The unicycling movie making thread...

Off-topic
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With a few different people now making unicycling movies I thought it would be very helpful (for me in particular) for us to share interesting comments and suggestions about all aspects of unicycle movie making. Feel free to post anything movie making related in here.

Andrew

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Camera angles…

Camera Angles

Here are some of my thoughts after about a week of filming for my movie…

MUni

The terrain is such an important part of muni that I find it best to cut off part of the top of the rider in order to fit in more of the ground surrounding them if you have to make that decision. Naturally I think it’s good to have heaps of different camera angles in a movie, but this is something I’ve noticed in a few different clips I’ve seen. If you can see what’s in front of the rider, then you get a bit of warning before they tackle that part of a track. Personally I like to subconsciously think about how they’re going to negotiate something and then see what happens. That sounds a bit strange doesn’t it? - ‘Personally I like to subconsciously think…’.

Another thing I like is to have reasonably long (in terms of time) shots for muni every now and then. Muni is a really flowing style of unicycling and I think this helps to show that.

I have a question for you people…how do you make a section look steep when there’s no room to get directly beside a rider and you can’t climb a tree to get level with them? I know this has been discussed a lot…sorry.

With drops in muni scenarios (I guess I’m talking mainly about 2’+ drops) I’ve found that you can give an idea of the height by filming from behind the rider at the top of the drop. I wasn’t sure at first, but in one of the bits I’ve filmed Tony doing it worked out well.

Trials

Although the terrain in trials is also a key element, I like to see quite a few close up shots with a full view of the wheel. I think it’s great to be able to see the compression of the tyre and the subtle little wheel movements. There’s an absolutely awsome bit in Unizaba (which you see a little bit of in the trailer) where the cameraman follows Kris’ wheel up a steep rocky trials ascent. It’s really really good.

I also think it’s good to occasionally fix the camera in one spot rather than following the rider with them in the middle of the screen. If the line they’re taking permits this I think it’s good to be able to see the whole line in the shots all the time and have them moving all around the screen. I think it places a lot of focus on the line they’re taking rather than how they’re taking it.

I really like to ride skinny stuff. I reckon it’s good to sometimes be able to see the line of the tyre along the rail or whatever it is. I also like seeing the whole rider’s body for things like that because there’s so much interesting movement goign in during rail rides. In the making part of the Into the Thunder Dragon DVD (I think that’s where it is anyway) there’s a great shot of Kris still standing on and riding along a really narrow railing. That shot really gave me an insight into the technique required for that sort of riding. The shot I’m talking about is from directly in front and shows, from memory, just up to the top of the seat. You can see him still standing there and the uni is often tilted to the side. It looks like he should be falling off at that stage but then he pops it back into place. I foudn that really interesting.

I like to see whole lines done in one go with trials pretty often. That way you know that they’re not cheating and making it look like that rider has done it all when they’ve actually done it in a few goes. Having said that, I think it’s also good to see one angle up until a drop for example and then a different angle for the drop.

Freestyle

I haven’t filmed much freestyle yet…any suggestions?

Okay, your turn!

Andrew

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Movie teasers…

Here are some teasers from my movie:

http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/albuu61#

I’ll put some good quality ones up there once I get myself a DV Cable. You can see what I was talking about before with the high angles for drops here…

Movie making is so much fun!

Andrew

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Re: Movie teasers…

I am looking forward to learning as you discover all you can do with your new camera. I have a fairly new one myself, and have yet to really spend the time learning all it can do.

I will add that I love the helmet cam shots and frame cam shots. I have seen these add on cameras and they plug right into what you already have.

I just bought a Fire Wire today with a gift certificate I got for Christmas. So I will play around with it in the next couple of days. Chad

Edit- I guess you’re teasers are just pictures right now. I want to see video on that half pipe!

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Are those add on camera things very expensive? I remember a friend of mine had one a few years ago that cost him a fair bit and wasn’t very good quality. Yes, that bit of Universe with Dan’s frame-mounted camera is really something!

