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help me explain by making video of trip
I have many friends who just don't get what my adventures are about. They all kinda glaze over when I try and explain and say where? how? and so on.
My plan is to try and explain by means of a video of our next trip, my wife and I that is. I have one of those small bullet waterproof HD 1080 DV cameras which does make good video recordings. The sound is no good and mounted on the bike or helmet it will only show boring road journeys which I hate to see. It's just not interesting enough for me let alone "non believers " Some footage will be useful obviously and can be cherry picked . Its there so may as well use it. To capture the other stuff I need to get a hand held cam with a screen so I can see what I'm shooting. Also add audio description where required. Now this is where it gets complex for me. Never messed with all this stuff. Tech stuff does not scare me, but I am fully aware of the problems of compatibility between various equipment and the fight that usually follows to get it all to do what you want. Bearing in mind I have this cheap bullet DV cam and need some hand held device, the end result will need to be messed around with, using video software. What software is going to give the least trouble for me using two DV cams? I am hoping that all I need to do to make it easy to start with is buy another HD 1080 DV cam ( hand held). Is this enough to make editing straight forward or is it far more complex. ? Or is this trouble in the making and better to use one cam for everything? All the edit stuff will be done at home on a PC on our return. The video thing can not take over the trip and become a PITA but it would be nice to have a go. |
Get yourself off to the Adventure Travel Film Festival...
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Any cheap hd camera will do the job Ed March shot his whole dvd on a Lumix camera with hd video , the main issue you will face is shooting techniques , learn the basics and stick to them , the most important rule is a still camera , not shaking in your hand or zooming in and out, panning in any direction needs a very steady hand or some extra equipment . If you have a spare few quid get on Mr Vinces film course , its not the be all and end all but he will drill the basics into you and from that base you can make a good film .
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It sound's like you have the same set up as me. I do a lot of filming. Never will win an Oscar. It's in the editing that you get to change the footage you have made. Every one I have done, I alway's think I could have done better.
I use Micro Soft Movie Maker That come's free with the computer. Not too bad. Don't go out and buy an editing program. If you can't use Movie Make. You woun't manage a brought suite. After that it's just practice with what you have. Go out on a ride round local. Then play with what you have. If it's just a 20 minute film. It's enough so you can go over it again and again. Getting it better each time. When I do mine, I get my girl friend who live's with me to look at them. She can tell what need's changing. John933 |
video
If you want your video to tell a story of your trip, a bit of planning your clips will be needed, a video of just the road ahead shot from your helmet or bike will soon bore your audience. So lots of clips of the the scenery, villages and the bikes plus a bit of commentary or voice over, a few selfies to the camera at various points of interest all adds to the mix. Remember the audio, as it is essential to a good video, if your talking, get the cam in as close as you can, this helps isolate the voice from the background noise, better still get a tie-clip Mic and plug it into your cam (if you can). I use a gopro hero 3 to good effect, stick it on a monopod and it's good for walking around with, mostly people don't even notice you filming and the audio is not to bad with the open back housing (no mic input though) it can also be mounted just about anywhere you fancy from a tripod to a suction cup.
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there are some really good video's on u tube!
The commentary is excellent too! and some of the are captioned. also some of the overland travel blogs are well written! boilsoft make some nice easy to use software too! |
I got it !!!
I found what I needed to make it all fall into place windows movie maker ! It's perfect for me to get started. Now I think I can explain this adventure stuff to my friends.
Had a play with some video footage from a short trip to Croatia last year, there were lots of short clips as it was unplanned. But I can see, with careful thought of what to shoot it can tell a good story. Cant wait for next trip to try it out. I can see lots of late nights with this. you can have a laugh at my expense by viewing my first effort > www.timag.co.uk/vid/croatia.wmv |
equipment list
Ok so far the stuff I have together consists of the following:
Bullet cam HD1080 Handy cam small cheap Panasonic HD1080 Telescopic stick thingy ( mono pod?) Mini flexible tripod String / big piece blue-tack / Gaffer tape. mem cards - lots! USB charging cable for cams - can charge off bike. For when I get back: PC with windows "movie maker" All the stuff is quite inexpensive and I believe that is enough for a first effort, and hopefully the sound will be ok when required. So am I missing anything? |
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I would suggest though.. That if at all possible.. Use 2 cameras of the same type. Although both are 'HD' cameras.. the video from each will look different. Sure.. it will be a bit more trouble to stick another Panasonic cam to your helmet.. the end results will look more consistent.. A couple layers of cloth over the microphone on your helmet cam can help the wind noise problem you will have.. You will have to experiment with what type & how much. Don't bother with doing 'voice over' commentary as you go.. Unless it is just for personal notes.. Even a bad microphone.. at home.. with a blanket over your head ( & the mic ) ( think of it as a sound tent ) will sound TONS better than voice over recorded with the cameras mic while on the road.. "B Roll" Need lots of B Roll. As discussed above.. Need video of road signs, panoramas of places you stop at.. Exteriors, interiors, traffic going by.. Anything that is of interest.. Even if your shots have just a second.. or even less of something interesting there will be times & places where you can cut & combine a lot of these little b roll snippets into something cool. & finally.. be sure to post a youtube link so we can check out your trip! |
Shooting
Good audio is very important, wind noise is always a problem with any built in mic. Look at the Sony blue tooth Mic - It's very good. Or the ZOOM mini is ace for around £100. You do want plenty of face to camera stuff with clear audio. As mentioned, B roll is important - you need loads of it to string the better pieces together. Film every thing - If you don't film it, you can't use it !!
