Shoot It Right: Filming Footage for Frame-Perfect Analysis

Shoot landscape, always

Turn the phone or tablet sideways before you start. Portrait video gets cropped or letterboxed everywhere it matters, and pose tracking needs the full width of the action, not a narrow vertical sliver of it.

Lock the camera down

Handheld footage drifts, and drift shows up as noise in every joint-angle measurement. A tripod is ideal, but a fence mount, a stack of bags, or just bracing your elbows against something solid all beat a free hand.

Light the subject, not the background

Outdoor daylight is usually fine. If you're indoors, position the camera so the athlete isn't backlit by a window or a bright wall — pose tracking struggles with silhouettes far more than with dim-but-even lighting.

Keep the whole body in frame

Head to feet, for the entire action — not just for the moment of contact. Pose tracking needs a clean, unobstructed view of the joints you care about for every frame you want analyzed, not just the highlight moment.

Side-on for technique, elevated for context

A side-on angle, roughly level with the athlete, gives the cleanest read on joint angles and body position. A higher, pulled-back angle — a balcony, a raised platform, a camera on a tall mount — is better when you need the full field, court, or lane in view along with the athlete.

Get close enough that detail survives compression

Every extra step back is fewer pixels on the athlete once the video's compressed for upload. Fill as much of the frame as you can while still keeping the full range of motion in view.

Use slow motion if your device has it

Most phones can shoot 120fps or higher. For anything fast — a swing, a jump, a release, a change of direction — slow motion gives frame-by-frame scrubbing something to actually work with, instead of the action happening between frames.

Shoot the same action from two angles if you can

One side-on pass for joint angles, one from behind or in front for balance and alignment. You don't need to do this for every clip, but for a technique you're actively trying to fix, it's worth the extra take.

Get consent before you film other people

If teammates, opponents, or anyone else identifiable will be in the footage, ask first — and get a parent or guardian's OK if they're under 18. This is both common courtesy and, in a lot of places, a real legal requirement.

Keep bystanders out of the shot

Frame tight enough to avoid catching other people's games, practices, or just people walking by who never agreed to be on camera.

Upload directly, no middleman

Drop the clip straight into your dashboard and it opens right into the analysis workspace — no uploading to a drive folder, no sharing permissions to fumble, no separate email.

Don't worry about trimming it yourself

Starter clips are capped at 2 minutes and Coach at 5 (Academy has no cap) — upload something longer and it's automatically trimmed to fit rather than rejected, so you don't need to cut it down beforehand.

Record your breakdown and send a link back

Once you've reviewed the footage, record your own narrated walkthrough right in the workspace and share it with a short link — no file to attach, no size limit to worry about on their end.