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ericlnz wrote:Devonport - I nearly forgot. My short 1979 film was for my movie club's "50 ft uncut competition". That is no editing allowed. It all had to be done with your camera at time of shooting. With Std 8 you were allowed one splice being the one Kodak made after developing your film and splitting and joining the two halves. Std 8 reels were 16 mm in width.
Making uncut films did require planning. I'd take my title, then go out and shoot, then do the end title(s). When converting to digital a few years ago I redid the title on the timeline and removed any flash frames. These are the overexposed frames you sometimes got at the start of a scene as your camera got up to speed.
Doing superimposed titles was an extra challenge. The film needed to be wound back and run through the camera a second time. A nightmare with Super 8 cartridges. I recall having a gadget that allowed me to wind back the film a short amount but it had to be done in a "changing bag". That's a black bag with arms so you could work by feel in the dark. Plus the hardest part was shooting twice on the same area of film. We have it so easy nowadays.
I had a friend who worked at Kodak who used to get me large unexposed lengths of 16mm B&W film that he would split and double perf that I would then develop it in my dark room during my 8mm days. Also I remember winding back the S8 cassettes to superimpose titles, you actually had to break the internal ratchet to do it after taking it out of the camera in the dark room, and of course it had to be completely dark as it was colour film (so no safety light of any kind) Incidentally S8 is the same external dimension as Std 8 but has a slightly bigger picture size because the perforations are smaller.
As has been mentioned, people today have no idea what a lot of time and expense and thought it was back in those days to make a film. I remember a 400ft one that I made and edited for a Motocross club that I belonged to back in the 70s that used 10 S8 cassettes. I can't remember how much they cost but it seemed a fortune at the time. It's just so easy these days as you can film as much as you like to get it right.
ericlnz wrote:Whilst going through some old videos to show at my monthly video group meeting I came across this old SD video I made of Devonport https://vimeo.com/50461456. Only 5 minutes. An interesting corner of Auckland.
Thanks Eric, a very good quick roundup of a beautiful part of the world. Unfortunately it doesn't happen in lots of other places that just flatten the terrain and build square and oblong monstrosities that have no character and are designed by 5 year old architects.
"You've capture the way it was and how ordinary people gathered in good fellowship in a time when you'd think that spirit had long departed from modern life.
Good job of shooting faces for historical record."
Exactly how I wanted to show it! Totally for the people that were there as it wouldn't be of much interest to anyone else, except possibly the local villages (including mine) the didn't put anything on !
Hi, I went to a local street party for the Coronation on Sunday and took a few shots that I strung together on Sunday night. I could have made a better job in editing but the residents wanted it quickly.
Obviously it is interesting to the locals as it is a bit of history, they were the only village in our area to actually make an effort to organize it. At least the weather held out and we actually had some sun towards the end of the day.
Sue and I are of to Spain for a while at the weekend where I shall endeavor to try and make some decent films. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nO4x0BDlB4
pberk wrote:.
This brings up a thought about YouTube. How long will they keep my videos? It's hard to imagine how much stuff they actually have. The sheer weight of the stuff must someday collapse the Universe.
I've got some going back 15 or so years, however I think that they won't show up on my site. I seem to remember them sending me an email to say that they were not going to keep them after a certain time but I can still see them. YouTube was launched in 2005 and I joined in 2008 ?
Apart from bands and wedding videos I don't tend to make many videos that would appeal to many others. We came back from Spain on Tuesday and as the weather has started to buck up today in the UK I had a look around the garden at the flowers. I normally try and do time lapse of the plants opening but they are not that far advanced this year.
This is a short film from last year that I made at a similar time from still images that I took off of my camcorder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzESpcoWgpI
pberk wrote:Speaking of A.I. .. Here's my little A.I. Movie .. This is the same one I recently posted on the Vegas Forum. Eric saw it over there. But what the heck, I'll post it here too.
This little robot story was written with the help of ChatGPT.
Romulus 13 min.
https://youtu.be/tBE2qAcqmuc
Yes a good bit of green screen and editing well done Paul.
pberk wrote:WOW. Pretty good. It doesn't sound natural -- but it is clear and not a hint of the piano. That means separating those piano frequencies or something.
What's the software? Same as Alan is using?
I use the Splitter Studio software that is free but I believe that the upgrades (that you have to pay for) are better. However the problem with most of this type of software is that although it can remove the background sound of certain frequencies it wont remove the other background human voices of people talking at the same time as you. Obviously it could be possible as human voices are different, but it would mean it would have to be more sophisticated and be more "hands on" to control it.
I agree that it doesn't sound "natural" but have found that most times that I have used it (like for wedding videos) I have then put in the same background music (but at a lower volume) that disguises it somewhat and I have got away with it. Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcoU62njOE4
OK I have now processed the original.
https://youtu.be/sLNVtRj1v3s
pberk wrote:Dialogue replacement is easy compared to reducing background when taking "live music sync sound".