Two hard drives minimum as back up - WD fail but the Lacie rugged is good, The 1.5t work well. Editing takes loads of time and effort, a day for a 10min clip, Final cut Pro for Mac is the industry standard and cheap now but takes time to learn and If you are on Windows it's not worth swapping to Mac unless you plan to make money from your output. Look for different angles to shoot from, perspective can make a bland piece interesting, never pan or zoom but it's great to have something moving in the shot or through it. The main point is - let me know when you upload your work, I'd like to see it. Cheers Paul |
I have been playing around with the two cams and have found settings which suit both and footage looks the same on both in good light. So thats that sorted. Now audio is my next problem. Its crap on both and no external mic. So im thinking to put one on the panasonic. Somehow :D
Next backup. You dont get many mins footage per Gb ! Shocked! Is there a hd which will copy sd cards without a pc? dont really want to take a laptop too. Or 100's of sd cards..... sent with tapatalk. |
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I'm starting to favour the option of card reader / hdd as it is probably easier to protect a portable hdd than a laptop. I know from experience that a laptop will fail if bumped around too much. Solid state devices are very expensive for a good storage capacity. I have four 32Gb cards plus a few odd smaller size ones so another option is to get a few more and then just seek a cafe when required. No deaths should result from any failings with this. It will be learning curve, but less steep thanks to all you hubbers.
Many things involved in all this video lark! Not even started yet :eek3: |
Bit of a follow up on the issue of transferring video to HDD without a PC.
I come across a piece of kit which does it with out the need for a pc or power supply, or wires for that matter. Wireless Hard Drive, iPad Hard Drive, Wireless Storage | Seagate I wonder if anyone has tried one ?c? Its a Seagate wireless plus drive. basically a box with a 1Tb HDD a battery and wifi & USB connectivity. you can transfer files from a "device" ( my android smart phone) to the HDD via wifi. So by removing the SD card from cam and putting in phone and then transferring to HDD you have a copy of your card. my phone / cam and the HDD can all be charged from the bike inside the pannier while travelling. I think I'm sorted. Just remains to see how reliable it will all be on the road ? |
Lessons learnt on first try at video
Ok .........so trip done.
I had two issues with my first go at video on a trip. 1. As it was the first time I was continually worried about batteries running out so only filmed occasionally. Due to this missed some good stuff! As it turned out the battery lasted really well. Also was so busy enjoying it I kept forgetting to film. :oops2: 2. My camera lady ( the wife) is crap at filming stuff..........I have lots of sky shots from many countries...........or no shots of the intended items but good footage of the inside of a bag or back of my bike jacket....:( However :clap: ......... I do believe I have enough footage to put something together which I can show to non believers and hopefully that will explain why I and all you folks love this lark. I will of course make it available via the hubb somehow. It will be some time off though. Much work stuff to do before I start the editing. Just for interest the seagate wifi hard drive seemed to work well transferring stuff as required. Took a while to get the hang of how to do it using the "app" but OK once mastered. Never charged the battery at all. It kept working despite 1 off up a mountain, very bad roads, 40+C temps, rain and damp getting to it and one crash. :thumbup1: |
Having almost reach the point where I am.happy with my video I have some things to workout. It is around 25mins long. Could make loads more, but just had to draw aline. This gives me circa 4Gb in file size. I have work at high resoloution to preserve quality. This should be great for showing at home via laptop and tv. Obviously the will be issues for uploading to web. I will have to reduce.....etc... l have used music here and there which will
no doubt infringe copyrights. Question : what is the best place to upload this video for viewing by freinds without getting deleted straight away? sent via tapatalk on the road. |
For those interested from a video point of view I have uploaded my first video to youtube ! :D
Considering the small cost of equipment involved I am well pleased with the results. I used two cams one of which was very cheap but gave the best results, but in reality both served well. Search on amazon for "f9 camera" The video is not really an adventure trip this time, plans changed early on due to a "falling off" so it turned into a more relaxed Holiday trip....... but it was still great all the same. The object of the video was to explain to my friends why we do what we do rather than the " package holiday thing" - It has worked ! One now wants a piece of the action - My mission is complete :clap: A steep learning curve, the next effort should be a lot easier. The vid is 24mins long so don't get caught looking at work ! It will not play on a lot of apple stuff for some reason? PC is fine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDXi08z2TA |
Check out pinnacle studio movie making, it works great, windows movie maker is ok for 20 mins or so but if you use music and video and photos it tends to crash, pinnacle will cure all this plus it has great functions to make a great film, easy to use also, I now have a mac so use Imovie, took a bit of getting used to and the big problem of course was compatibility with your camera.
