1st Production on the water! Sweated the Workflow!

I like your edit and that "compressed" voiceunder was cool. I thought all the footage or the compression thereafter made the footage look dark. Naturally, you can always bring it up, or if it's a compression issue, leave it entirely alone.

Did you find a mattebox? We're peddling the new 16:9 Cavision system for the HVX now.

e
 
I shot 720 30pn and modified Scene 6 to 30fps. I chose 30fps because I have shot many film projects at 30fps which were destin for NTSC. Because of the action & product focus I did not want to deal with the strobing on this project. As you will see when I update the edit, there is allot of jitter in the fast action shots of the product because of the vibration of the vessels. I use that jitter to create an intense velocity vibe...

Cheers,
FD
 
Looks great. I'd love to do something like this... but my insurance doesn't cover "offshore activities". :shocked:

I presume the vignetting was done in my post.

I love the multi-streamed audio idea. It's just amazing how tuned we are to dealing with multiple sources of information.

Heheheh "Captain" Dave.... You Americans sure love your titles. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

Me: "Captain, hmm? So what are you captain of? Supertanker? Cruise liner? Schooner? Car ferry?"
Cpt Dave: "Ummm... a 4ft baby bath-tub..."

<Sigh> Insurance or none, I could sure use a lazy fishing trip around Miami... Nice work FD
 
Smart Alac said:
Have you used it in any decent sized surf? Probably not if you're in Florida.. thats the real test for surf housings, i'm sure it'll do the job for wakeboarding though...

Gee, working without zoom would be a pain.. Mine only has 5 controls, power, record, zoom, focus & iris... On my next housing i'll get a few more controls like shutter control...
Click to expand...


Yes I have used it in decent surf. We have something here called hurricane season.. and if you didn't already know Florida has produced several world class champions. I think it's harder to surf here sometimes than almost anywhere.. and when we get a swell in September and it's 10-15'.. it's a friggin monster. Sure it's not like that a lot.. maybe a few weeks a year. Down under and HI and Cali certainly have us beat,
but seems like East Coast surfers are tougher and more resiliant.. more Zen... more full of BS as well.

My unit I build without zoom... or I should say the 2 that I built cost me 100 bucks.... Now, with a lanc attachment it would have all of that and I pretty much have that figured out...


Glad ya got it going on Downunder. could you shoot some footage of the water going down the toilet the other way... Now that would be bitching mate!
 
when i was in Florida, although staying only there for 4 weeks, the waves were probably the worst i've ever seen in my life... but I guess i've been spoilt, not only with living in australia but living in the most wave rich part of australia... honestly would say that the south west of Oz is prob the most consistant wave rich part of the world, with only hawaii & indo being comparable.. and they are mostly seasonal... we have a great season during march-sept & good to average oct-feb, although we still get cracking days in the low season....

Have you been on the west coast? I was in the OC-So Cal area for a while and whilst its a nice place to visit & the girls/social/night life is great for an Aussie, many of the people really sucked & I cant believe how rife the localism is! Its rediculous! Locals calling you off 2-4 foot waves! It really put me off the place but the new friends & fun outside of the surf I had made up for it....

By the way, I know you get hurricane season but when Floridians call it 10-15feet, by our standards we'd class that as prob about 6-8feet. I remember surfing The Inlet?? (i think it was called) and the guys i was with were calling it 4-5foot & honestly back in Oz we'd class that as 1-2foot if you're lucky... not meant to put you down or anything, just we measure it differently...

Hey check this link out & click on the video link http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=91155

Hope it works, here's some classic Shippies which my mate Tim Jones was on the boat shooting.... I'll try posting some frame grabs of stuff i've shot in the water...

Ever been to Oz?...
 
Man.. that is insane looking waves. Not catch me anywhere near that... But to answer a few things.. Yes, I've been to the west coast.. and yes I froze my family jewels doing it. Also, I know how to measure a wave from the back and not the trough.. but thanks for your concern. I think I know what I've been subjected too... and yes, most of the waves here are 2-4'. Sure, You do have some advantages in living in Australia for the surf and climate.. but also some major disadvantages. The Ozone over Australia is paticularly bad so you have one of the highest chances of developing skin cancer than anywhere else on the planet.... But undoubtedly it might be the time travel nature of your country and how it's really great to visit 15 years in the past. Kind of like it's 1991 over there or something. Plus that accent is enough to peel paint off the walls but that's just subjective I guess.

I'm British, born in Derby so I'm knocking England as well. But there it's 1985 and cold and miserable most of the year... but atleast it has some good beer. Fosters... Australian for budweiser crap!
 
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haha... if you ever come to Australia you'll realise that NO ONE here drinks Fosters, you can barely even find it in bottle shops... we just export that crap to foreigners who are silly enough to drink it... I can honestly say that in my 25yrs of life i've never had a fosters & i've never seen anyone in my part of Oz drink it.... England?? Do you like warm beer, depressing attitudes & rain 300 days of the year??....

