Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Elhardouzi.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Adam Elhardouzi. I am a 20 year old sophomore in college attending Long Beach State University where I currently have an internship position for Long Beach State Athletics as a Creative Video Intern.
I was recruited out of high school to play NCAA Division 1 Rugby at Long Beach State after playing for 4 years at Redondo Union High School where my senior year I captained our team to a SoCal High School Rugby 7’s State Championship Tournament, along with being the captain for Santa Monica U18 Rugby Club and being selected onto one of the most prestigious U18 academy teams in the nation at the time, The Los Angeles Giltinis of the MLR (Major League Rugby.)
I started to really get into sports videography and editing as a hobby towards the end of my senior year of high school (spring 2023) and that led into summer where even though I knew I was going to be playing rugby, I still applied to be a intern for Long Beach State Athletics as a low level videographer/editor for their content team. My first semester of college (fall 2023) my video/editing skills grew and improved so much due to the really skilled and high level content creators I was constantly being around and me able to watch and observe how they work/produce different kinds of content. That first semester I honestly got so much better than where I had begun and I was finally starting to get really confident in my projects.
At the end of my first semester, I was asked if I wanted to be promoted to the Lead of Video Production position for the Women’s Basketball team, as their season was coming up in a matter of weeks. Being the “lead” is a more serious and time consuming position because you have to be there every single game, sometimes even practices, weight room sessions all to capture content, and even outside of gameday where we’d post live content, you are asked to create pieces such as hype/recap videos, promo videos or any other creative pieces of content to help promote the said upcoming game. I knew that this was a big deal and the track I wanted to take.
Knowing I didn’t have time in my schedule for both Rugby and my Internship anymore I was forced into making honestly the hardest decision of my life which was stepping away from Rugby, the game I love and worked so hard for, to get to where I was, in order to pursue another passion of mine, sports media and content creation. I felt this was the right decision because this would put myself in a better position for the long run as this opportunity would help me expand my portfolio, gain more connections, have more high level experience, and just develop as a content creator. Still today I’m glad I made the right decision.
After Women’s Basketball season, I started working with our nationally #1 ranked Men’s Volleyball Team, as their Lead of Video Production, and that is where I thrived, creating some of my best work still to date, my best cinematic recap videos, hype videos and even a mini documentary series with the nation’s number one player at his position and an NCAA all time great, Mason Briggs.
That second semester of my freshman year (spring 2024), after being the lead for those two sports and people seeing the content I created with them, opened up a world of opportunities and new doors, leading into summer.
Due to my former high level rugby playing career which led to me having many high profile contacts in the world of USA Rugby, I was able to start doing freelance jobs in the mid to late parts of 2024 for the USA National Team, most notably, filming for the USA Men’s 15’s vs the Spain National Team in Madrid, Spain. I did promo work shooting for the USA Mens and Womens 7’s teams at their compound at the USA Elite Athlete Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, before they went off to the Paris Olympics.
Most recently, I’ve been contracting with the MLR’s (Major League Rugby’s) newest expansion team, Los Angeles Rugby Football Club (RFCLA,) one of only 12 professional rugby teams in the nation. I am their lead of video production, where I handle all postings of video on social media whether it’s live in game highlights, hype reels, recap videos, promotional videos and even their team intro/runout video which plays on the jumbotron pregame. Most notably, in early January we traveled to FIji for two weeks to play a historic preseason game against the Fijian national team, marking the very first MLRxSuperRugby match in history.
Even with all my recent freelance work, I am still maintaining my internship with LBSU Athletics as a creative video intern, this school year is coming to an end in a couple weeks but I’m excited to kick off next year with Women’s Soccer Media Day coming up in July, I’ll be directing the teams 2025 Season Hype Video, for the second year in a row now.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think the biggest struggle I’ve had to navigate at first is trying to find clients for the first time. Especially where I am based, in the LA area, it’s probably the most competitive city in the entire world to be a sports content creator. The biggest thing in my opinion, other than the showing of my work, that’s helped me in terms of why I’m getting all of these high level rugby freelance jobs instead of other people, is that I am a former player. Since rugby isn’t very popular in the US, not many people know about it, let alone film/take photos professionally of the sport. That is a big factor because if you don’t know the sport of rugby, you won’t really know the “unique” rules or how the game flows, or you won’t really know exactly what to capture at the right moments. But as a former player, I’m able to anticipate different things that will happen on the field in different scenarios such as what the score is, where they are on the field, what their formation is and more, and so since Rugby can be all over the place sometimes, I can be ready to capture these moments without a problem, vs someone who doesn’t know what to look for.
Like I said, I’m also a former player, not much younger than these players I’m shooting, so when we go traveling for away games, the coaches/staff that hire me, like that I can be personable and get along with the athletes with ease, and I can do that since I am around their age, similar personalities, shareded former experiences as rugby players, and they would take that any day over a random grown adult who is in their 40’s, 50’s or 60’s who may seem like the odd man out. Since for example the Fiji trip we’re away traveling with each other for 2 weeks, it’s important to the staff that the players surround themselves with someone they are comfortable being themselves/natural with in order to create the most authentic content, even in candid moments.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
One thing that makes me stand out from other video creators, is that I steer away from the general high production visual transition packs, overlays, and mainstream music. I do this because a lot of my best work is storytelling. I love to tell a full and complete story for a game, and make it feel like an experience, for example, take Long Beach State Men’s Volleyball win over UCLA. I want the viewer to feel as if he/she is reliving the game in its entirety, or if they couldn’t be there, I want them to feel like they had a first row seat to the action in which they missed.
I do this by building up the hype for the entire first quarter of the video, leading up to the first serve, with cinematic violin or piano music a lot of the time, using announcer sound bits in the background talking about how; both teams are undefeated, this is a rivalry, the student section is packed, this is a rematch from last year’s national championship. Also purposely using more cinematic shots I take pre game such as, students running from the doors into the student section to get the best seat, a player with his eyes closed praying before he gets introduced. All this adds emotion, and gets the viewer to actually be invested in this piece, so then when the actual action starts, they are invested enough to watch the rest of the short mini movie I have created. I make all these videos and post them on our LBSU instagrams within 24 hours after the game ends.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I think the most important part I’ve had to learn is that you can’t compare yourself to others, and everyone starts out at their own pace. When I first started, even when I was working for my high school basketball team 2 years ago and I thought I was so good at the time, looking back, I cringe at how bad my work was back then. It’s all a learning process. I even look back at some videos now, that I did when I first came to Long Beach, and I am able to be like “wow I wish I had changed that”, “If this were me today I would have included this, or taken that out,” just little things about my taste and vision that have matured, adapted the more I’ve been in the industry that I’m in. When I said it’s important not to compare yourself to others, that’s because everyone has their own style, mine happens to be more of a storytelling/simple cinematic feel, and that’s the work I enjoy doing the most, but it honestly differs every other video, and nobody should get down on themselves when they see these amazing creators on Instagram or YouTube who work for nike or f1, because eventually we’ll all get to where we’re meant to be and it’ll just take time and growth for anyone to get to the level in which they desire.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shotbyadame.myportfolio.com/about-me
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shotbyadame/
Image Credits
Since I am a videographer all the “images” I included of my work aren’t actually photos, their just a paused screenshot from said moment in some different videos I’ve done. Just for context. Would’ve linked/included some of my vids but since this is for a newspaper obviously that wouldn’t work, so that was the only way/best way I thought of where I could show some references of what I do. Thank you!
