales efforts via the
club shop throughout 2004-05.
Daniel Wearden for his sterling efforts in keeping
Brakes Videos going throughout 2004-05.
Lynn Rivers (lynncam) - for
suggesting the whole idea to Phillip in the first place.
The volunters who keep erecting higher and higher
scaffolding platforms at the New Windmill to test our camera peoples'
nerve!
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Brakes Videos started, but not with that name which came
later, back at the start of the 2002/03 season. My son, Phillip, was
looking for something to use as a video editing project and my sister, later to
be know as LynnCam lent him her video camera and suggested videoing the Brakes.
This ended up with him videoing and editing highlights for the 2002/03 and
2003/04 seasons for whch he produced monthly highlights on VHS and DVD as well
as the end of season DVD trilogies for both seasons. This raised a fair few bob
which was presented on a regular basis to the Football Club.
At that time
the videoing was done with a Panasonic miniDV digital camcorder and the editing
on our original model iMac using an early buggy version of iMovie. The DVDs
were mastered on a PC, using some typically flakey PC software, and VHS copies
were made in real time. During this time some improvisation was required, like
when we forgot the tripod and had to rest the camcorder on an upturned yard
brush!
Early in the 2003/04 season I started keeping master
copies of whole match DVDs for all the games.
At the end of 2003/04
Phillip stepped down the day-to-day videoing and editing, to concentrate on his
A-Levels, and I setup a group under the wing of the newly constituted
Supporters Club, so 2004/05 started with Keith Hancock's son Dominic on
camera and Keith editing. This was probably when the name Brakes Videos was
coined and all money raised was now included in the Supporters Club fund
raising activites. Keith got a new Sony miniDV camcorder for the Supporters
Club - the only problem being you had to remove it from the tripod at half-time
in order to change tapes as tapes were fed from the bottom.
Then Daniel
Weardon volunteered and ended up videoing and editing most of the League games
for the rest of the season. Editing was still being done on the iMac, in
Daniel's garage, with later versions of iMovie having improved and DVDs were
now being produced with iDVD on LynnCams MacBook. During this time home matches
were videoed using a fixed tripod mount on the original temporary seats stand
that was located on the Sheepside. For the 2004/05 Trilogy Daniel's highlights
were re-edited and re-titled by me using Final Cut Pro and mastered with DVD
Pro on a new G5 MacPro and Phillip produced a stunning animated intro - with
Vernor Sleem's wonder goal among others.
2005/06 was the season
of the FA Cup run, just before the Colchester game Daniel quit, I had already
started doing more of the camera and editing, as well as Paul Edwards and Phil
Kitchen who videoed the Colchester game. This was a very busy time with BBC
Midlands Today requesting video footage of the win at Ossett Town and whole
match DVDs selling like hot cakes, together with a special FA Cup run
highlights DVD. I think it was this season that we used a couple of tapes as
video evidence for some successful appeals against red cards for our top
scorer, BBC's Susan Verdie's favourite, Richard Adams.
LynnCam was now doing
behind the goal videos, Phil Kitchen was doing scouting videos for the cup run
and Paul Edwards helped out with videos of some of the FA Vase away games. We
also have occasional camera duty cover from Andy Jenkins and Keith Hancock.
The Brakes went to the Walsal's Bescott Stadium for the League Cup Final -
only to lose. It was deja-vu for me as I had been invited to video the Walsall
Cup final betwenn Tipton Tn and Boldmere St. Michaels the night before. I was
to see Tipton there a year later - in much happier circumstances. The end of
season DVD for 2005/06 had to be extended to four 3 hour disks just to
get all the cup games, replays and penalty shoot-outs in - needless to say this
was a very popular buy.
For the 2006/07 season a scaffold tower
was erected behind the dugouts, this gave a great camera position and a firm
base for a sturdy Manfrotto tripod on permanent load from LynnCam - the video
head was bought on eBay and I started using my new Panasonic miniDV camcorder
which had a wired remote for record and zoom lashed to the tripod arm. This,
together with the weather shield made out of corrugated plastic sheet made
operations a bit easier.
By now Paul Edwards had started doing the match
highlights edits on the old iMac - this halving of the editing duties has
helped us continue to today.
Thankfully the 2006/07 end of season
set was back down to just three disks and, due to championship winning
promotion from the MFA and winnig the League Cup at Walsall's Bescott Stadium,
was yet another good seller, especialy around the following
Christmas.
2007/08 was the Brakes first season back in the
Southern League (Midland Division) which took us to new places as well as a
great run in the FA Trophy. We started uploading goal clips to video google,
and links soon appeared on the Brakes' official site. In April'07 we also
set-up an on-line store for fans to order DVDs and LFCSC membership, payable
via PayPal - this has been very successful.
Due to some rights issues with
Halifax and Setanta, the much postponed FA Trophy match at Halifax was videoed
by thier cameraman together with some hilarious commentary. Fortunately they
let us have a copy of the tapes so that game was included in the season's
portfolio. The season went well into May, it was very diffcult to keep control
of the camera during the,utlimately dissapointing playoff final. Another
successful end of season three disk set was a popular record of the Brakes
progress.
Of course 2008/09 was the season when the Brakes
clinched promotion to the Southern League Premier Division as champions.
The Brakes Videos web-site was changed to a "blog" format, to make
announcements of new releases and video clip links easier to maintain.
One
of many highlight was the double over newly name Nuneaton Town, complete with
live commentary from BBC CWR being included from the away win in January. This
time the Brakes had the league sewn up in April and there were nothin to do in
May for a change.
Just before the end of the season video google stopped
accepting new clips so we started using YouTube - fortunately, as Google own
both, a search will bring up clips from both, so there's a growing library of
the Brakes' goals on-line.
A new mouthwatering 2009/10 in the
Southern League Premier Division beckons, and I don't know for how much longer
we will be allowed to video at away games as our new up-coming hosts may have
rights restrictions that prevent us - only time will tell.
I now import
and edit a whole match iMovie project and then put in onto an iomega 35GB disk
which Paul can then copy to the iMac to do a highlights edit which is returned
on the removable disk. I can then easily add this to a monthly highlights
project for mastering to DVD and this in turn is incorporated into the end of
season highlights project - which is done with DVD Pro on the G5. We haven't
yet move to HD -this would probably mean a wholesale change in technology as
well as gobbling up much more hard disk space. Even with SD a whole match takes
up at least 20GB.
I think that's how it happened, not necessarily in
that order, but near enough.
If I've missed anyone out or said the wrong
thing than please accept my apologies; now it's back to what matters, the
Brakes on the pitch.
Nick Rogers, July 2009. |
(photo: David Clough).