I'd say you already know that a sound mixer and as many separator mic's you can get are the best way to control the background sound. You want some of the audience sound, don't you?
Of course, however I will record from an audio recorder from up in the audience as well to get the complete acoustics of the venue. I will then mix it in with the "clinical" sound from the desk that also does pick up some of the audience via the bands microphones. Did you watch the link that I sent on my last post regarding your Looped film ? I think you will notice the improvement ?
pberk wrote:I say it again .. amazing ..
I sometimes have to get rid of background noise in my music videos and it seems to work in your film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBrNIjErtMs
ericlnz wrote:Gordon - mp3 is a pain to synchronise due to the nature of its compression. It's not suitable for accurate editing. Years ago I used mp3 for my first digital video narration using MVPX6. I cut my narration mp3 file (recorded outside MVP) on the timeline so each piece started where I wanted. After rendering I found most of it was out and cut in the wrong place. Converting my mp3 to wav and using that solved the problem. Converting your mp3s might help you but of course wav are much larger files.
Yes I do convert between the two and if It's all my recordings I am ok as I have been doing it for years. However the problem sometimes arises when I use someone else's audio recording that is sent over the internet, depending on what rate it has been recorded at can make a fair bit of difference over a 3 minute song and I have to do a bit of test converting with kbps to get it right especially with 3 or4 timelines.
As for wav being much larger, compared to video they are small so it doesn't really matter and I don't bother to keep them anyway.
I to have been used to sync with just about all the videos that I make because I always use a separate audio recorder in wav for recording bands and (if I can) put a flash drive in the mixing desk (as long as the sound man knows what he is doing) ! I also normally use at least 2 cameras with one fixed and often 3 with 2 fixed depending on the venue (and space available) as tripods often get kicked by over exuberant dancing !
I don't bother using a decent separate mic on the hand held camera as I constantly move about that obviously alters the sound from different speakers. The only problem that I sometimes have is the waveform on the timelines is completely different visually between MP3 and wav so I have to use headphones to get it exact.
Sometimes when it is loaded onto YouTube it is rendered by them actually out of sync !!
And I also noticed that Eric's video was dubbed, the wind blowing the plants was a giveaway. Next time add a small amount of wind noise on the track and we wouldn't have noticed !!!!!!
ericlnz wrote:Thanks Gordon. It looks very brown and barren compared to my green corner of the planet.
I wonder what the metal frame near the end of your video is, or was, used for?
Part of the site was the old Mojacar football ground that was just a dirt surface like a lot of the villages were, that is one of the original goals !
I am always amazed at how resilient some plants and bushes are that grow in bone dry sand/dirt.
Loved your well filmed (as usual) and informative video. Although I have an extended family in NZ I have never been there. However my father did a trip when he was 95 so I have time !
I have been spending the last week or so filming bands down here, but today Sue and I went for a walk out the back of our "Place in the Sun" where I was amazed at how much has grown on the ground since it was bulldozed and flattened to make way for even more holiday homes.
This was done about 4/5 years back but stumbled because of a right of way problem from the main road that no doubt will be sorted out when someone receives enough money !
As it is right on the side of very high ground, huge drainage culverts have been installed that you can actually walk through under the complete site. Although we don't tend to get much rain down this part, when it does it causes flash floods that have to be seen to believe !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnZ__XBcwQ8
pberk wrote:Quiet here so I will post a video hoping to wake things up.
This one is about a great little museum in Pasadena, The Norton Simon.
Only about 6 min. https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/11197112
Interesting video. It is good that some people actually spend their vast fortunes on something that others will enjoy for years long after they have past on.
At this moment I am in Spain making videos for various bands for another week after a horrendous couple of months in the UK with 5 funerals, I also got an email at the weekend to say that another of my old friends has past away last Friday !
I noticed that there are some temporary traffic lights just along the road by our house and I could see that there is a film set being built in the old farm yard, it is often used for that purpose so I went in and asked about it. It's for a scene in a new TV series called Horseface. It's a period Dick Turpin thing and staring Hugh Bonneville, the filming is starting on Monday and the lights are to keep the traffic from sodding the background up. I might try and get on the set and take a few shots !
Over the years many scenes for period films (and complete films) have been been made in our village and I used to go on to the sets, as I had decent photographic gear I used to snap away at the actors who would often pose for me. I once got paid a lot of money to get a picture of a "starlet" that was appearing in a film in her costume after the Sunday paper photographer had got thrown off the set trying to get a "sneak preview"
I am still using Movieplus but do use this for certain parts. Free download and no watermarks.
https://www.videoproc.com/video-editing-software/
This is me in the early 80s using some of the first portable affordable video gear with a separate recorder. It cost a fortune back then compered to todays amazing stuff and the quality wasn't great. At least you could see the results immediately unlike the cine film I had used for 20 years previously !
tomH wrote:Yes, I mean green screen and blue screen backgrounds; even professionally made green screen clips are impossible to key correctly. Before the key is done MvP has washed out the subject or pixilated so badly it's worthless. Having said that, it's the only real complaint I have about the program and I do have a workaround.
