How to make a video on the road?

[chilswelluk]

Originally Posted by vstromrider

If you're travelling by motorcycle and you want to keep it simple but make still make great movies you won't go far wrong using this stuff. I hope that helps.

Thanks for your thoughts, and that's great if it works for you, but I don't think it would work for me. Actually I don't even own a smart phone! I like to shoot with at least 2 cameras (action cam and DSLR), and multiple lenses. For the DSLR I love having manual camera control, and don't do anything on auto. I then edit my footage in Premiere Pro and do colour correction in Davinci Resolve. I fear that if I just used a phone, I would not be happy with the quality of my work. I do enjoy the artistic side of video making, but I will have to find a balance in terms of the trip and my time.

[Fern]

Our Grand Idea videos are made on power director, on a moto 4 android phone, and uploaded on guesthouse wifi, in Peru, and Morocco..

https://www.youtube.com/user/FerdinandEsq/playlists

[JMo (& piglet)]

Originally Posted by chilswelluk

Thanks for your thoughts, and that's great if it works for you, but I don't think it would work for me. Actually I don't even own a smart phone! I like to shoot with at least 2 cameras (action cam and DSLR), and multiple lenses. For the DSLR I love having manual camera control, and don't do anything on auto. I then edit my footage in Premiere Pro and do colour correction in Davinci Resolve. I fear that if I just used a phone, I would not be happy with the quality of my work. I do enjoy the artistic side of video making, but I will have to find a balance in terms of the trip and my time.

I tend to agree with Vstromrider here - I think what you're actually afraid of is that an iPhone/GoPro and iMovie in an iPad would show just how redundant all that expensive gear and 'manual' control is - particularly when trying to travel-logue from the road.

I appreciate quality photography and editing is essential to making a video watchable (so is length of course), but fundamentally it's content that dictates the story.

Ed March made a commercial/broadcast quality film using just a handheld Panasonic pocket camera around five years ago now - yes it took extensive editing back home, but that, as I know you're already aware, is what it takes to make something that is genuinely professional quality - time.

Modern 'automatic' compact cameras and smartphones are really very good these days - commercial movies have been shot on iPhones - basically you can trust the camera to do the tech stuff, and just get on with actually pointing it at the content and telling the story - which already is a huge time saving.

If you are specifically looking to assemble and upload content on a regular basis while you are actually travelling - then you could do worse than use the templates in something like iMovie and/or GoPros own online assembly packages.

Then you can always put a 'full-length' version together once the trip is over (to present at Horizons, or upload to YouTube or your own website etc.) as Temporaryescapee suggests earlier?

Hope that is something to consider...

Jenny x

ps. I always wondered how Lyndon Poskitt was able to transfer hours of high quality footage from abroad back to his editing team in the UK... turns out he just posts them the SD card and buys another.

[PaulD]

This is a film I made with just a GoPro & a Canon 7D & edited in Final Cut !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lnlhFyMYg

Cheers
Paul

[Lovetheworld]

I will check the video later.

Right now we are making short 720p clips using Gopro Quik (which is not professional at all) but people already like it very much (also because of the drone shots)
And it already takes long enough to upload.

Sometimes it works better to buy a sim card with data to upload then using wifi of some guesthouse.

4K is nice but not that practical for a lot of people to watch it in 4K.
However shooting in 4K allows for much video editing afterwards, even when result is 1080p.

[chilswelluk]

Originally Posted by PaulD

This is a film I made with just a GoPro & a Canon 7D & edited in Final Cut !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lnlhFyMYg

Cheers
Paul

Thanks for sharing, I have watch a bit of it but will watch all later. Did you take a drone at all?

[chilswelluk]

Originally Posted by JMo (& piglet)

I think what you're actually afraid of is that an iPhone/GoPro and iMovie in an iPad would show just how redundant all that expensive gear and 'manual' control is

I suppose everyone has a different perspective, but I do like the flexibility and quality of my multiple lens DSLR setup and would be reluctant to compromise. Over the years I have tried a number of compacts, but have been disappointed with the results. earlier in the year I was given a Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II as a present, but ended up selling it, as I was not happy with the results. But I do remain open minded, so if anyone has any other suggestions I will look at them.

As for the ipad suggestion, I did look into that, but it's just too restrictive for me. It seems Apple really locks you down and restricts pretty much everything. There is no native root access (without stupid hacks) and it does not even support basic things like usb drives (only a few proprietary solutions which are quite restrictive) . I know you can get wireless hard drives for travel, but again you have to use some stupid app, or rely on cloud solutions. call me old fashioned but I like to just plug a drive into a device and get instant / fast read and write capabilities for any file I choose! I hate to have everything sandboxed. Also I know you can get the ipad camera connection kit, but again it restricts you on what files you can work with. At the moment I am using a MSI GS65 Stealth, and it runs everything I throw at it (Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve, Blender, Fusion, Maya) It has a 6 core cpu with a GTX 1070 graphics card. It runs windows and Linux and does everything I want. Since getting it I have opened it up and applied liquid metal and it runs lovely and cool. In my opinion it is head and shoulders above an ipad, but I do appreciate everyone will have a different perspective.

[JMo (& piglet)]

Originally Posted by chilswelluk

I suppose everyone has a different perspective, but I do like the flexibility and quality of my multiple lens DSLR setup and would be reluctant to compromise. Over the years I have tried a number of compacts, but have been disappointed with the results. earlier in the year I was given a Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II as a present, but ended up selling it, as I was not happy with the results. But I do remain open minded, so if anyone has any other suggestions I will look at them.

As for the ipad suggestion, I did look into that, but it's just too restrictive for me. It seems Apple really locks you down and restricts pretty much everything. There is no native root access (without stupid hacks) and it does not even support basic things like usb drives (only a few proprietary solutions which are quite restrictive) . I know you can get wireless hard drives for travel, but again you have to use some stupid app, or rely on cloud solutions. call me old fashioned but I like to just plug a drive into a device and get instant / fast read and write capabilities for any file I choose! I hate to have everything sandboxed. Also I know you can get the ipad camera connection kit, but again it restricts you on what files you can work with. At the moment I am using a MSI GS65 Stealth, and it runs everything I throw at it (Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve, Blender, Fusion, Maya) It has a 6 core cpu with a GTX 1070 graphics card. It runs windows and Linux and does everything I want. Since getting it I have opened it up and applied liquid metal and it runs lovely and cool. In my opinion it is head and shoulders above an ipad, but I do appreciate everyone will have a different perspective.

Those are all good points chilswelluk - certainly interfacing extra storage with any of the iOS products is frustrating, but as you say - there are workarounds with bluetooth etc.

However, my suggestion is coming from a 'regular-blogging-from-the-road' perspective... which most people want to do these days.

Certainly if you're planning on making a feature-length broadcast-quality movie - then you're typically going to have lug more gear around (which is why I never understood the criticism of the Long-Way-Round crew - of course they needed all that gear back then), and make that process the focus of the trip.

I still wouldn't bother using all that high-end editing gear while on the road though... bank all your footage and wait until the trip is over and focus on the edit/assembly then with the proper gear?

Jx