From the strip to the screen.

I’m the father of two fencers. Like many of the parents I see each weekend, I spend a lot of time beside the strip, recording my sons’ bouts with the camera on my phone. I do it so they can watch themselves afterward - see what went well, identify what they could work on, and prepare for the next event.

Before BoutCam, I uploaded the videos to Google Photos after each event, organized them into an album, and shared them with my boys, my wife, and sometimes their coaches. Occasionally, one of my sons borrowed my phone to review a bout with his coach during a private lesson.

That process was a lot of work - especially with two boys often fencing multiple events at the same tournament. Finding the right video later was difficult: Which bout was this? Stopping and rewinding to see something again was cumbersome and imprecise.

I kept thinking: Wouldn’t it be better if we could put the names and score directly on the video? And if we could mark when each touch happened, reviewing the bout would be much easier.

That’s why I created BoutCam, a fencing camera app. When you use it to record, you can add the fencers’ names and organize the videos into albums for each event. You can easily keep score by tapping the scoring controls, which also mark when each touch happened in the video.

When it’s time to review, touches appear right on the timeline. We can jump forward to the next touch, back to the previous touch, or drag forward and backward at any speed to study exactly what happened.

BoutCam has made recording, managing, and reviewing these videos much easier for us. I hope it can do the same for you and your fencers.

If you have thoughts, feedback, or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. When you send feedback, it comes directly to me. Email me at chris@boutcam.com.