Paige Hassen: JRN

Central Michigan Junior from Lake Villa, IL, Caitlyn Britton is a pitcher-utility player for the CMU softball team. Britton is a redshirt junior with senior credits, as she took her ‘COVID year’ as an extra year to play on the team.

Playing against the University of Ohio on Friday, April 7, and Saturday, April 8, Britton and the CMU softball team were looking to end Ohio’s 10 game winning streak. With Ohio being ranked first in the conference, Britton knew the few games would be difficult.

Britton got her love for the sport at an early age, playing ball with her dad before joining t-ball and then softball a few years later. As her love for the sport grew, she started to think about pursuing it as a career after high school.

Touring colleges, she wanted to find a place that felt like home. Although Britton lives six hours away from CMU’s campus, she felt as though CMU had a ‘home-y’ feel to it that other colleges did not. It was for this reason that Britton felt CMU was her new home, and a great place to continue her softball career.

Looking towards the rest of the season, Britton is excited to spend the last few games of the season playing with the seniors. As she took her COVID year, she came into CMU with the seniors that are graduating.

Being a D1 college athlete, Britton says she deals with the stressful days by working on time management. “Basically, packed from 8 in the morning until 4:30pm,” Britton says about her weekdays. They have study tables that they must do based on grades as well, where Britton says after practice is usually dedicated to spending time doing their homework due the next day.

So far, Britton’s experience with the team has gone very well. “We’ve been through a lot, especially with the bus accident last year,” she says, “I think our team chemistry has been really impressive to see grow over the years.” Britton says the experience has been fun and that it’s exciting to see herself and everyone else grow into the players they are today.

“This season should be really fun, especially with our conference schedule,” Britton says, “it’s going to be very competitive; the MAC is a lot different than previous years.”

Starting off strong, CMU was able to hold Ohio to a shutout in the first game on Friday, April 7, winning 5 runs to 0. They went on to win the first on Saturday 5-0, before falling to Ohio in the last game, 5-2.

My experience:

I had to push myself a bit out of my comfort zone for this one. I say this because the first video I did was with a good friend of mine, the second with someone I had never met, and then this one was with someone I know a little bit, but not too well. I think that was a grey area for me, to find the balance between professional and personal with someone who I am only acquainted with.

I loved shooting for this assignment, though, because I have always been a huge fan of sports. I even played softball, so I understood a little bit about what would look best and have the most effective b-roll videos. It was faster paced than I’m used to as well, so I got a lot of video and some pretty cool shots as well. I have noticed that it is crazy about the positive things a lot of b-roll does for a video. It just makes it so much more visually appealing.

Also, I have noticed I am getting a lot more comfortable with post-production, too, because I was able to edit this one a lot faster than normal, and I have more footage than I’ve had before. There may have been something I forgot, but as of now I think I remembered to include everything and am happy with the results. I’m looking forward to the last video feature!