I would really like to see more North Shore MUni videos, Im looking forward to seeing muni at pipeline.
When you live in Vancouver, muni is not as big a deal. We ride roughly half the time muni, half the time trials.
But you guys, my viewers, are like 99% muni crazed.
Theres a major discrepancy between what we like to ride, and what you like to watch. To us, muni is a part of our lives. To you, its like pornography.
So I try to strike a balance between our real world, and your decrepit one - you know you should come to Vancouver. It wants you. The trails need you. I’ll film you. videos are subversive, arent they.
Seriously, a message I try to send, is that these are fun places to ride, and fun people to ride with; you should come visit and be apart of my next vid.
Making of Clip 7 - Pipeline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lerJD3Hvgt4
This started as 24 minutes, so I had to do a rough edit just to get it under youtube 10 minute limit.
Pretty much this is the best clip for the final video. Its 2 things people will love to watch
- muni
- a girl falling into a water fountain.
I put a classic crystal method song to it, cuz thats a safe bet to match the tempo of muni.
This whole ‘making of’ series is harder than I thought. Mostly its the magnitude of the content. Any time youre working with more than about 20 minutes of video, editing goes up almost exponentially.
The amount of editting goes up as a function of footage.
The time it takes to pass thru the data on each pass goes up.
Also its more pointless than I hoped. For 2 reasons
- you’ll have seen all the content, and the final video wont show any new content.
- saving the work in progress affects the process. Normally I would load up all the content (in this case about 70 minutes), and go thru phases of course edit, fine edit & sequencing, title etc.
Here I’m showing a clip at a time being course editted. But having corrupted the project file. I lost most of the work.
Making the clips presentable with effects was a bit of throw away work… on each iteration I have to remove the effects from the previous. So I skipped doing effects on this latest one.
I’d thought that one video would take less time than a dozen, but I was wrong.
Anyway, I’ll persist. This isnt intended to be a practical process… its an exercise. We’re on clip 7 of 14. I’ll be riding tomorrow, so 15 soon.
So for this mostly muni clip, I plan to keep alot more than 16 seconds worth. There are some great failures… mostly the falling into water. And some photogenic muni that are technical.
It was Noli’s first north shore muni, so we picked pipeline because its a fairly easy but fun and epitomizes north shore.
I would normally deemphasis this clip a bit, since I’ve made quite a few videos about pipeline, and we didnt have any pro riders doing crazy stuff, but its the only muni footage, and people gobble that up.
I’m toying with the idea of sprinking the water fountain failures throughout the video. I leave ‘sequencing’ til near the end of editing, but I’ll keep footage with that in mind.
Some of the muni footage is ‘follow cam’ and has a lot of shake. I’ll likely kill it, but I like this sort of long clip for rolling credits over, or a lull in the music.
Making of Clip 8 - University of Washington
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF8ySYvGwbE
This one has commentary!
I’ve always wanted to see videos do DVD style commentary. We once did a video party when Defect came out and Kris was telling us, as we watched, what was going on with people and such. It was great! And I wish we’d hear that in the videos.
The first half is Pipeline after fine editing - trimming each clip to just the key few seconds. Originally 24 minutes, its now 1min 48sec. Still over budget, but its good stuff and want to keep as much muni for the final video as possible.
Then we did a ride at U of W, where Noli pointed out all the famous film spots, and we found lots of fun stuff to ride. And it films really nicely.
So I dropped that in and did the rough cut - deleting boring/blurry clips.
Looking at whats left, there are 2 more rides with lots of footage - Lonsdale (trials) and Ravena (muni). And photos from 3 other rides, but I may not use any photos.
Making of Clip 9 - Lonsdale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlXQ5legILg
Footage from Dori and Yves ride at North Van Lonsdale Quay and muni/trails ride with Noli and Preston at Ravena Park.
Aside from photos, this is the last of the clips for the video.
It was a bit long for the song, so I used overlapping transitions to trim about 30 seconds from the length. A few came out too short.
A couple clips I used fast forward on, which is better for continuity than a cut, as long as the footage in between is somewhat clean.
Sequencing
I started with a clip of Dori doing a scary high railing and I think I’ll move a few falls before that to build more tension for that scene.
When I put the final music to it, there will be quiet parts and I’ll use some long flowing scenes for that.
Name
One of the last things I’ll do is give it a name. Its usually the name of the trail, so I can go back and find videos for a trail, so my iniital inclination was Pipeline 09, but having seen the diverse footage, I’ll think about better names. Maybe something like NW Uni citys
Making of Clip 10 - Roosevelt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrKtTvMZCNE
The longer this takes, the more footage I get. We rode in Seattle at Roosevelt High School. It was supposed to be trials, but a new guy, Jude, brought a giraffe. So Noli did giraffe trials… hop mount and riding down stairs.
