February 21, 2011

• Mike's Video Blog #15: San Clemente Pier

  Mike's Video Blog #15: San Clemente Pier
  
  
  
  

  Mike's Video Blog #15: San Clemente Pier. 11min. 14sec. HD 720p
  

  
  

  DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: I didn't make many videos in 2010. My first full video for 2011 is also my first Mike's Video Blog for about half a year. On January 21, during a break in all the rain we've had in SoCal this winter, the sun shone bright and warm, and I took a drive with both still and video camera to San Clemente, to shoot the first of what I hope to be a "bookend" tribute video to the cities on either side of the "17 mile stretch" of undeveloped seacoast fronting Camp Pendleton. I've had this video series planned since summer of 2010. "Mike's Video Blog #15: San Clemente Pier" is now completed. Upcoming will be "Oceanside", and since gasoline is now up to $3.50 a gallon, I'll probably also shoot footage in San Diego aboard the USS Midway aircraft carrier for an even further upcoming photo project, but as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.
  
  I shot over an hour and a half of video footage with my Sony videocamera, and about 250 individual high quality photos for my Webshots gallery. I posted some of the photos on this blog already. (In the previous entry.)
  
  I planned to slap together a quick Video Blog but when I sat down to my Vegas Video Editing Suite on the computer, I passed into a full creative zone, and it's taken me a month to make my new masterpiece.
  
  First I upgraded the introductory credit sequence. This took the better part of a day. Then I began the task of editing down the footage. As with photographs, from which I select the best for inclusion in my PhotoPosts, I pare down the unnecessary, shaky, redundant, and uninteresting video footage in the editing program. I have an idea of what the video is going to be about, or what footage to show, when I shoot, but I always like to get a lot from which to make my selections, so picking and choosing takes some time.
  
  After creating the overall video, I go back and edit even more. An "internet movie" is usually about 10 minutes long. If the first "director's cut" comes in at, say, 22 minutes, then I have to remove half of what I have presented. Sometimes I take out whole "scenes" just like a real director on a Hollywood film.
  
  Since YouTube always seems to find tunes from my soundtracks which are copyright protected (even though I always give music credit on my vids) and then remove the whole soundtrack, even if there are only 8 seconds of background music which is "contested",  I used only original music on this video. I compiled the soundtrack from five electronic pieces by Xanga's own Matt (theacematt2). I promised him I'd use his music over a year ago, but then Alex (Roadlesstaken) used it for his Xanga Secret videos, and I didn't really make any new videos for a while. I tried to find specific selections to add to the "mood" I wanted to convey. (And My apologies, Matt. I list your credit as "MaceMatt" which is what I had on the computer file instead of "theacematt2". I corrected this in an annotation on the video and added URLs to your blog and your Jamendo site.)
  
  There are two "sections" to the video. First I walk around the San Clemente Pier area and shoot some footage of breaking waves and of the surfers. I take a walk under the San Clemente Pier, and got an interesting shot of a surfer paddling out under the pier. I grabbed the wide angle lens from my still camera instead of the one I usually use for the video camera, and when zooming, there is an interesting fuzziness around the edges of the frame. This shows up in a couple of spots, including the surfer under the pier, and looks like a "special effect" although in fact it's a "mistake". One of the great things about photography and videomaking is that sometimes "mistakes" turn out looking fantastic. The footage I got of surfing in this video is far better than that in Big Wednesday Dreams because I was closer to the action. The second "section" is the drive home, where I just aimed the camera out the window of the car while driving along the coast. Not content with just editing these segments together, I also overlay some "map effects" with a little animation of my car to show where I'm driving on the map.
  
  I haven't counted all the elements (snippets of film and separate effects shots.) but there are a lot of them. As usual, I use a variety of customized effects available in the Vegas editing software. I have my eye on Version 10 of the product, which has 10 video overlays and a method for removing vocals from music tracks, plus over 400 music soundtracks in the public domain. I'm limited to 4 video overlays on my current version of the software. I can't output to MPEG-4 either in full HD, which is supported by the new version. Although I use the stabilizer in my camera, I don't have a "steadicam" (there are consumer steadicam set ups that can be used with videocams like mine) and I am always attempting steadicam type setups. At least I'm not limping anymore, but there is always too much "shake" in my moving shots. I try to correct some of this in "post production" but sometimes the edits call too much attention to themselves. (I might even just make a steadicam myself.)
  
  The technical aspects of video shooting and editing always thrill me (what I really want to do is direct), but it's the finished product which will interest people watching it. Most "videoblogs", (or "vlogs" as I'm now seeing used more widely on the web) are simply shaky shots taken with phone cameras and instantly uploaded to a social networking site. I have always attempted to create little "internet movies" which showcase the footage I've shot, but with more artistic flair. Whenever I complete one, like just now, I feel sort of like a mother giving birth (well, without the pain). I can easily go back and re-edit, and sometimes I spend far too much time on a specific 2 or 3 second transition. But in the end, when I'm satisfied, I feel as if I've got another little masterpiece in my collection of MikeVideos.
  
  An interesting sidenote. Now that I'm outputting HD, the fact that I don't use an HD camera shows up (for me) quite vividly. Yet another upgrade to my moviemaking paraphanalia to make. (You have to go to my YouTube channel and select 720p to see the vid in HD.) Another sidenote: This is the first video where you see me without my beard.
  
  I'm always looking for one of my creative endeavors to go viral. This one won't. It's just a few shots of pigeons and surfers and the ocean on a nice day in SoCal. It's the 10 second shots of someone falling off a snowmobile or a cat peeing in the toilet that go viral, not a highly edited mini movie with a full credit sequence. Still, seeing five years of my stuff collected on my YouTube channel, and getting compliments from the few people who visit still makes me feel as if my creative urges are being stoked. I may not post a lot of content on the internet these days. But what I do, I hope, is choice material and offers entertainment to my readers.
  

  
  Posted: February 20, 2011 9:41 AM

  • 9:43 am
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