[dobbin]

I got my new camera on Friday. Its very good and I am very pleased with it (this is leading somewhere I promise), the main justification for its purchase was the ability to record movie footage at 30 frames a second and that with my old camera I was limited to 15 seconds max record length. Armed with this (and the manual) I attempted to film myself on the Kudos wall at Rubbercon. The vids of kudos the hard way and the press are ok (the press one starts too late) but the one of me on the traverse of the wall is crap. Its amusing in that I climb almost completely out of shot with the exception of my arse that remains in throughout. Nice.

I have sent them to Bubba for his superior treatment, as I am also a flash novice. Anyway, watch them and marvel at how crap I am at filming stuff. They're all in Flash 6 format, so you should be ok.

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[dave]

Were these taken with a stills camera then, or DV?

On my mates DV camera (we are curently fucking about with it, should get some vids worthy of putting on here soon) we got some footage of you doing kudos hard way which is OK (you got more lock than a Yale factory) and maybe something else i can't remember.

[dobbin]

With one of these mate :



Which is a stills camera but that does really high frame rate, (30fps) at VGA resolution - 640x480. Purchased on eBay for a mere £389. I think I need to think about where I'm gonna end up before positioning the camera.

Be cool to get more media clips up here - that 'what do you want from a bouldering site' thread seemed to point out that people like vids...

[dave]

I would say make the movies a bit smaller - at that size they look really blocky, i think its a good trade off, maybe half the size but a much more watchable movie.

Filming yourself if you're out on your own is going to be hard, best bet is get the camera as far away as possibe to get the entire problem in shot.

[AndyR]

I would say make the movies a bit smaller - at that size they look really blocky.

Hmmm, Captain Pixel!

Where can I buy a copy of these videos?

[Bubba]

Press and Kudos hard way are fine. They're too compressed / pixelly but that can all be sorted - can you send me the originals (ie not compressed).

If you're on your own then you've either got to film the whole scene from far away, or to plan your shots very carefully, and do the problem many times, then spend a lot of time editing.

It's hard to make good bouldering films - how many really good ones are there? You can count them on your fingers, Stick It, Rampage, HTTP Bloc, and a few others.

[Bubba]

Also, imagine how much footage ends up on the "cutting room floor" to make such films, and how much planning goes into each sequence, and how much work is spent on the edit.

I reckon planning is the key - like photography, the art is being able to envision how you want the film to appear, and then to translate that into all the shots/angles you need and to be disiplined enough to carry it through in the field, not to mention having willing subjects who are prepared to do the same sequence again and again, when they'd probably rather be bouldering.

Although I've never done it, I reckon the best thing to do would be to just go out on a filiming day, where everyone's efforts are for the film, rather than just do a bit of filming when you're resting between problems.

[Johnny Brown]

Anyone seen Dosage II?

Now thats a good bouldering film.

[dobbin]

Right, Bubba I will send you the originals. How would you like them? on a CD or summat? they total quite a lot of Megs. I reckon you are right, that you can't very well bolt filming onto the end of a climbing trip, by that what I mean is that you need to focus on the task in hand. Unless you went out to film and film only and got your mates to do all the problems and you had the perfect angle all the time it ain't gonna happen.

AndyR, you jest surely?

[Bubba]

Dobbin, a cd would be great - I'll pm you my address.....

[Bubba]

Anyone seen Dosage II?

Not yet - where is it available from?

[AndyR]

AndyR, you jest surely?

I do indeed jest!

Old yorkshiregrit who posts on here has made quite a few bouldering videos (some of them actually quite good, but I'd never tell him to his face....), some of which are on his site.  Generally, they seem to involve filming the problem at least 2 - 3 times, with some additional close-ups etc thrown in to add detail - I think he then spends a bazillion hours editing them to make them half way presentable.
Seems like a lot of hard work to me........

[Big Frank]

Ah-ha, these days he has it easy as I now am the proud owner of a DV camera. On a couple of the vids two cameras were used.

And the vids of Sunday 20th and Lay-by were filmed by moi and edited by yorkshiregrit.

The hard bits are selecting a good angle and getting the exposure right, the easy bit is handing it over for editing in the pub after (especialy if it's his round).

[dobbin]

what do you use for the edit? I know Premiere is the top dog but I can't find an er, free copy anywhere...

[Avoiding the Traitor]

Ahem - I have ;-)