Video From This Weekend

[crashmore]

Here's the edited footage I put together from Sunday. I wish I could have gotten more but I think all things considered this came out pretty well. Thanks to those who allowed me to take the footage... As soon as I get some industrial strength velcro I'll set the helmet cam up and get some footage of some runs as well.

Watching this is enough inspirtation to keep me coming out and working on my own skills.

http://www.mtb-blog.com/2006/10/10/jump-session-video/

[Pie]

Oh man you left me out of the credits!! BOOO!!! I was the guy wearing the "don't shoot me, I'm not a deer" safety orange jersey. Hehe.

[Jason Reckner]

Hey Pie, you just need to go a little bigger to get on the credits. lmao

[crashmore]

Sorry dude. I thought for sure I had you in there. I was up far too late finishing that last night. (You''d be surprised how long it takes to even edit together a short vid like that). Anyhow I fixed it, you're now in the credits :)

Oh man you left me out of the credits!! BOOO!!! I was the guy wearing the "don't shoot me, I'm not a deer" safety orange jersey. Hehe.

[Jason Reckner]

Of anyone with us Pie would truly understand the time to make a bunch of hacks look like riders. lol. You two will have to talk sometime. He has some amazing vid equipment and skills. He has a great vid from when we went to windrock in tenn.

[urbaindk]

make a bunch of hacks look like riders. lol. .

I don't know... No matter how many times I look at it, it looks like I dropped further than I went out on the big jump. In other words, I thought I looked pretty hackish.

[Pie]

I make people look decent off jumps and drops because I simply never show the bad takes....which is why I'm usually not in my own videos. ;)


Actually filming is an interesting thing. You get out what you put in which means if you want to look more like the guys in the videos you buy you have to go at "race pace" at all times and I do a lot of things with angles. But I still haven't figured out how to shoot northshore stuff and make it look decent. My theory is that riders are so used to seeing gigantic stunts in vids that stuff mortals ride will NEVER translate well to amateur film. So I just try to make sure everyone looks fast (no coasting!! pedal pedal pedal!!! bend your knees and arms more!!!!).

The other thing I try really hard to do (lately) is make the stuff I shoot look more like film instead of video. Without going into great detail, there's a LOT of things to consider and most people won't tolerate going on a ride and waiting while I fool with exposure, angle, lighting, background, etc. But our usual group likes to session stuff so "do it again, for the 4th time" usually doesn't result in mutiny. I'm even getting better at setting up shots and letting others film so I can do some riding and get into my own work from time to time.

Here's some links...
Windrock Vid (38MB, 3:45mins) (http://www.idrivethetrain.com/assets/video/windrock_20060506_hifi.wmv)
Misc 'testing new techniques' clips from 2 weeks ago (3.8MB, 45second) (http://www.idrivethetrain.com/assets/video/pipeline_test_01b.wmv)
From above shoot, but filmed by Leon and lacks post-production finessing (http://www.idrivethetrain.com/assets/video/pipeline_test_02.wmv)

I'm really stoked on the results from the second vid and think I'll go back and re-edit my Windrock vid and fool with post processing to make it more like the second clip when I get some free time this winter. Though I was hoping to make a "2006 Season" vid from our adventures this year I ended up riding too much and filming too little. But hey there's still Diablo this weekend. :D

When I figure out how to turn this hobby/obsession of mine into something that at least pays for itself I'll be really stoked. But right now I just use my $4000 worth of gear for my own amusement.

[crashmore]

The videos look great. What camera are you using these days? I've been keeping an eye on all the new HD cams starting to hit. That's one thing I'm really looking forward to scoping out at CES this year.

I make people look decent off jumps and drops because I simply never show the bad takes....which is why I'm usually not in my own videos. ;)


Actually filming is an interesting thing. You get out what you put in which means if you want to look more like the guys in the videos you buy you have to go at "race pace" at all times and I do a lot of things with angles. But I still haven't figured out how to shoot northshore stuff and make it look decent. My theory is that riders are so used to seeing gigantic stunts in vids that stuff mortals ride will NEVER translate well to amateur film. So I just try to make sure everyone looks fast (no coasting!! pedal pedal pedal!!! bend your knees and arms more!!!!).

The other thing I try really hard to do (lately) is make the stuff I shoot look more like film instead of video. Without going into great detail, there's a LOT of things to consider and most people won't tolerate going on a ride and waiting while I fool with exposure, angle, lighting, background, etc. But our usual group likes to session stuff so "do it again, for the 4th time" usually doesn't result in mutiny. I'm even getting better at setting up shots and letting others film so I can do some riding and get into my own work from time to time.

