Not surprisingly, Sabol believes that NFL Films is all about storytelling. "Storytelling is basically done through the editing. It's the cameraman's job to come back with as much material – storytelling shots, action shots – as he possibly can." At that point, editing becomes "so critical, and it's one of the most overlooked art forms or disciplines in filmmaking. Most people don't understand editing; they understand writing, they understand music, they understand cinematography. But when it comes to editing film and the selection and order of the shots, that's the key to storytelling."

How do you take a Super Bowl blowout, and turn it into a great highlight film? A classic example was Super Bowl XX, where the Chicago Bears crushed the New England Patriots, 46 to 10. The game itself was decided before halftime heck, probably before the pregame show. But NFL Films pulled out all the stops to turn that rout into a great half-hour documentary: coaches and quarterbacks wired for sound; narration, multiple camera angles and animation diagramming key plays; super slow motion; post-game interviews and larger-than-life music.

Those Super Bowl films illustrate that as long as people play sports, there will always be great stories to be told – even if it takes a little extra effort to dig for them. The trick of course, is finding new and unique ways to present those stories. While technology continues to advance, Bob Ryan says, "The basic ideas of good stories, and a good storyteller, will never change."

The Inside NFL Films headquarters is located in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey and has a climate-controlled vault containing football footage from 1897 to the present day, including of course, every inch of film shot by NFL Films.

Obviously, cataloging all those miles of footage is quite a challenge. In the past, the producers at NFL Films relied on the memories of long-time employees jokingly called "vault savants." Concurrent with their move to a new building, however, they've begun to catalog each shot in a computerized database. When footage is processed after each NFL game, it's cataloged with about 150 search parameters, including everything from the styles of uniforms worn to the weather, down to which advertisers' products or ads were visible in the background of a shot. Steve Andrich, NFL Films' vice president of cinematography, says the database allows producers to put in criteria that will bring up a selection of shots, and then narrow down the criteria. "You can say, 'give me Walter Payton's 100 touchdowns' if you put that in as a criterion, it will give you 100 touchdowns. Then 'give them to me at night', 'give them to me ten yards or longer'."

Knowing what shots you have at your disposal is the first step to good film editing and story-telling. Although few videographers have the vault and cataloging capabilities of NFL Films, you can organize your library in a similar way with programs such as Video-Wiz (www.thirdwaveideas.com).