Each time I add new stuff, I’m cutting a little more in the old stuff, removing the redundent footage that gets boring after watching it 100 times, and trimming each clip to just the key moments.
At this point, its getting fairly polished, in the 2nd half, and getting harder to remove anything without loosing a person, ride location or a key moment.
Key moments to me, are several things. Its basically anything not mediocre. I like to say its the spectacular successes and spectacular failures. The water fountain is a good example. Noli and Dori certainly managed to ride parts of it. But in the end, its far more fun to see them falling into the fountain. They didnt do anything spectacular successful. Noli did a 52" side hop, but it was on flat.
The other type of key moments are those that show the personality of the rider, or something of personal interest, like the first time they did something. I often capture people doing their first trick, and they really want to see themselves doing it. And example is that in ‘Skills’, I edited out a bit that Dori wants to see… her first giraffe ride. So I’ll try to include that. And in this latest edit, I made a point of 2 personal moments. Brian at Kits, doing a log… I added a little more of that clip, because he’s new to unicycling and really struggled to get that log. And Dori playing on the playground, which is just fun to see her mucking around.
I think in the end, I’ll look apon this video as the last one with Dori and Noli. Dori left to Hungary. And Noli is leaving to Japan. So there will be a melancholy tone to it. I picked a song a I think will touch on that, and still have the pace and optimism for the future that, for example, kids graduating from high school have. Dori is going to university this fall. Noli what studied palentology, has decided to drop everything and follow his girlfriend to live in Japan and be an english teacher. With both of them, we tried to cram in as much unicycling as we could. I’ll be riding muni with Noli this weekend. So I try to bring these undertones to the video and give them something they can cherish.
The song is a “It Hertz” by Crystal Method. They’re always a safe bet for tempo on a muni vid. I just bought the CD. They have a new one, but the classics are great too, and I kinda avoid their new stuff under Warner Music, who dont let you post to youtube. I home Warner works out a deal like Universal. One thing I like about most Crystal Method songs is that they have quiet moments that I can sync the longer special moments in the video to. I also looked at the amount of footage… about 7 minutes, and picked a song about right. Then I edit the video to match up with the song. This particular song starts and ends abruptly, which I didn’t edit for very well.
Effects wise I just did a “theme” film, which I havent used before and worked nicely. And then I labeled each location with a subtitle. The masking tape look matched the film theme nicely, and I may keep it for the end. Except there are 2 pipeline sections.
One of the last edits I do, once I have the final “fine” edit, is to sequence the clips. There are 2 reasons for sequencing:
- to match the tempo of the music
- to tell a story in chronological order that makes sense
tempo
i heavily it to the music. First it was to find the right song, with the right tempo, innuendos, lyrics, length. Toward the end, I find the 3 key areas of a song - intro, interlude and extro. Each is quiet. The rest is fast. I reserve some long clips or photos for these. Sometimes the interlude is outtakes or a transitional footage to a new location. The ending is often a long semi boring clip that I can roll credits on. Sometimes I do it like an essay, where the intro is a teaser of what you will see. The video is the full version, and the extro is a summary of best moments you just saw. Done right, this can play with your emotions and be really exciting. The teaser cuts just before what you want to see and the final moments flash by with cool stuff leaving you on a high. Done wrong, it can look repetitive. Lately I try to have enough footage of the same scenes, that I can show slightly different versions, such as a failure, or apply them in titles so they look different. I spend the most time getting the initial intro just right, and especially in sync with the music.
The other sequencing I do is to tell a story that makes sense. Usually chronological order makes sense, since riders will try things until they succeed, not the other way around. I like to show an obsticle, a failure and then a success.
Sometimes I borrow an idea from TV - a “B” story. I’ll start showing a bit of a ride, then when it would become boring, I cut to another ride entirely. Later I come back and show how the first ride turned out. Like a teaser intro, you can cut away just as success or dramatic failure seem imminent.
I thought one of my better examples of this was at Pacifica beach, where I showed me stuggling, climbing to the top of a drop. Then I cut away to a 3 photos. And then showed the drop. People told me that was great filmmaking, and I try to do more of that. It would have been easier to just show the whole clip, or edit it down to just the drop. But adding the climb and cut away added to the drama.
