The first filming day of the women's baseball team was an education to me of how much of a novice I am in the world of film. I arrived at the field where Sarah was playing. She had brought the equipment for me behind the duggout when I arrived. I began setting up immediately but didn't know where the headphones were so I couldn't hear the sound. I asked Sarah when her team was up to bat where the best place to set up the tripod was. She told me for safety reasons I should stay behind the fence next to the duggout. The problem with this was that the fence was quite high and in order to avoid having a thick yellow bar at the bottom of the screen, I had to set the tripod up high and basically stand on my tip-toes the entire time.

Anything for the sake of the film!

Well, it worked okay, but when trying pan the camera to follow someone running from home to first I lost my balance the first time and totally screwed up the shot. This was the first of many not so stellar attempts to catch the action.

J.C. arrived about an hour after I did so he let me take a break and took over filming. By then, Sarah had her dad run out to the car to get the headphones and things were working a little better for us. We knew we should get different angles, but were a little weary of moving the camera to potentially dangerous areas so most of the filming (with the exception of the staged shots Sarah took before the game) was taken from the same position. We experimented with zooming and panning and as close-up as we could get but there wasn't much we could do from one spot. It was also really difficult because it was impossible to tell when something exciting was going to happen so we never really knew what exactly we should be filming.

At one point, the pitcher came back to where we were, frustrated with the way the game was going. He was shooting off all kinds of F bombs and curses. I had just put the camera aside for awhile because it was running out of film and I was kicking myself that the camera wasn't set up and ready to go. He said something about how he knew they were girls but they're "hardcore" and that they pee on the sidelines without using toilet paper. I asked him if I could film him saying all that stuff again and he said maybe after the next inning. It never happened, though.

We wrapped when the game ended and decided that Sarah would write a list of all the things she wanted to have filmed the following week.