I was actually planning on only using photos (or single frames from the video) as teasers but I’ll make a few video clips available like that half pipe drop if you want. John C explained at the end of this thread why I haven’t been able to capture smooth videos onto the computer yet. But as I said in that thread, we’re getting a new computer soon and I’ll get myself a DV Cable (which I gather is the same thing as a Firewire Cable?). Then I’ll be able to get nice videos onto the computer.

Please keep us up to date with your opinions and discoveries. I need all the advice I can get because I’m a raw beginner at this.

Andrew

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There is some information on helmet cam video at Pete Fagerlin’s Video How To. Note the nice big wide angle lens he has on the camera at the top of the page.

Pete has some neat MTB videos on his site. Most of his videos are helmet cam and bike cam shots.

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I havn’t checked out any of the software that comes with my camera yet, but it looks like you can spend a lot of money buying all the adobe products to make a killer DVD. Just Adobe Premier is $700. Then with all the coll add ons you could be in the $2,000 range. Hope I can make do with a lot less.

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Thanks for another helpful link John. My camera can accept additional lenses which is great. It also has one of those hot shoes things for mics, etc.

Does anybody know of any free programs for making DVD’s? If I’m making a VCD I’ll use VirtualDub because it’s easy and I already have it but I would like to make a DVD. It just depends on whether or not our new computer will have a DVD burner.

Andrew

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Camera Angles (continued)…

Yesterday Tony and I did our last day of some really fun riding and filming. We did quite a few following shots which turned out really well. One was down a long set of irregular steps with me following on foot (a wide angle lens would help for these ones). The other main one was down single track with me following on the uni. That was good fun and although (and maybe because) I didn’t always keep the camera steady you could get a good idea of what it was like to ride. I followed Tony over little jumps/drops and down steepish bits and had a great time. We also did one shot where I filmed Tony riding in towards me then followed him once he’d passed me.

I also rode the steepest section of track I have in my life. It looked okay on film but didn’t quite do it justice in my opinion. I couldn’t ride the section on my muni because it didn’t hae a brake so I borrowed Tony’s. I want a brake now! I’ve realised that there’s so much more I could be riding.

I also fell off down a steep bit and had a stick wedge itself right into the side of my shoe.

Andrew

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oh,

i have adobe premier and i just downloaded it off Kazaa. FOR FREE , thats how were gunna make our new movie comin out soon.

justin.

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Wayne van Wijk suggested something to me that I think is a very good idea. I was talking to him about making things look as steep as they really are and he said if you keep the camera still and let the rider move around within the shot rather than having him or her in the center the whole time you get a better idea of how steep it is. I’m going to try this next time I film something. It sounds like a great idea to me. That way you can see how far they descend with each pedal stroke a little more clearly. Just thought you’d like to know.

If you have any similar tips, please let us all know. It could only result in more entertaining movies to watch.

Andrew

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We’re about to get a fancy new computer which is very exciting. I just want to check that it will have a Firewire port thingy. I’ve heard that most new computers do have them as a standard feature but I couldn’t tell if this one does. Also, will my Sony DV cable (I think they call it iLink) be compatible with any Firewire port?

This is what we will most likely get -------> http://www-605.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=33013199&storeId=036&langId=036&categoryId=8666534&dualCurrId=89&catalogId=-36

Thanks a lot,
Andrew

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Firewire, iLink, and IEEE 1394 are three names for the same thing. It doesn’t look like that IBM computer has an IEEE 1394 port. You can add an IEEE 1394 card after you buy the computer, but it’s easier if it comes with it unless you like plugging in new cards and installing drivers.

Don’t forget about the need for lots of hard disk storage. You should get a second hard drive with lots of space. 100 GB or more.

And a DVD writer would also be good. You’ll want to be able to save your work in process video and finished video to something for backup. Most files will be too big to fit on a CD-ROM so a DVD writer would be highly desirable.

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So 80GB isn’t enough? What about when Universe and similar movies were being made? They wouldn’t have had much space then to work with would they?

The one that we will most likely be getting does have a DVD writer. How much can you fit on a DVD?