Yeh ya gotta slip, slop, slap here (hope ya know what that means) to cover up from the sun, it becomes second nature.... Although i guess Americans have health problems too with the terrible amounts of pollution & not to mention 10,000ish (perhaps more) gun related deaths per year...

If you've been here you'd know it's not that bad in regards to being "modern"... Sure we might be 6 months behind in getting the latest episodes of The OC or those other girly shows that seem to be flowing out from the US and not have the latest wizz bang-network-wifi-bluetooth-wireless-801.6189 -mactop-cable-fibre optic-plug in point available in every local starbucks (we only just got a starries here, 2 in the country now!) but the lifestyle, climate, good nature more than make up for these things.. not to mention the good attitudes & good will of people here.. no offence but I didnt find a whole heap of that in the US... many people seemed to care more about how much money you made, what car you drive, what job you do & what brand of clothes you wear....

haha.. the accents peel paint off the walls?.. guess that's "subjective" too... but the girls over there seemed to LOVE it.....

all tongue in cheek by the way mate...

by the way if you ever decide to come to Oz, i'll have to take you to Shippies... the video you seen just then we'd prob size that as 8-10feet with the odd bigger bomb... seeing that place fire will change your life & the wilderness & remoteness is an experience in itself... the closest carpark is 2 hours walk through the national park! the closest traffic lights are 200kms away!
 
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No offense mate.. especially as ya got a raw deal being descendents from criminals and forced to live on a prision island.... lol... God gave ya surf... Paul Hogan... and AC/DC. Glad to know that fosters is just a big prank.. But in England now... all the beer is cold.. just like the women. But atleast their teeth are great for bottle openers. Are aussie dental habits as bad as they are in the UK? I friggin floss and brush like crazy to keep my English genes in check... cause , poof and Austin Powers baby.

Hope to take ya up on the invite. Have HVX.. willing to travel! I'd like to get to Australia... I think the great barrier reef would love friggin nice in HD.
 
being an ex convict island has its advantages.... no rogue neighbours like mexicans! We're surrounded by water & sea life only and they aint taking our jobs or smuggling drugs into our country so I like the fish & sea mammals muchly.... (sorry to any good mexicans out there!)

How true is the teeth comment.. I thought it was a myth until i went to the UK... nah we're very dental hygene friendly here.... more likely to lose a tooth from a fist fight here than through teeth decay.. we do love a good fist fight here!

Maaate.. forget the barrier reef. You come to Australia to get away from the bloody americans for a few weeks, not to hang out with them on some tourist dive boat which may or may not wait for you to rise back up onto the water surface (Open Water movie, seen it?..) Doing the tourist thing aint the true australia.. IMO there's much better dive spots.. plus some killer (literally) waves surrounding the bottom half of this country which are definitey more interesting...

Bring the HVX along too, i'll finally get a chance to test one out & see if it's worthy of replacing my Bolex for surf shooting.... THATS how far behind we are with technology... you said its like going back to 1991 visiting here, well my Bolex is a 1981 model so you're 10yrs too generous in that comment.. i think VHS camcorders are due out soon....

I have some recent 16mm surf footage shot at 64fps I could show you but the video is about 10MB so don't know if it's too big to email...
 
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what an amusing discussion! :)

I'm rather UNDER than on the sea.... so as for me, this means: Ningaloo Reef - if possible some sardine-run with manta rays, whales, dolphins, reef-sharks etc. in the same time! - And in autumn the whale-sharks....

Yes, Australia is a very special place and I just heard that smoking was forbidden at any public place inculding the beaches - THAT's really cool! Close to New Zealand for some polynesian-feeling holiday - away from too much world politics... clean cities with clean air and the best clima I know all around the world: the clima in Adelaide!

And for diving by the way I'll probably buy a Mediasub housing, because it's not only cheap, but with 5,6 kg also almost half of the weight of the Gates housing and has more functions and looks much better than the Equinox housing (which has the worse weight-economics I know from housings as it's round....). And people here are right if they say that an underwater housing is not good for filming on boat / surfing only. Some reasons have been mentioned - I'll add 2 more: they are 5 times too heavy just for filming over-water and don't protect more than a sports-housing that costs 4 times less.... so it's money and weight.... And underwater housings need a lot of care (rinsing, greasing - much more carefully than with a sports housing that you just wash and "that's it") that means you loose a lot of time and let's say you don't do that too seriously, then you'll never be able to take the HVX underwater. Or you try it and will loose your camera within 1 second or 30 cm depth. I actually use an underwater housing with 9 kg and one with 2,4 kg but for the HVX and sports I would never ever use a housing that weights more than 1 kg - think of the camera weight itself.... and so many shots are done without tripot.

Either water-sports or underwater-sports.
 
