Okay why? Do you mean mark all the plays with chapter markers? Will they see the chapters?

The suggestion is to:

AUTHOR A DVD WITH CHAPTERS AND MENU.

How else would they see the chapters?

Apply a time code effect to the footage in the Project Media bin. That way you can always refer back to it. Give them a DVD of each game with the timecode burned in and ask them to select the scenes they want based on the timecodes.

I've taped 9 games and now I need to share it with the so they can pick the plays to include in the highlights video. I did a LOT of these, although none recently.

Let me see if I can find an old post where I described my workflow ...

... ah, here it is:

How can I reorder Regions to the Client's Wishes?

The heading may not sound like what you want, but what I describe is how I take a dozen football games, and create a working DVD that lets the client decide which plays he/she wants, and in what order. I then developed some scripts that makes it really easy for me to take the client's cut list and create the final DVD with the plays in the desired order.

I've also done a lot of highlight DVDs for athletes applying for college athletic scholarships.

The thread I linked to above is the final result of a workflow I developed, with the help of people in this forum, many years ago. Here is a link to that thread:

How to quickly rearrange clip order

This may seem more complicated than you want, but there is a reason for this. Your workflow has to overcome two big obstacles:

1. How do you create a list of plays so that the client can communicate back to you what he/she wants?

2. How can you rearrange 1,000+ plays, which might be in almost random order by the time the client is finished, with many (most) plays deleted, without spending several days doing the work?

I used to put text overlay titles on the working DVD in order to help with #1 (and I also tried using timecode), but then I realized that was a waste of time, and timecode is actually difficult for a non-video editor to deal with (too many digits). Chapter numbers are really simple.

What's more, the DVD player has a chapter number counter that is easy to read and, on most DVD players, it can be displayed on-screen as well as on the player front panel. So, all you have to do is make sure that each play is a separate event, and then use a script (I'll be happy to send it to you) which adds markers at the start of each event. One push of a button, and you have all the markers. When you create a DVD, make sure the MPEG-2 render "create chapters from markers" button is selected, and these markers will then be converted into chapters.

The only limitation is that a DVD can only have 99 chapters, so if you have a really large number of plays (most football games have at least 150 plays), then you render the project into multiple MPEG-2 files, using regions and batch rendering. The client then has to provide both title and chapter number. It may sound complicated, but I found that everyone I worked with "got it" almost immediately.

Hard to believe I forgot something in that long post, but I did.

As I'm sure you've found out ADs tell their athletes to keep the number of plays down below a certain number. It is different for every sport, but it is not a large number. I did a DVD for a quarterback, and the team went all the way that year, meaning they had 12 games. They averaged 180 plays per game, so the parent & athlete had to choose just a few dozen plays from almost 2,000.

For that project, and for at least one other, I chose to go with two draft DVDs. With the first DVD, I told them to simply give me the chapter numbers of the plays they wanted.

I then created a second draft DVD containing just those plays, and from that they chose the order. I think I may have helped them by sorting those plays into passing and running.

When you finally get all the plays, and you have them in the right order, you then have to decide how much of each play to keep. I got a lot of instruction from the AD on this point. He, in turn, had been instructed by a lot of college recruiters that they don't want to waste their time waiting for the play to start, or watching what happens after the tackle. In the case of the quarterback, I was told to cut immediately after the pass was caught because they didn't care about what some other athlete did after the catch was made.

So, be sure to talk to the AD and follow his/her instructions.

Oh yes, for several sports (softball and volleyball) I was asked to tape the athlete during practice, doing several standard drills. You should find out if this is required and be prepared to shoot some of your own film.