Riding Footage From The 2008/2009 Season
Posted by on Sunday, February 21, 2010
I keep leaving it later and later, but, I have at least stuck to my principle of editing the footage from one season before snowboarding the season after. I'm talking about the video I took last year in Morzine. Over the last week and a half I've been streaming it all, and then did a quick edit yesterday. It had to be done given that I'm going away next Saturday...
To be honest, maybe the reason that I've left it so long is that I'm not that keen on what I shot. I don't think it's bad or anything like that, and I do enjoy watching it, it's more that I had hoped to progress on some of the things that I did in Fernie, the year before; the snowboarding in Morzine/Avoriaz took a slightly different direction.
That said, there are elements to this video/riding that really interest me. I had a lot of fun riding The Stash in Avoriaz, which is where most of this is filmed. I'd like to return to some of those features and some of the things I was trying. For example, there's a bonk (sic) around 01:14 in, that was close to being good. I just needed to 180 out. It's definitely given me a lot to look forward to.
As for the things that were missing, apart from amazing powder shots :), I guess I just didn't go big.
I'm still using Movie Maker, which although isn't fantastic, I'd have to say it's doing the job for me. The rather awesome song is "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe" by Okkervil River from their album The Stage Names. Here it is..
Labels: editing video, morzine trip 2009, my trick progression, video
Is It Worth Making Your Own Snowboard Clips?
Posted by on Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Why do the likes of you and I take a video camera with us when we go snowboarding?
The obvious answer, I suppose, is that we want to record ourselves and our friends/family, snowboarding, so that we can watch it back later. There's nothing wrong with that; nothing at all. But do I sometimes spend too much time on it? Do you?
A couple of things have prompted this post. First, I was sorting through a bunch of camcorder tapes, working out which ones were from last year. In doing so I watched quite a bit of the video we took. It was fun, but I didn't see a lot of good stuff, and I say that in relation to how many times we took a camera up with us. In the two seasons prior to last season, I ended up with some footage that I thought was a step forward. Some off-piste stuff, some nice natural hits, the type of stuff I'd like to get more of. But I didn't see much of that this time around.
And the second thing was an article I read in a magazine asking "Do good photos matter?" The article was asking if the average reader of a snowboard magazine is really bothered about good quality photos; would they rather see photos of their mates?
Incidentally I think the answer is "yes". When I read a snowboard magazine and look at the pictures, some of them make me stop and think how the hell do they do that? or that looks so awesome I want to be there. The relavent point here is that it reminded me that for photogaphers and video makers, it's their job. Making a video part can take a whole season. I know there are stories of riders who put things together in a really short period of time, but on the whole, it's a big job that takes a lot of effort.
If I'm shredding for two weeks of the winter and I score a couple of good powder days, do I want to be worrying about getting some footage? Or should I just be enjoying the moment?
I do think that making a video of your snowboarding matters. At least, it does to me. I love watching over my snowboarding experiences. It's good for remembering the times. It's good for analysis and similarly it's good for progression. It gets me excited about going snowboarding. And most importantly it's fun. I like making the video clip.
But I do worry that my goals are perhaps unrealistic. Unjustified. To get better footage than what I've been getting it's more compramise on the actual riding. How about just leaving the camera at home?
Who knows? What are your thoughts?
Labels: editing video
Notch Up A Couple More Skate Sessions...
Posted by on Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday morning was just a quickie :) I wanted some fresh air and decided it would be an opportunity to try filming some frontside boardslides. I don't have a tripod yet, but it's still possible to get by solo if you're willing to put up with limited angles and flexibility!
I wasn't really feeling it, but the session did the trick. 50 minutes or so, and something to show you guys.
Today I've been reminded of my frustration when dealing with the combination of my camera, Movie Maker and YouYube/Vimeo. Only it's worse this time.
I'm running on a beta of Windows 7 (after the hard drive failure) so I had to download Movie Maker. I exported the sequence twice, both widescreen and 4:3. I uploaded them both to Vimeo. I'm taller than I should be in both. I don't get it. I remember dealing with this rigmarole last time, but at least one of them ended up being right. Maybe I've got a different version of MM? When am I gonna stop messing around with a crap solution?
Anyhow, here it is. I look tall and skinny, which maybe isn't a bad thing as I'm a little out of shape :) Hopefully I'll fix the aspect soon...
Learning Frontside Boardslides from Gavin Hope on Vimeo.
7 Bails and 7 Makes... Just started to do front-boards on a skateboard. Wanted to get early makes on film. Five Bridges skatepark, Gateshead, UK.
Sunday, this morning, was an awesome session. Went to silksworth with Dave and Dan, they were keen to hit that bowl again... I knew they'd like it :)
A bit windy but no biggy. The bowl there is awesome. I didn't really learn anything new, rather I'm getting back to where I was last year, which isn't all that far. This seems to happen each year; I skate just enough to maintain where I was. Perhaps this year will be different. I'm pretty set on taking a step forward.
The park got real quiet at one point so we messed around in the large bowl trying some early grabs. That was fun.
Here are some pics. The first is just to show the bowl, the second two fall in the category of me trying things out. Nothing good mind, I just feel like I should post at least something when I've snapped with the camera...
Labels: editing video, skateboarding, video
The Making Of...
Posted by on Friday, January 02, 2009
OK, so I put some of my relaxation time in Ireland over Christmas to good use, and edited my footage from Fernie last season. I'm happy that I've done it, because had it not been done before I go to Morzine it might not have been done at all. Plus, I don't like keeping loads of huge video files hanging around on disk; 1. I've got the physical tapes as backup, and 2. In all the time I've been snowboarding, I've never gone back to the raw footage after making an edit. So now I can delete it.
But before I post the video I want to comment on the process of making it.
Movie Maker and I is starting to become a love-hate thing. I really appreciate the fact that it's free, but apart from that, I hate it. It's been a pain.
Not knowing how the Movie Maker software manages memory, I can only be angry at the net result. Once I got to the point where the sequence was getting around 2 - 3 minutes long, my laptop became unable to smoothly play it through. I was running out of memory. It was slow and frustrating, and often needed restarting.
Sure, my laptop has only 1GB of ram, but my older laptop, supposedly inferior to this one, also had 1GB of ram. I edited the last two sequences I put together on that laptop using Premier Pro, and never experienced a problem. Maybe it's just this new laptop that sucks? I don't know.
Whatever the reason, both CPU and memory were being eaten up big time during the editing process, and it sucked. I feel like I need a new laptop, or better software, or both... but then again, I think I'd rather shred for another week or two this season than buy a load of computer stuff. Bah!
With the regards to the aspect ratio issues I had last time, that's something I can't knock Movie Maker for. I recall that my camera isn't true widescreen; the chips are all actually 4:3 - the panasonic simply clips the top and bottom off. Both Movie Maker and Premier export my footage in 4:3. I guess when I tell Movie Maker that I'm working with 16:9 it does the same thing and clips the display... the frames are still 4:3 however, so after exporting, I'm stuck with black bars with either YouTube or Vimeo. No biggie.
Labels: editing video
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