Filming high school basketball documentary, tips wanted!

So basically I will be during a short +/- 8 minute documentary on my high school's basketball team. It's a very special year as almost all my buddies are seniors on the team and I think they'd appreciate it. Now, the tools at my disposal include: 60d, t2i, 50mm 1.4 and 1.8, 85mm 1.8, 28mm 2.5, tripods, monopods, and all the editing software I need. I'd like to get some ideas/tips that you guys think would help make this video something that is more of a professional look and not some average sub par video of a high school team. Any tips are greatly appreciated!

8 minutes is actually quite long in many respects. Try to get as much footage of the team in action, not just one game, and as many angles as possible. One game may only give you a hand full of two or three second clips so its going to be a big job. Focus on the people, try to get sound bites and comments from team members which you can then show clips of them in action.

2 things
- Buy a steadycam (flycam nano is about 200$ on ebay)
- Go on youtube and watch hbo 24/7 clips for shot ideas etc.

good luck should be fun!

Gear does not make good video. Ideas and vison makes a good video. The skill is using what you have to the best effect. You don't need to buy anything else. Sure, you could buy more stuff; what about a jib, one of those overhead wire dollys would be pretty cool and you just have to have a helicopter......perhap​s not.
Think about the story and how you want to tell it. Once you have that as the structure other gems come out which broaden the picture, but you have to have an idea as to what the core structure will be.

True but hes not going to follow players around the court etc handheld... it's going to look cheap. He said he wants it to look more professional so it needs to be stabilized. He has a tripod that will get him great standard shots but the steadicam will open so many more avenues.

If you dont go the steadicam route you atleast need a fluid head on your tripod. slider maybe aswell you can get them pretty cheap. sigma 10-20??

I've made a few videos of my daughters soccer and softball teams. I attached the link for you for a couple of my latest (for the softball team - I shot the varsity and another parent shot the JV team). My vision for a video is driven by the music first - it allows me to get a pace and feeling for the video.

You can see my personal formula is a section of action shots of each player, a senior tribute and then candid or fun shots. I generally try to keep around 7 to 8 minutes. My reasoning is that at an end of year party thats about the attention span you will get.

To make it easier to get the pictures you need, make a list of all players, coaches and assistants. Make 3 columns: action, candid and killer play. Your goal is to capture a minimum of 3 shots of each person for column 1 and 2 as early in the season as possible. If you do that you can relax and replacing some of your earlier pictures and look for really creative pictures.

BTW - the softball video was shot with T1 and a 70-200 2.8 and 24-70 2.8

My earlier videos were mainly slideshows. Now I try and mix both video and photos.
http://vimeo.com/67275​247
http://vimeo.com/79547​871