Mississippi State Recruiting 2024

2024 was my first year as Director or Video for Mississippi State Football, and as Director that meant it was up to me to come up with a theme for recruiting and a way to execute it. Coach Jeff Lebby had signed freshman and some transfers when he first got to State, but this would be his first real signing class. I knew the pressure was on, and with Official Visits approaching I knew it was time to brainstorm.

From the moment Coach Lebby set foot on campus, his mantra was "SHOWTIME." In an interview he told Josh Pate that Showtime meant that every Saturday in Davis Wade was going to be a show, and something people were going to want to see. I took the theme "SHOWTIME" into consideration and took inspiration from old Hollywood in order to create the content for this recruiting season.

OFFICIAL VISIT ANNOUNCEMENTS

With recruits getting ready to step foot on campus I had to give them something that they could post on social media, to let people know they would be coming.

The concept for this OV Announcement came sometime before the big Hollywood style conceptualization, but I still wanted to keep them in that same realm. The idea was to mix the environment of a home game, with shots of getting an OV Photoshoot ready for them. It was a way to say, "get ready, your moment in the spotlight is up next." The final shot was an actual spotlight, with their name, so as to give that star feeling of a celebrity's dressing room.

OFFICIAL VISITS

For official visits I wanted to do more than make a cool fast cuts video that we could send to the recruit. I wanted to make it almost a story of going to Hollywood and becoming a celebrity. I decided to sketch a few ideas on a white board and it helped me visualize what I was trying to bring to life.

Obviously an idea can be great in theory, but it must have an element of practicality to it. This was in no way my first Official Visit season, as I had worked them for 3 years at Mizzou and at Alabama, so I understood that there needed to be an order to the chaos happening. I came up with a flow on how wanted the recruits to go through the different stations. The shoot would go as follows:

1. Start at the "Red Carpet" where they could be dressed in a street clothes look to show off their personal style. This would simulate arriving to a premier and they are the stars.

   
   

2. They would then go into the lockeroom and change and be in their uniforms for the rest of the shoot. This would lead to the second part of the shoot which would be the "film noir" shot. The hero of the story, or the detective in the true crime movie, would be on display, and it would be a quick change of pace in the video. This simulated the actors performance after the premier on display, like watching the movie after walking the red carpet.

3. This leads the player to the "backlot" where they would be able to do all their poses and use the props we had provided for them. This would have big sets like behind on a movie set and something they could just play with during the shoot.

4. This would all take them to the final shot of the night which was the "dressing room". The player would check himself out in a two-way mirror and sign his name on the mirror before gearing up and heading out to his adoring fans on the field.

After getting and idea on paper (white board) it was time to start building. We were given no real budget for the project, just not to go crazy with spending. However, I am a very economical person, and I knew there were things already in our possession that could be used for our sets. I mapped out where I wanted the main set to go in the lockeroom and I began looking around Davis Wade for pieces.

I wanted this set to have that Hollywood backlot feel to it, where there's so many giant props and thing that are used for movies, just sitting around. I took inspiration from movies like Big Fat Liar for this concept.

I also wanted to have physical things that the recruit could use or "play with" during the shoot to create a fun experience. While many schools use green screens to create a final product, half the fun of the official visit is the experience, so I wanted it to be physical and fun.

I knew there we things that were already located within the Leo Seal Football Complex that could be used as props, but I needed a lot of bigger items to make my vision come to life. I found a player mannequin in the recruiting closet, a giant banner M logo that was being thrown out in the football facility, an old bus route sign, practice bags, and a white State Script logo all underneath the stadium and in the marketing cages. The facilities crew was also conducting construction on the stadium seats, so I knew I could borrow one and add it to my set.

When looking through some of the premium areas, I also found these large X and O seats in the stadiums Gridiron club that I knew I had to add to the set and would give it more of a football look.

After a good cleaning and hauling it all into the lockeroom, with the help of my coworkers, I began to arrange it how I wanted. It took a few tries and some interesting balancing acts, but I finally got it to where I was happy with the look. The next thing I wanted to add was giant marquee lights that spelled out SHOWTIME. I mean you can't have a Hollywood premier without those right?