Thanks,
Andrew

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A DVD disk will hold 4.7 GB.

Something else to look at is to check if they fill up all of the memory slots. Manufacturers often fill up all of the memory slots which means that if/when you want to upgrade the memory you are forced to throw out the old memory. It is better for you if they leave a slot open so you can more easily upgrade to more memory later. 512 MB would be the minimum I’d get for a new computer that you intend to use for video editing.

80 GB isn’t a lot, especially when you have to share that space with the operating system files, internet cache files, and other miscellaneous files. Video files can get very big.

I have a 100 GB drive that I have dedicated to data storage and video editing and such. Consider that a video capture of Universe 1 takes up 25 GB when compressed with HuffYUV and you’ll see that you will occasionally need lots of extra space for temporary data files.

I think what Dan did for Universe 1 is to use the DV tape as storage. Copy some video to the HD, edit it into a finished segment, copy that finished segment back to DV tape, and then clean off the HD to make room for editing the next segment. At the end it would all be put together.

You could get by with a tiny little 80 GB drive, but more would be better. It’s also nice to have a completely separate drive (or at least a separate partition) for your big data files (like video files) because it is easier to manage that free space when it isn’t shared with OS files and other miscellaneous files.

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Oh, and another reason to use a second dedicated drive is that it is better setup for video capture. The dedicated drive won’t get bogged down with doing file access for the OS which means fewer dropped frames when doing a video capture from DV or any other source. For example, if the OS decides that it needs to access the swap file or write some other data to disk, it won’t affect the video capture because the video capture because the video is being captured to a completely different drive.

Take a look at the recommended system requirements for Adobe Premiere. They recommend a dedicated 7200 RPM drive for DV capture.

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Andrew,

Optical Devices
Floppy diskette size 3.5" 1.44 MB
Optical Drive Type DVD Recordable *********
Interface Type EIDE
DVD Speed 4X Max

Looks like it comes with DVD R

Doesn’t look like you come with IEEE 1284 I just got one today for 36 bucks including the wire. Have been playing with the WIndows Movie 2 software and it looks pretty easy to use. I was just using some Christmas Video I had. Nothing amazing, but I was having fun.

Expansion options
Slots x bays total (free) 4(2) x 5(2)
Parallel Port Type 1 (IEEE 1284)
Planar Expansion Port Type 2 USB 2.0 (front), 6 USB 2.0 (back), External Display, External microphone (front), Headphone/line out (front), Keyboard, Line in, Mouse, Parallel, RJ-11, RJ-45, Serial
Expansion Bus

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Thanks guys…this is scary! I’ll probably invest in a 120GB extra hard drive in a little while. Are they very difficult to set up? Does it work in the same way as ‘C:’ does (would it become an F: or something)? It does make a lot of sense to do things your way.

I did another whole day of filming today and got some cool stuff including a reverse suicide mount where the uni sits freely in place on a sandwich board and I run up, jump off another sandwich board, spin 180 degrees, land, and hop backwards off. I also found a nice rail that’s about 6m long, round, and 2cm in diameter. I got half way along…it’s now a big goal of mine.

I’ll post some more teasers soon.

Thanks,
Andrew

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I discovered two things today…

  1. If you’re using a digital camera with a touch screen, the remote control is very handy. Although the touch screen is great in my opinion it’s good to know that there’s another option if you don’t want ot get the screen fingerprinty.

  2. With the program I’m using (Image Mixer Version 1.5 for Sony) you can capture things in slow motion by pressing slow motion on the camera while it’s capturing it. You can also pause, fast forward, etc in the same way. I found this really handy.

Hope that helps somebody.

Andrew

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The disk drives come with step by step instructions for installing them. It’s straight forward for the most part.

Windows 2000/XP have a utility called Disk Management where you can select the drive letter that you want for the new drive. After the new drive is formatted it will show up as a new drive letter. You can change the drive letter using the Disk Managment utility. I like the hard disks to be the low letters like C, D, E and the CD and DVD drive to be high letters like X, Y. My Zip drive is Z.

The Disk Management utility is also where you format the new drive.