Game Starters: Ryan Dale, sports video services specialist
Before the team takes the field and the referee calls for kickoff, Purdue staff members play their part in making football games successful. Each Friday before a home game, as Ross-Ade Stadium waits to come alive with cheering Boilermakers, a staff member who is integral to game day will be featured in Purdue Today's Game Starters series. This week’s Game Starter is Ryan Dale, sports video services specialist in Intercollegiate Athletics.
When Ryan Dale discovered in college that he could combine his love of sports and video, he knew he had found his calling. Now, as sports video services specialist in Intercollegiate Athletics, Dale helps the Purdue football team prepare its players and plays for games as well as learn about upcoming opponents.
How did you get started in this field?
I started doing video production work for football when I was a student at Ball State. One of my professors said that the football team was looking for someone to help with video, and I thought it sounded interesting. I talked to the coach, got the job and started a career I didn't even know existed at the time.
In high school I was a guitar player and musician, and I wanted to do music videos. When I started at Ball State, I had wanted to graduate and move to Los Angeles or New York City, but I was always a sports nut. I played football in high school and was always a great fan. Once I found out teams used videos, I was hooked.
When I started doing this at Ball State, getting to work at Purdue was my ultimate goal. I'm from Lafayette, and I grew up a Purdue fan. I was in the industry for 13 years before I got here in 2006, but it was my goal from the start.
What responsibilities are involved in your job?
There are a lot of different facets from helping the coaches with technical issues and equipment to getting footage.
We take video at all of the football practices. My assistant and I will run five to six cameras at the same time during practice with the help of seven students who work for me. The team has different drills going simultaneously, so we shoot those, bring the footage in for editing and get the footage to the coaches by time the team is done showering.
We also shoot on game day, but we run two cameras -- sideline and end zone. We edit the video while the game is going on, and we divide the game into offense, defense and special teams.
During the week we also work with opponent footage. Teams exchange video with their opponents so that you can scout them and prepare for the upcoming game. In the old days, we either used FedEx or put the footage on a plane, but now we exchange everything over the Internet.
I also do a lot with the recruiting videos between seasons. Coaches will send me recruiting videos from the high schools, and I will put them on our network and separate them into different positions and states. Our coaches then use the videos to see what the talent level is of each player.
What do you keep in mind when shooting game day footage?
During a home game, our end zone person takes video from the top of the Daktronics video board and the sideline person is on top of the press box.
We keep all 22 players on the field within the frame at the same time while keeping the shot as tight as we can. We don't zoom in and follow the ball. This video is for coaching purposes, and the coaches need to see everybody.
We also pay attention to penalties. We usually have someone stand behind the person shooting to tell them if there's been a penalty, and then we shoot the referee talking about the penalty. The person on the sideline camera also is responsible for taking a three- to five-second shot of the scoreboard before every play so we know things like the time on clock, what down it was and the score.
How is the video used after the game?
Graduate assistant coaches watch the video and enter in all the team data about each play -- down, distance, field position, what gain or loss was, personnel, strength of formation, run or pass, play call, all of it. They also enter information about the defense.
Based upon that information, we do cutups for the coaches. The term came from when we used to cut up film to form the segments. We can make an entire edit, for example, of plays with just our offense on second down with one to six yards to go.
The coaches will study the cutups to see if plays they are calling work or if something better can be done in specific situations. They can see how defenses are playing out in those situations too. Football is very copycat. If something an opponent used worked against you, you can bet you'll see it the next week. You want to study that this week so you come up with a variance to it.
Players also study the footage so they can learn plays and see what they did wrong or right. Mainly, it's a learning tool.
I also use our footage to make a motivational video that features highlights from the previous week's game set to music. It gets the players fired up for the next game.
How does the weather affect your job?
Sometimes the weather is good, sometimes not. The rain is not so bad because there's rain gear available for you and for the camera. When it's cold or snowy and you're outside, it can get a little miserable. Sometimes when that happens, we'll switch people at quarters and let them warm up.
Do you have a chance to actually watch the game?
Sometimes. Once the students are ready to run the camera during the game, I can watch a bit. When you're looking through that little viewfinder, you see the play and you're trying to get the best-quality footage, but when you hit stop at the end you're almost like, what just happened? I know I shot it, but what just happened?