Thankfully, the department had already worked with a local company that specialized in marquee lights. After talking with the lady and setting them up in a way where the recruit could walk through them the set came alive! The final step was to add a curtain backdrop to give it that backstage feel and then surround it with pipe and drape to hide the rest of the lockeroom.

Now for only the cost of renting the marquee lights, I had a full set. This would be where the recruits would get their fun video's as well as their photos.

To create the fiilm noir shot we used a crane light stand and simply hung it over an empty section of the lockeroom. We marked and X on the floor where the recruit would stand and we would have them start out of frame and then walk under the light and lift their head up to give good shadows, but also have that hero shot of them.

The last shot in the lockeroom proved to be a little more difficult than I think we expected. We had a big piece of rectangular glass that I knew I wanted to turn into a mirror, but didn't know how. A quick trip to Lowes revealed that I could buy some window tinting film, and put it on our glass and, when lit properly, it would give the effect of a two-way mirror.

The next thing to do was make it into a vanity, like a celebrity dressing room. My boss Jonathan King, being the handy man that he is, built a vanity frame, and was able to repurpose lights he had found on old displays in the football complex to complete the task. The next issue was how we were going to make it stand. In our search through the bowels of the stadium, we found an old DJ booth that was used for the gameday DJ. We hauled it into the lockeroom and Jonathan was able to drill two light stands into the booth and vanity, and that gave us out standing mirror.

Finally all the stations in the lockeroom were done and at almost no cost to the recruiting department at all.

The last thing to do was to set up the red-carpet area. I wish I could take credit for the creation of that, but Will Howard with GTR Productions was the genius who set up and programmed all the lights, he even provided the red carpet and stanchions. I added and external light at the front of the carpet that was on a paparazzi setting to give off random flashes. The final element of the carpet was to add a glass screen to one of the cameras so that at the end of the carpet the recruit could sign his autograph on the lens.

All these elements came together to create some great Official Visit videos:

NATIONAL SIGNING DAY

The biggest part of recruiting is National Signing Day. A day to show off the recruits who have decided to put pen to paper and be a part of the team. Normally schools will do a short hype video with a lot of effects and footage or photos from when the recruit came on a visit. However, I wanted to do something different and off the wall for this signing day. I had been playing with Adobe Aero this season and noticed that the software had a Beta version for desktop. After doing an online search to learn more about and playing with some files I realized that it was a very cool and effective tool to use. Adobe Aero is essentially and augmented reality app, where you can take things you create and project them into the world around with your phone.

I came up with the idea of making a 3D poster of each recruit for them to project with their phone using a QR code and their camera. Adobe Aero does not require you to have the app in order to use the QR code, so I thought it would be perfect for everyone to use. My reasoning behind this was that, instead of a simple video that would be retweeted and then get lost, it would be for the recruit to use and interact with and show his friends and family. The way the projection works is that the camera needs to look for an anchor image to begin the 3D model. There was some back and forth debate amongst co-workers on what the anchor should be. We considered doing the State Script, but not everyone wouldn't necessarily have access to it, also in preliminary testing, the camera wouldn't pick it up easily. Ultimately, we decided to make the anchor, the Instagram grid that would go up for each recruit. This was it was something everyone had access to and it would drive traffic to our IG and show the work that gets hidden with the profile grid sometimes.

I began to build a look and 3D model for each and every recruit in Aero and create a unique QR code for each player:

Once I had a unique QR code for each player, my boss added them into an individual poster for each player on twitter and IG stories.

Ultimately this proved somewhat difficult for some fans and players to work through, and they would need another screen, another Iphone or computer. However, that issue did come to mind in the creation process, and my thought process was that most of these players would be having signing day parties with friends and family and so they could easily borrow another person's phone to use the 3D poster. The other issue was that some of the files would take more than a few minutes to load if the user didn't have access to good wi-fi. At the end of the day, it may have been an idea ahead of its time, but I was extremely satisfied with the result and being able to provide something new and cutting edge to each and every new signee.

Overall, I think I took a unique approach to "SHOWTIME" and brought a concept to life while helping bring a Top 25 signing class to Mississippi State.

By Ryan Ortegon