Back in November I was invited by my friend and world class Aerial Cinematographer, Norman Kent, to document a world record attempt at a 100-way parachute formation. I shot footage from the ground while Norman and a handful of others were in the air capturing some stunning images of the formation. After a couple days of practice with smaller formations, the skydivers began the actual record attempt. On the second day of attempts, the record was accomplished. What a great experience. The people were incredible, and it was lots of fun. I can’t wait to attend another skydiving event.
A few months later… Norman asked me to cut together a miniature documentary/promo video. So, here it is. Enjoy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7sbFNqJuNY&hl=en]
Or you can view or download a higher quality version of this video here.
This was a design I originally whipped up for the header image of this site. I liked it, so I made a desktop. I hope you like it too. If you do, get the original 1920×1200 size. Enjoy.
Matt over at FreshDV posted a list of free editing software. It’s a list of 11 open source applications ranging from Non-Linear Editors to Format Converters. It isn’t a comprehensive review, but it is a good resource if you’re looking for editing software on a zero budget.
The only software on the list that I have any experience with are Avid FreeDV, and Jahshaka.
Avid FreeDV isn’t half bad, but the biggest problem I remember having with it was the lack of any way to escalate your project to any of the other Avid applications. It would be nice to at least be able to get FreeDV projects opened in Express Pro, or at least Express DV. This is a bit of a moot point now, as none of these applications is available any longer through Avid.
As one of the commenters on the FreshDV post stated, Jahshaka was not much more than a time waster. It was fun to experiment with, but I lost interest quickly and never finished a project with it.
Check out the rest of the FreshDV list. And the Fresh new theme too.
This is my video camera all dressed up. It is constantly evolving, but for now it consists of a Canon XH-A1, the Brevis 35 Flip adapter, a Redrock Micro follow focus, speed crank, carbon fiber rod support system, Cavision handgrips, shoulder pad, matte box, French flag, 7″ LCD monitor, and a selection of fast Canon FD lenses.
Supertown has been moving along a bit slowly lately. There is no budget and too many characters to count, so shooting happens when our producer, Chris (who is currently in the process of moving to L.A.) manually aligns the planets, which he does a great job of. I think we have one more day of shooting coming up. We have been shooting on weekends and days off every now and then since October or was it November? Not sure. It’s a “spare time” type of project. Almost all of the scenes are shot, so the director wanted to cut a trailer. I’m not the editor on this project, but I put the trailer together for Sam, AKA “Stampeding Bison”, AKA the director. Who makes an appearance in the last shot of the trailer.
Cutting was done in Premiere Pro CS3. The color grading was done with Magic Bullet Looks with the effect applied in Premiere. And graphics and effects were completed in After Effects CS3. I usually work in Final Cut Studio, so I wanted to test out the Adobe Dynamic Link workflow, and this trailer was a good starting place. It worked smoothly bringing AE comps into the Premiere timeline, but it didn’t work for me in the other direction. When I sent a Premiere sequence to After Effects using Dynamic Link, there was nothing in the AE project. It’s probably something simple that I’m missing. I have been using After Effects for a while, but I haven’t used Premiere since version 5, so I think I just need more time with it. Or maybe some good ol’ Lynda.com training.
So, here’s the trailer.
[vimeo 858960]