Here's some links...
Windrock Vid (38MB, 3:45mins) (http://www.idrivethetrain.com/assets/video/windrock_20060506_hifi.wmv)
Misc 'testing new techniques' clips from 2 weeks ago (3.8MB, 45second) (http://www.idrivethetrain.com/assets/video/pipeline_test_01b.wmv)
From above shoot, but filmed by Leon and lacks post-production finessing (http://www.idrivethetrain.com/assets/video/pipeline_test_02.wmv)

I'm really stoked on the results from the second vid and think I'll go back and re-edit my Windrock vid and fool with post processing to make it more like the second clip when I get some free time this winter. Though I was hoping to make a "2006 Season" vid from our adventures this year I ended up riding too much and filming too little. But hey there's still Diablo this weekend. :D

When I figure out how to turn this hobby/obsession of mine into something that at least pays for itself I'll be really stoked. But right now I just use my $4000 worth of gear for my own amusement.

[Pie]

Canon GL-1 DV cam.

HDV is nice if you can swing it. I wish I could justify getting a Sony VX-1 but it's about $3500 and I would want to slap a 35mm adapter ($1000) and a 35mm camera lense ($400) onto it since I've seen some shockingly good looking results that way.

Too bad I can't justify that setup for ANYTHING that I do. Plus it would be really difficult to transport into the backcountry with the fancy 35mm adapter. Heh.

[crashmore]

There's alot of movement in the HD realm too these days so I may wait and see what shakes out before I make any purchase. ..

In I'll probaly end up trying to pick up a descent standard DV cam to tide me over until later in the year.

I do have a friend at work that bought one of the Sony cams. Pherhaps I can score it for a weekend and we can take it out and do some shooting to test it out.

Canon GL-1 DV cam.

HDV is nice if you can swing it. I wish I could justify getting a Sony VX-1 but it's about $3500 and I would want to slap a 35mm adapter ($1000) and a 35mm camera lense ($400) onto it since I've seen some shockingly good looking results that way.

Too bad I can't justify that setup for ANYTHING that I do. Plus it would be really difficult to transport into the backcountry with the fancy 35mm adapter. Heh.

[Pie]

I think the best bet for anyone looking to get into filming more seriously, where you care about the finer aspects of image quality, etc etc, the best bet right now is to get a used 3-CCD DV camcorder like my GL-1 (or GL-2 or Sony VX2000). After that you need a wide angle lense, a big battery, some cheap filters, and that's about it. A good $200 tripod is a plus as well if you're crap at handholding shots (like me).

HD itself is standardized finally. Where you run into problems is deciding what format the HD takes inside the camera. HDV squeezes it all onto DV tapes which is pretty rad but editting it can be a hassle insofar as you will need something fairly stout computer-wise and new software-wise to make it work. And you're always better off on a mac than a pc to edit video, plain and simple (I do mine on a pc though).

Whatever you do just stay away from anything that records to a DVD if you actually care about editting it and having it look the best it can. It's precompressed to fit onto the DVD (quality loss) and getting it off the DVD and into an editting package is hard[er].

[crashmore]

The HD resolution/spec is a done deal but from what I've noticed some folks are using different codecs to do the actual recording. I think Sony uses realtime encoding/decoding mpeg2 in order to record HD onto DVI tapes. I've also seen other folks using h264 and various other offshoots of mpeg4 to acomplish this.


Thanks for the camera advice! I'll have to start keeping an eye on ebay. I've got a pretty nice editing machine these days I just need to get myself some higher quaolity source materials to work with.






I think the best bet for anyone looking to get into filming more seriously, where you care about the finer aspects of image quality, etc etc, the best bet right now is to get a used 3-CCD DV camcorder like my GL-1 (or GL-2 or Latest Forum Topics). After that you need a wide angle lense, a big battery, some cheap filters, and that's about it. A good $200 tripod is a plus as well if you're crap at handholding shots (like me).

HD itself is standardized finally. Where you run into problems is deciding what format the HD takes inside the camera. HDV squeezes it all onto DV tapes which is pretty rad but editting it can be a hassle insofar as you will need something fairly stout computer-wise and new software-wise to make it work. And you're always better off on a mac than a pc to edit video, plain and simple (I do mine on a pc though).

Whatever you do just stay away from anything that records to a DVD if you actually care about editting it and having it look the best it can. It's precompressed to fit onto the DVD (quality loss) and getting it off the DVD and into an editting package is hard[er].

[Pie]

No problem. I can ramble on and on and on and on about this stuff in person so just get me started the next time you see me and I'll bore you to death. ;)

I just started a thread over at DVinfo.net's forum (best forums btw) to discuss my "workflow" and figure out what others think about it and what I could do to make it more streamlined. Feel free to scope it out.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=77224

[Jason Reckner]

If I only had a dollar for everytime i've heard dude, move your in the shot. or on the best jump of the day, hey do that again I didnt quite get it. :mad: All joking aside, thanks to anyone who will take time out of riding to film or take pics. Someday that is all we will have. Especially those of us that tend to get banged up. :eek: