June 26, 2008

• MikeVideo Internet Movie: Renaissance Day 2008

  Renaissance  Day  2008

   

  “Renaissance Day 2008″ 13 min. 39 sec. Shot on a particularly hot Sunday morning, 5-18-08, the video includes complete songs by the Belles of Bedlam, the Poxy Boggards, (whose act is bawdy singing a song with the refrain “Drink Mother Fu*ker”) and a routine by Broon, comic, magician, juggler and fire eater. I was disappointed that I didn’t get more Faire footage since I went home early owing to the heat, but this makes for an entertaining vid, Broon is always funny, and you almost get to see his whole act.

   

  I posted this video in the “Video Section” of Xanga on May 25th. It has received 34 views and 8 comments. I never got around to posting it on the blog proper along with Director’s Commentary, so if you haven’t seen the video, it is mainly footage of three different music and comdey “acts” presented on a particularly hot day at the Southern California Renaissance Faire. Commentary about creating the vid is below. WARNING: The second music group showcased, as mentioned above , uses profanity in their act. Specifically, the word “motherfu*er”. I think the song is cute, and am not offended, but if you are offended by such language, then this video might not be for you. This entry is self rated “b” for basic guidance.

   

  DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY: Here it is the middle of 2008 already. Where is the time going? This is only the fourth video I’ve made this year.  I now have 42 videos posted on YouTube and 28 on Xanga. There are additional videos to be found streaming from my MikeVideo website, including the complete 1989 video “Moviola Dance” (never uploaded to YouTube because of copyright issues) and 2001′s “Selling Sex at the CES”,. (uploaded to YouTube and deleted by them because the vids include nudity and violated their terms of service.)

   

  Two things have prohibited me from making more videos this year so far. Gas prices seem to be spiraling upwards, and a lot of weekends have been unbearably hot. In fact, “Renaissance Day 2008″, a “sequel” of sorts to the ambitious Renaissance Day video (Part 1, Part 2) completed in 2005, was shot on the last day of the festival this year, and the temperatures were over 100 degrees. I had planned on a more varied documentary view of this year’s Faire, but only stayed for a few hours because the heat was impacting me negatively.

   

  The first “Faire” video was one of the first projects I announced on the MikeVideo section of my website back in 1999. I streamed a short version called “Renaissance Faire Music” in 2001 when video streaming first appeared on the internet. The quality was incredibly bad and the players didn’t show full screen video. I streamed the first Renaissance Day video from my own server and announced it’s creation on my blog here in 2005. Because of the file size and the amount of views it garnered, I ended up paying my web hosting service over $500.00 in bandwidth overage fees. When YouTube started up in late 2005, “Renaissance Day” had to be split into two sections, and it was one of the first things I uploaded to my new “Channel”.

   

  However I was always disappointed that I didn’t render the original “Renaissance Day” as a high quality mpeg or wmv file. When finalizing a video, I can render the complete project in a number of ways. The videos uploaded to YouTube or Xanga are lower quality wmv files, usually  40 or 50 megabytes in size, with a resolution of about 720×540 or 680×450. I also render higher quality files for inclusion on future DVDs and for streaming from my own website. These files are very large, but give the best sound and picture. I neglected to render a high quality file for the first “Renaissance Day” so I’ve always had it in the back of my head to remake the video. I delete the source files from my computer when the video is completed, so I would need to input the raw footage again. With this in mind, I figured that it would be better to shoot new footage and to make an entirely different movie. That was the plan when I drove to this year’s Renaissance Faire on the 18th of May.

   

  The 18th of May was the last day of the Faire for 2008. Running during weekends for most of April and May, the Faire is located at the Sante Fe Dam Recreation Area in Irwindale, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. I kept putting off going until the last weekend, and when Saturday the 17th arrived, it was in the middle of one of our frequent SoCal heat waves. I gambled that the heat would dissipate some by Sunday, but I was wrong.

   

  Because of high gas prices, I decided to shoot some of the Jacaranda trees in Pasadena in the early morning before heading out to the Faire, hopefully accomplishing two photo shoots in one day. The Faire opens at 10am, and I got there at about 10:30am. It was over 100 degrees already. I don’t dress up in 16th century costume, but even dressed lightly, I got pretty hot pretty quick. I wanted to shoot for the complete day, creating a new photo gallery as well as a new movie, but in the early hours, the crowds hadn’t yet arrived, and so the place didn’t look as vibrant as it probably would later in the day.

   

  I figured I’d use the first few hours to videotape some complete performances of some of my favorite artists at the Faire. These performers return year after year and have their own followings. I knew I wanted to get some of Broon’s show because I had received comments for “more Broon” on the YouTube page where I posted the first video, which really didn’t highlight anyone specifically.

   

  I shot footage at the Belles of Bedlam show, the Poxy Boggards show, and the Broon show. I then circled the Faire a couple of times, and photographed some selected “scenes” but it was just too hot, and I had to leave. As I reported in an earlier News and Notes entry, I hardly even took any photographs with my still camera.

   

  Driving home from the Faire, I felt quite disappointed, as if I had wasted the day. I looked at the footage and photos I took when I got home. The jacaranda photos turned out excellently, and that brightened me up considerably. When I started to look at the performance footage I took at the Faire, I noticed I had shot over an hour! I downloaded the footage from the tapes into the computer, and on the 25th, I had completed “Renaissance Day 2008″. I included the one complete song I recorded from the Belles of Bedlam, a female singing group. I put one of  four songs I recorded at the Poxy Boggards performance. I also have one of their songs on the original “Renaissance Day” video. I sat in the front rows for Broon’s magic show, and taped the complete show.

   

  As usual, my “director’s  cut” of the video was much longer than the finished product. I kept editing and editing until I got it down to about 13 minutes. I’m pretty proud of the results. Since this is basically performance footage, I haven’t attempted a lot of camera moves or fancy editing dissolves. (You might notice that the title does “handsprings” along with the jugglers in the parade in the title sequence. ) As usual, I try to keep the camera as still as possible, even when tracking or dollying, but since the camera is not on wheels, you can notice that I’m walking. I’ve been thinking of developing some kind of one wheeled camera monopod/dolly so that I can “wheel” it alongside me as I track. That would make for far more fluid shots.

   

  All in all, I’m pretty happy with this video. Hope nobody is offended by the “bawdy ” songs of the Poxy Boggards. I think the song I chose to include is fun. It was the song they were playing when I first got to the stage, so the camera is jerky until I find a spot to settle.

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  WHINING FOR STARS SECTION: I haven’t been asking for stars or recommends lately or sending annoying messages to your Xanga inboxes when I complete a MikeVideo. (And I thank those profusely who continue to star and recommend my posts.) But I do want to mention this again, because I’m always looking for more exposure for my vids, and stars and recommends do help to get the entries to the “front pages” of Xanga. I always seem to see the same sites with the same kinds of self serving entries getting featured again and again. Help me out if you can by giving those entries of mine you feel deserve it a “five star” rating and a “recommend” if you think your subscribers and friends might like to see the entry too. I always seem to get more visitors when one of my entries is “featured” on the front pages of Xanga, and every five star rating and recommend does help. BTW: Next planned video/photo series is downtown “Hollywood”, where I plan to go this weekend with camera in tow. Also upcoming: “Senior Moments To Remember”, my very first full scale “music video”! MFN/ppf

  • 10:16 am
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