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Smart Alac... I like ya already. Funny crap there. I do know that aussi's like to fight.. but whether they can fight well is debatable. I've been fighting amateur full contact open tournament fighting for 5 years until last year. I got a series of concussions.. and at 33.. time to pack that **** up. you can check out my instructors website at www.vingtsun.cc Would also be cool to go to Australia as there are a few ving tsun grandmasters living there. That would be as cool as the surfing.

10mbs isn't too large to email. my email is justyn@electriccowtheater.com. Thanks for the laughs! Maybe you could also host it or someone else would here so we could all check out what ya got.....
I do also like the Bolex.. Shot a lot of footage with that camera in my time. Still can't beat how friggin indestructable that ***** is... But let me ask ya.. are ya using a crank wind bolex? Or something with a motor? And do you use it as a hammer in tight situations.... or atleast, has it ever hit you in the head in the surf and knocked you out.. That thing would be like an anchor in the water.
 
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cici.. That's good info. MY buddy who's a diver also says that the Equinox is overkill with all of it's controls and such...

What's this sports housing you are talking about? I'm going to be doing a fishing show in April and this sounds right up my alley... Any info on that or housing would be cool...

There is a guy here in Ocala who builds custom housings. for the HVX it would be 2500 for up to 5 controls I think.. and each added control being additional cash. I would be kind of hesistant to dive with the HVX until I got a couple of 8 gig cards and or a firestore. As I think most people dive for 30-45 minutes, right?

My one friend who's a dive DP... You can check him out at www.jordy.com bought the JVC HD cam and built a housing for it. He said that HD underwater is simply the best use of the camera possible. The colors and res just really make it look like you can reach into the TV. He is also selling off this JVC now though to buy the HVX. I know 2 people doing the same thing. Given all of the cameras as being relatively the same.. just different skills.. I'd be happier being panny as the bank account would be swelling and swelling compared to the other manufacturers....
 
as usually, I wrote an answer for half an hour and all got deleted... :(

I make it short: http://www.mediasub.com/Montages_e.htm

the housing called BUW8 is for the HVX200.

It's an underwater-housing NOT a sports-housing.

Gates uses aluminium and I think that's a very bad choice for water-sports, as a) it's far too heavy and b) it can't protect from bumps, as metall is not elastic as carbonfibre e.g. is.

Mediasub uses carbonfibre - the best choice for material for housings. The housing can hardly pass some 5.5 kg if made of carbon.

Equinox is the possibly worst solution for housings (even worse: ewa-marine ;) ) with all disadvantages one could think of.

For water-sports, you don't need an underwaterhousing, but if the sport is really rough and bumps or water under pressure is possible (3-5 bar for underwaterhoudings), then a carbon-underwaterhousing is certainly the best choice. If you can work or learn to work with carbon, then you can build a housing of your own for OVERwater-using. Don't forget that a drop into the water can easily produce some 3 bar of pressure.... so either drops into the water are impossible (e.g. you only shoot from the beach) or you buy an underwaterhousing as the carbon BUW8.
 
The BUW8 costs 2612 Euro. For its size, features and carbon-material that's really "cheap". I don't have experience yet with LCD-screens on the housing and I'm afraid of trouble if there's too much lateral light, but it's surely better than the solution that my old Sony housing offers: I had a black&white viewfinder that had a diametre of a fingernail, so it was almost impossible to shoot e.g. an octopus that adapted his color to the color of the underground.... Even with color viewfinder I have had to learn to shoot by aiming the housing (I made some marks on the housing that showed me the axis of the lens for exact aiming) and so for wide-angle I just point towards the ray, turtle, Dugong or whatever and with the raising experience the picture got perfect and I could care for other things (e.g. for holding the housing as stable as possible - one of the most difficult things when your body has zero gravity...). And for macro shootings it's very easy as the lens almost sits on the nudibranch or whatever... . An LCD screen can certainly help in many situations. The most professional solution is still an external / remote monitor beside the housing. UW-videography is a world of its own with its own rules. Perfect buoancy control is a "must", breathing in / out / or "not-breathing" is your tripod that brings you up or down some millimeters or that holds you on the same depth whilst your equipment wants to pull you up or down. But once you manage it, you need much less air than your dive buddies and easily pass the 60 minutes limit with 1 bottle - even if the housing makes you use more air because of a) its volume and b) beeing a very hydro-un-dynamic obstacle... .

A good housing is always a good investion, as beside the money for your "special" footage (not many people shoot HD with a camera-housing...) it can be sold or rent easily (at least here in Europe).
 
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Justyn said:
But let me ask ya.. are ya using a crank wind bolex? Or something with a motor?
Click to expand...

Hand crank all the way.. there are no motors available for the Bolex which do 64fps.. Not to mention the extra size & weight of a motor & big battery inside a housing... Its a bit of pain winding her up again in the water after every take & only having 100foot loads, which disappears quick when shooting at 64fps! But you do what ya gotta do for the best slow motion available.... It can be a pain to swim with the Bolex but its tough as nails... The Bolex also makes you a disciplined shooter!

Check your email mate... Best not to host this video online as some of the footage has been on air before....
 
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