While I’m talking drama, theres a bit in this video where Dori does a crazy stunt. And I think the best way to show how crazy that is, is to move it toward the end, after seeing her fall down alot. Then you’ll think whoa… shes not a very good rider, and shes doing that?! Whereas if I show her succeeding in the crazy stunt, and then falling down alot, its anticlimatic.
Technicsl issues
There are often technical issues behind the curtains. This video started based on a harddrive crash and motherboard fried, that didnt loose any footage, but lead to a lot of footage piling up.
And then half way, I corrupted the project, moving to imovie9.
So I recover a little each clip… tonight I recovered ‘skills’ and it took 2 hours just to import the raw footage. The upside is that I had plenty of time to write about “roosevelt”
In the next clip I should hope to get all the footage and if I pushed it, I could do the final video. But I have a song in mind that would be fun, but I’d never use in a final video. The ride we plan this weekend is muni which always warrants a video.
I asked my kids what they liked about the video so far, and they liked the falling into the fountain.
Hope youre enjoying seeing this come together. Instead of just the final cut, which you probably thought was slapped together in a night without rhyme or reason. There was rhyme, and a lot of thought went into it.
Making of Clip 11 - Fine Edit on Roosevelt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoZWWF_cZQs
This one is kinda boring… but same footage, no music… just reduced in length from 5:17 down to 3:22. Hopefully nothing lost, and the video starts to look pretty polished.
The song I plan to use is 3:24, so I planned to just add titles/credits, sequence the clips to match the song and be done.
But we did a muni ride on the weekend, and the footage isn’t all that interesting, so rather than make a long video out of it, I’ll just keep the one or two interesting clips, adding it to the video monstrosity.
Making of Clip 12 - Muni at Simon Fraser University
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnmE1CiBCkk
The music is interesting how well it works for the muni, and then its horribly wrong for the trials.
Its also interesting Yves, who filmed parts too, made a video from the same footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtKRX36nfhQ
Both are about the same length - Yves is 2:55 and mine is 3:02
Yves added a still title, credits on black screens
I used use titles and transitions that overlap, shorting the video, and overlayed location subtitles. My overall video has too many people and locations to mention. I’ll likely add rolling credits over a long semi-boring clip at the end. I might use John Mortiarties hill climb for credits… its 8 minutes long, but with fast forward I’ve got it down to 34 seconds.
Yves did some rough cuts.
I kept more clips, but trimmed them to just the interesting bits. Its more work, but it speeds up the pace of the video and adds more variety.
I also sped up a few clips… especially a very long one at 1:48 that is now time lapse. But also a clip of Noli at 2:08, so you can see how far he got without waiting. And Celinas clip at 0:17 by just 25% cuz she just rides too slow to be interesting to watch, and I wanted to show enough of her footage, cuz it was her first muni ride.
Music is similar in both, but I like Yves’ song better.
Since mine is a work in progress, I’m purposely avoiding using my favorites, picking one that is the right tempo and length.
After seeing the second half doesnt work, I purposely left it to make a point.
My short clip edit style looks out of place against slow music. If I kept this song, I would re-sequence some longer clips or still photos there. Or some less exciting clips, or outtakes/establishing shots.
Making of Clip 13 - Burnaby Village
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btoMChKS3HQ
Last weekend Kris hosted a ride at Burnaby Village Museum. We had about 20 riders out… 16 still around at the end for a group photo.
Just a few clips at the beginning.
Editing wise I trimmed every clip a little more. Theres a long 20x speed clip of John Moriarty doing a long hill climb. The whole thing is 5 minutes so even 20x is a bit long and I just kept the first few seconds.
Theres a picture of AnSo with her broken arm after a fall at Cypress. I wanted to include that ride, and that was the best picture, but it looks out of place in the video. Maybe in a title effect.
I do the editing using the final song, but before posted the ‘making of’ switched the song out for one that is similar tempo. Its from SSX3 music CD. Apparently the tempo/tricks in snowboarding are similar to unicycling.
The last clip of noli on benchs I sped up to match the music ending, but it looks forced and I’ll undo that.
The day after Burnaby Village we did a muni ride. But I got enough footage from that one to make a separate video.
I’m thinking of calling the final video “14”, since thats how many rides there are in the video. So far
Making of 14 - the final video with commentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FzzHO0g4KQ
Its about 30 seconds shorter than clip 13, but the casual viewer wouldnt notice what I dropped.
Almost every clip was trimmed by a second. Especially 2 sections
- falling into fountain. I made all the clips short, except the last one, which is excruciatingly long as the unicycle slowly tumbles into the water.
- noli doing stairs on the giraffe. Same idea… 2 quick clips and one longer one.
