mikeyonwordress

So, in preparation for the weekends filming, on Wednesday when I get the camera out I will be making a tracking system and a stabilizer. This will mean I can play around with the sort of shots I want to achieve and also, if the weather doesn’t work out for me then I will have some back up.

Evaluation for specialist project attempt.

I started off thinking that this project would be a great experience for me as it would determine the nature of my final major project in the new year; and yes, it did exactly that.

I have realized that this is completely the sort of area that is very unreliable and not visually what I was going for at all. Filming competitions is just not ideal. It’s busy, it’s hectic, the lighting inside and the combination of sweat, condensation and smoke from the indoor barbecue mixed with the final ingredient, lack of raw talent; all contributes to a collective of shots that are neither impressive, or visually stimulating.

Sponsers of the event

1.

Here, is an example of some day time filming when we got there.

Daytime long shot.

2.

After dark. This is the best trick! Besides from the terrible angle (I couldn’t get a second closer angle, despite the wide angle lens I brought, due to the cold weather giving the camera condensation problems) – He didn’t even land it! awful.

3.

Here is another example of getting some close shots for atmospheric purposes. Shows issues with lighting. Issue 1. No white lights in the park, therefore all my footage is orange! AND DARK!

So, like I said, there has been much to learn from this. I may have not project, but I do have things I can take away from this experience.

• I realized that this is not good for this project, or my FMP.
• I know that I want to make something that I have control over.
• I know what to expect now from skateparks.
• Filming issues, camera problems and lighting difficulties.

I am trying to stay positive about this experience even though I still have no project from it!

Stuart linked me to this project a few days ago and it has got me really inspired.

I am going to follow this now. It is the right thing for me to do, I can get good controlled shots, combined with my passion. My main concern that I will always be thinking of, and why I think this is the way to go, is that I think because rollerblading doesn’t have that immediate acceptance that skateboarding gets, I will always have to prove that it is something that can be just as astounding and visually amazing.

So in evaluation, if my project is to successfully include my passion, it must be something that can allows outsiders of my sport to look at it without any prejudices.

In preparation for filming next weekend, I decided to get comfortable with some of the new Sony HVR-5E’s the Arts University College Bournemouth have just invested in. With the rain patterns of late, I wasn’t expecting to get a lot done but it came out better than I expected. The purpose of testing was mainly to cover a few things that you don’t need to experience when doing the project for real when you’re under pressure.

For example:

• How the camera reacts in low light situations
• The size and weight of the camera free hand
• Getting used to the tripod, adjusting the actual kit, panning, tilting
• Compression techniques
• Focusing
• White balance
• Editing techniques
• Filming techniques, experimenting with chosen subject-rollerblading.

Problems evident from testing were that when exported, even after trying various different forms of compression, the quality was still pretty far away from the original footage. So far, I am unable to pin point the exact reason for this. I’ve tried various different compression types resulting in more hours sat in front of a screen while a blue bar fills up from left to right than I would prefer.

Anyway this is still a learning curve and this experience should help me out when compressing the footage from next weekend. Step one in resolving this issue is getting all over that quad core mac pro with 30 inch widescreen monitor! Step two being looking in to some more tutorials/advice from internet resources. Step 3… Trial and error.

 

Test

 

Basically in the time it’s taken me to write this I’ve been uploading experiments online and one of the things I’ve come to find out, although I knew this anyway just chose to hope it wouldn’t be the case, is that iMovie is absolutely wank. I can’t even upload some of the raw footage online as a comparison to the compressed clips because YouTube doesn’t recognize the strange version of a .mov that iMovie has captured my footage in!

Some of you may be thinking by now, why did he decide to use iMovie in the first place?! Well, this is pretty much down to Apple as well… Because I didn’t think that having a harddrive that was twice as big and a screen that was 2 inches bigger justified an increase of £400 I decided to not get a MacBook Pro. Apparently, unbeknown to me they decided it would be a good idea with this range of MacBooks to take out the firewire port, making it only available on the Pro. Angry to say the least.

The reason I had to use iMovie was I used Stu’s Macbook Pro because it was the nearest available firewire port besides university and he doesn’t have Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. So once I’d captured it I tried to import it in to Premiere on my MacBook. It was having none of it so I decided iMovie was the only available option. Looking back I would have edited it in class, which I will do when it comes to the real thing.

LIVE AND LEARN. enjoy.