If you haven’t caught any of the behind-the-scenes videos featuring the University of Texas Longhorns, you might not know that the team’s star quarterback and Rose Bowl hero Vince Young gets his groove on by dancing in the locker room.

In a new twist on reality TV, the Longhorns — 2006 Rose Bowl champions — hired Austin’s Lava Studios to create a digital video magazine that spotlights the players’ personal lives and the process and glory of winning.

Produced on Macs and delivered via the web, the “Texas Longhorns Vmag,” says producer Scott Rehling, “gives fans the experience of what these star athletes and coaches are like as people, how they interact with their teammates, friends and families outside of football.”

“There’s no way, without Final Cut’s ability to capture and execute content as quickly as it does, we could broadcast fully-formed program segments over the web by Monday morning.”

Every Fan Is a VIP

Rehling, one of four partners in a studio that handles everything from audio to film production, says fans pay just $25 for a season subscription to “Vmag.” Its behind-the-scenes stories document everything from spring practices to team meetings, from road trips to the games themselves.

“The fans love it,” says Rehling. “It gives them the chance to be a VIP because they have access to areas, like the locker room, they wouldn’t ordinarily see.”

In addition to providing revenue for the University of Texas, Rehling says, “the magazine brings real value to the team’s fan base, because it gets them closer to the fans. It’s also a good recruiting tool when they’re trying to attract players out of high school.”

Spotlight Behind the Curtain

One week, Rehling explains, “we did a story on Vince Young’s dancing skills. He’s a real animated guy, and in the locker room he’s always dancing and singing.

“We got footage of Vince in the locker from various games this year, and his family — his mother, both of his grandmothers, several cousins, aunts, and uncle — told great stories and gave us footage of Vince dancing in contests as a kid. It made a great story.”

Vmag also spotlights UT traditions — like the pep rally before the game with archrival Oklahoma, the anatomy of a play from the coaches’ conception to execution, sound bytes from high-profile alumni such as actor Matthew McConaughey and Houston Astros pitcher Roger Clemens.

All Apple

Aside from using cameras to capture the footage for the show, Rehling says, “everything at Lava is produced entirely on the Mac platform. We digitize our tape and do all of our editing in Final Cut Pro on Power Mac G5s. We do all our titling, title tags, and other graphics works for the show with Motion. We also do the lion’s share of our original audio production with Logic and Soundtrack Pro. Without question, Soundtrack is the fastest tool I’ve ever worked with to create original audio. It’s so versatile — you have an unlimited library of tones and loops. We can create an original piece of music in minutes.”

High-Speed Documentaries

The company relies on Final Cut Pro because “clearly, the first thing is ease of use,” says Lance Webb, Lava’s software guru and video producer. “Like most documentary productions, there’s a tremendous amount of footage that we have to go through and compile for these shows. We have to produce that content on a weekly basis, like other syndicated shows.”

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