I removed the 2 photos of AnSo and John Moriarty, cuz they just seemed awkward and out of place. Although John said he liked his, as a fore shadowing of the huge climb at the end of the video.
imovie lets me tweak speed, which helps emphasis the important, and skip past the boring bits. They’re not meant as deception of the riders ability, and I try to keep it to the non-technical parts.
The music is kinda funny sounding around the water fountain… I try to sequence the music and video footage to match.
At the end I put 2 long clips as the music winds down.
Normally I’d roll the credits here and want clips that dont demand much attention, but credits would be crazy long with this footage.
This video is dedicated to Dori and Noli.
Both came, rode hard, and left the country. I’ll miss them.
Dori spent the spring semester in Vancouver, partially cuz she saw my videos. We became friends and she was someone I could count on for rides. Although she’s a new rider, she always pushed herself beyond her ability, and hence a lot of footage of her falling into water fountains and such.
Noli I met when I moved to Seattle. We share an interest in trials and muni and did a ton of rides in Seattle, and a couple in Vancouver. Alas, he fell in love with a girl in Japan and is off to the rising sun.
Am I happy with the final video?
definitely not; I’m rarely happy… but you just gotta push them out, learn from your mistakes and move onto next one. But considering the footage I had to deal with, I think the editing came out pretty slick and phth-like.
-the filming was mediocre. nothing fun like cable cam.
-there were no huge moves. Normally I’d show some teaser and recap footage, but there wasnt anything really noteworthy. Which is one reason I bundled so many rides into one.
-its a machine gun of random clips with no cohesive story, or longer clips
-the song isnt as good as I’d hoped… a few I used during making of seemed better - Jaded, by Crystal Method, and Rock Star in #13. Maybe its cuz I’ve heard it 100 times while editing. But its a bit repetative and at the end doesnt end on a bang. There arent quiet moments that I could edit longer sequences into. I picked it for a couple reasons: the others were not popular with my wife, and the tempo and lyrics suit unicycling.
Whats next?
posting - It took 2 attempts to post to vimeo… the first came out low resolution. The current one isnt playing all that smooth, so I may look into alternative sites.
Then I’ll start announcing the video, first to the vanuni maillist, and then create a unicyclist video forums. I’ll try to include credits and pictures that arent in the video. The picture will be a montage that I create in picassa.
The credits can be tedious… especially with so much footage and visitors I dont know. In 3 videos I’ve filmed I got people saying their names, but that still doesnt help me spell them 
Sorry Alley. Or is it Ally? Thats why your first video was “thats not my name”
Comments always welcome.
Mostly I just want to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed this thread. Haven’t commented much because you’ve put so much thought into everything it didn’t feel right to just make off hand remarks without laboring as you have on the topic.
This video is organized sort of like a record of your groups past rides. Interesting for those involved, and for those who’ve been following this thread, but kind of arbitrarily organized for a first time viewer. Without the posts here I wouldn’t know that the Dori and Noli clips had a greater significance. Perhaps a few clips of them talking or just being people in between riding would help personalize them for those who don’t know them.
As you’ve mentioned there is no real theme to the video which adds to the feeling of it being a sort of documentation rather then a presentation. I understand your including a couple clips of each rider so that they all feel included, but from an anonymous viewing perspective it can be distracting.
The place headings help to keep everything organized but they do not substitute for continuity and pacing which can draw the viewer into the ride’s world or ambiance.
This isn’t a criticism because I recognize you multiple motives for making this video and I’m not sure they can all be equally met. So I suppose my suggestion would be to keep a video’s function to only one or two things. Alternative things can be added or implied but everything should revolve around the meeting the primary reason for the video existing.
I think that’s how one develops a video’s identity.
I find that if a song doesn’t hold up to the repeated viewings while editing then it probably isn’t adding to the visuals directly. If there is a symbiotic relationship to the scene on screen and the music then it becomes more meaningful as the editing continues.
I don’t think a song’s popularity with your wife should be a major motivator. If you are trying to please too many people the video will only suffer.
As a personal opinion I think that lyrics are of minimal importance, and that obvious connections with the content feel too gimmicky. Matching the mood is more important, and if they song can be interpreted to fit the content then it is best left partly to the imagination. This process of inquiry adds depth whereas an obvious connection reduces the video to a simple relation.
Thanks for this thread, everyone approaches video making differently and it’s interesting to see a different take on things as it develops.
I’d hoped y’all would get more involved in the making of this video. i’d enjoy more feedback on what clips you like etc.
I need the trust of the riders, both male and female, that I’ll make them look good. Or they just won’t come out. I know I’m doing it right, when they ask me to take their picture