I have had pretty good success with green screening on Movieplus over the years but it does take a fair bit of work to get it right. I will find one to show you that will be on a hard drive somewhere.
One that I had to do involved a wedding that I filmed in Morocco, everything was going fine and was being held outside in perfect weather. We were about to have the speeches when a sudden downpour developed and we were hustled into a small room that was far too small for everybody and I had to try and get to a position to record the various people.
I managed to get some footage of most of the speakers in the crammed dark conditions but missed most of the father of the bride.
When we came back to the UK I went to the brides fathers house and took my green screen backdrop kit with me and he dressed in the exact outfit (I took a photo with me for continuity) and he did the complete speech while I videoed it.
I took a screenshot off of the wedding video of him sitting at the table and got rid of him and anyone beside him in photoshop and placed him making the speech over the screenshot. As I had also recorded the original wedding on an audio recorder as well I used the sound of the guest laughing and making comments at the relevant times. I got away with it as the original footage wasn't the best in the dark crowded conditions and had to actually degrade the green screen video to match it!
I had to go to Ireland 3 months later for another one of the same family's wedding so they obviously liked it !
tomH wrote:.
MoviePlus handles most tasks flawlessly, although it tends to crash during intense work, so I back up frequently and restart the program many times in the editing process. MoviePlus does not handle ChomaKey well enough to use. So I use one of the programs mentioned below when ChromaKeying is required and import the resulting file back to MvP.
I've tried other programs like Premiere/Sony-Magix/PowerDirector but find the interfaces confusing and with many more bells and whistles than I need (AFAIK). I have DaVicni Resolve and if I can become semi-proficient with it I may move away from MoviePlus, but that's a way down the road.
I do agree regarding crashing especially with intensive work like lots of stabilizations that can cause a bit of aggro, and like you I always make a copy of the programs every now and then while actually editing , especially in long projects. However I do use chroma key in various short advertising videos and find it OK, so do you mean green screen background problems or something else with it ?
Hi you guys n gals, how many of you are still using Movieplus ?. Although I do have other software I still go for it when editing as I have been using it since it came out and kept updating it until X6.
I find that I can do "just about" everything that all the others do with a bit of improvising that suits me without spending vast amounts on something that I will never use.
Obviously you can't render directly in 4K but who actually needs it for the type of videos that most of us make ? Although you can render to 2k with Movieplus that is fine but I do film in 4k sometimes and use a free 4k editing software to enlarge certain parts with no loss in quality and render it to 1080p mp4, I then use Movieplus to string it all together for final rendering.
It would be interesting to find out what other "workarounds" people have found.
Alan Hodkinson wrote:That was lovely Gordon, This is why I love going fishing, I like to just sit quietly on the bank and watch the wildlife, with the ground bait and other baits like maggots around you, if you're very still and quiet all sorts of things will come out to steal the bait.
I never catch many fish, I'm too busy watching the wildlife
Alan
Thanks Alan, I know exactly what you mean as I used to do a lot of river fishing in my youth and would see all sorts of wildlife when sitting quietly on the banks. I am very lucky where I live in the UK as I can walk out of my garden and not see another person or nearby house for miles if I want. At our place in Spain I have the best of both worlds in that I can walk to the beach in two or three minutes and see houses and people one way and the other is complete solitude in the countryside and mountains that are right behind us.
Albert Ross wrote:That was wonderful Gordon, I really enjoyed it. Very nice use of key frames etc, and showed how useful a tripod or similar type of contraption can be. Thanks for the upload.
Cheers Albert, I just wished that the lighting was better as the lens was wide open to get as much speed as I could, however at least it was on wide angle. As for the tripod, it is one of those cheap plastic ones that can get the camera very close to the ground that folds up and can be used as a handheld mount as well as slipping into a pocket easily. Yes key frames are a major part of this type of video, talking of which I think that it's probably too long and the music is annoying after a while !
One thing in my favor when I was making it (apart from the light) was that there was no breeze to move the leaves on the plants so that the background remained pretty static, there were several cuts in the editing that didn't really show (apart from one) as this was filmed for over 30 mins.
ericlnz wrote:Thanks Gordon. Now I know what a Bank Vole is. I'd never heard of them.
Did you leave any of the food outside to entice them out?
Yes that's what the Robin was eating at the start. Bank Voles are very timid and any noise or movement will send them scurrying back to their homes that consists of tunnels that seem to go all over the place.
They are pretty harmless to anything that we grow and we can watch them from the kitchen window, also they don't come into the house unlike the conventional "house mice" that I am forever putting the old "tried n tested" spring traps around different parts of the house.
I think that I have told you that we live in a 500 year old oak beamed cottage that has all sorts of voids that is designed perfectly for the mouse population and it's virtually impossible to stop the little blighters getting in.
I won't put poison down as you will know what a dead mouse smells like under the floorboards !!!!
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