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Hi Tim,
I have to say that it plays perfectly well on my old Apple iMac. Anyway I'll watch the whole lot when I have more time. Regards Reggie |
You went to Turkey with The Stig and his wife? :rofl:
Great video to watch - hope you're still talking !! That was roughly the trip I had plans to do for the last couple of years on my 125 but family issues got in the way both times. I didn't have any problems watching it but YouTube's compression didn't do it any justice at times. For me the big headache with video is in the editing. Not the doing it but with the amount of time it takes. Of late I've only managed to complete a ten minute video of the Paralympics opening ceremony (because my son was in it so the family wanted to see it) and a three min work promo video (because the marketing people kept nagging me). I have raw footage of six weeks in west Africa, a trip to China, a trip to Japan, and a trip to east coast USA still to do something with. I gave up filming Eurotrips a few years (still do stills) because of the minimal prospect of me completing the edits and having something to show. For the stuff I have done I started editing with Final Cut Pro, then went to Final Cut Express and finally to iMovie just to get something completed. It taught me that something - anything - completed is worth more than work permanently in progress. iMovie is too simple at times but at least you do get somewhere. It's likely to come back to haunt me in the next six months or so because we have another big bike trip planned for next Sept. (back to the USA but this time NY- LA - NY over a couple of months) and expectations are high with the likelyhood of five of us going + multicamera filming (still have to decide what to use). One of the people is a high end professional musician so any music used is going to have to be handled properly as well. The only thing I've come up with so far is the title to the book that will /might / may come out of it. All of that adds up to a lot of work; editing the footage properly could take months and the book will be something for the dark evenings of next winter. I quite enjoy the writing but it is a bit of a lonely occupation. The alternative is to forget all of that stuff and just ride the bikes but I've been down that route before and regretted not doing more. Sometimes I wonder whether it's all a rod for our own backs. When I first started "adventure biking" (ha!) hi-tec would have been an 8mm cine camera with 3 mins of footage edited in camera and a manuscript hand written in pencil that would be rejected by every publisher it was sent to (no market for that sort of thing pre Jupiter's Travels). It's not even as if there's any money in it. :rolleyes2: |
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I normally take plenty of stills and always will. But I must say I can't imagine going on any trip without filming now. As it says in my 1st post It was just a way to explain to friends / family what we do rather than a package beach holiday. I now actually wish I had done it sooner! |
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Should I just get the raw footage on a kind of afterthought basis and hope I can put something together in the editing or spend significant amounts of time storyboarding it, setting up shot's, lighting, convincing people to do pieces to camera, do "take two" when they forget what they were going to stay etc together with subsequent editing only to produce a film that no-one is going to bother watching? During my first trip to West Africa 20yrs ago I met a guy in The Gambia who was putting huge amounts of effort into filming his time there and was equally expecting to spend ages editing as well after he flew home. The only outlet for his production was going to be the members of his camera club (it was pre YouTube) and in return he was going to have to sit through 10 or 15 of theirs. That seemed to me to be totally pointless. Instead of filming people in the hotel pool, go swimming yourself. So, I don't know. There is an element of deferred fulfilment with video and stills under these circumstances, as though by doing them you're saving a bit of the trip for later - much in the same way that you'd take uneaten pizza from a restaurant meal home in a box. My worry is I'd save it for later only to find it's covered in dog hairs and gone mouldy. Probably what I'll end up doing is everything half heartedly. A bit of filming that I know could be better, a bit of editing that I know could be better and, eventually, an audience reaction that damns it with faint praise. And as for the book -should I aim for a glossy tabletop picture book, a travelogue, a thinly disguised novel based on my fellow travellers shortcomings and personality quirks, a how to do it guide to bike travel in the USA, a buddy tale of lasting friendship, or a philosophical tome expounding self fulfilment through conquering adversity :confused1: And then there's the subsequent lecture tour of the trip at all the subsequent HUBB meetings and the iTunes release if we can get Carol to play when we're sitting around some desert campfire. :rofl: At least I don't have to worry about which panniers to buy. |
It is a best idea to capture the moments of your great journeys. Take an HD camera and record as you proceed to places you always dreamed of. Make long videos, you can edit the clip/video later on your return.
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