So I hung a lavalier mic and a round webcam – with a $10 USB extension cord – from a nail in the eaves and waited.  Eventually a couple of the eggs hatched and the show began.  While blackbirds typically have multiple broods per season, August is quite late.  Then again it has been pretty warm.

The only problem with my setup was that the power switch for the microphone was up high, so I needed a ladder to switch it on – which scared away the adult birds.  So I ended up doing most of the video captures without sound.  I did manage to get a pretty long piece when they were feeding – that was cool.  But in the end I managed to get a little every day, and capture how the little birds gradually start trying to get out of the nest.  Blackbirds typically spend a week or so on the ground before they can fly, and the adults (typically the male) continue to feed them until they can fly properly.  I got good shots of both adults feeding the young, as well as some nest-cleaning activity.

In the end, what would I do differently?  Besides getting a better webcam, that is (some of the shots were blurry due to frame rate and auto-focus not reacting quickly enough).

- Clear away enough leaves so that the camera gets a clear shot.  I fixed this partway through.

- Find a place for the camera so that you (a) get enough light but (b) don’t have a lot of backlight.  Had I chosen a better angle, there would have been better detail on the nest itself.

The trick with this kind of photo/videography is patience.  I was lucky to have a place where the camera could be out of the elements, but hanging up there on a ladder screwing a hook into hard wood, you have to be willing to try the shot and then move the camera if it doesn’t work.  Oh well, there’s always next season.  The result?

• The importance of using a tripod applies underwater.  If you “chase” fish (as I did) the effect is the same as it would be above water.
• Lighting is as important underwater – if not more so.  Film in shallow water (unless you have a fancy-schmancy underwater spotlight) and when it’s sunny.  Keep the sun behind you if possible so it illuminates the fish
• Everything will have a blue tint, even though it looked normal underwater.  Use a video editing program that allows you to take out some of the blue, and enhance some of the reds and browns – while still making it clear you’re underwater (i.e. leave some of the blue)
• Find some kind of music that captures that underwater “feeling”…I found this particularly difficult.  See my earlier post on finding legal music.

Here’s what I came up with.  Feedback?  Ideas on doing it better?

‘Central casting’ at AdLit.org and Reading Rockets is looking for young, creative writers and filmmakers to participate in our Exquisite Prompt “Write It, Film It” Video Contest. Here’s your chance to flex your scriptwriting and film director muscles! We can’t promise a stroll down the red carpet on Oscar night, but we can promise a chance to win fabulous prizes and 15 minutes of fame on YouTube. Open to kids ages 7-18.

The site offers seven prompts the kids can choose from – basically a video assignment or challenge – and they have to write a script and produce a 3 minute video that meets the guidelines.  This is a great idea because it requires a bit of research, creative thinking, writing, and the most fun part – shooting and editing a video.  Hurry though – it ends Aug 30!

But you have to be all the more careful about the frames you choose to keep, without compromising your end product.  Personally I find it difficult to cut away material – I want to share everything.  But sometimes it’s fun to make your audience work a little to get your message.  Or just let the audience determine its own message.

So what’s the message in this “short”?

Just these few frames make me think about a lot of different things.  I won’t share them – you can come up with your own.

To see it in context, here is the longer video from which this is taken.

Technology has brought the internet to 2 billion people, and a standard of living resulting in about 2-4 hours of spare time per day for most of those same people.  There are any number of things they could be doing in that phenomenal amount of human capacity and collaboration that has become available.  Some spend their time solving man’s most vexing problems; others simply consume content – this falls somewhere in between.  I’m fascinated both by how they managed to manipulate the original file to produce a pretty decent song, and how they are marketing this through a variety of means so that it may ultimately result in….something that may do someone some good.

I’m thinking if most submissions come from people with lives like mine, this is going to be one boring documentary…but, hey!  It’s a documentary – what do you expect?

Here’s the promo video.  Check out http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday for the details!   And don’t forget to charge that camera!!

Needless to say, it didn’t arrive on time.  Then the on-board catalog offered a waterproof digital video camera, which I bought instead, but that turned out to be a non-functioning piece of cr@p (I know, I should have known but I was desperate at this point).  By the way, if you ever buy something like this aboard Jet Air, don’t expect to get a refund.  They tell you to write the airline and the company, and in this case, neither responded.

DON’T BUY THIS CAMERA!!

Anyway, we had to make do with the standard underwater “single use” still cameras you get at beach resorts.  We tried out a couple of different ones and found the best results from this model, which is not a single-use camera like the others, but is instead an inexpensive camera that loads standard 35mm film.  If you find yourself looking for an inexpensive way to capture underwater scenes, look for one of these, and buy the fastest speed film you can – 400 or 800 – and make sure it has flash capability.  In general, underwater photos seem to always look dingier than than they looked in real life, and the flash makes a big difference.  Try and get as close as you can to your subject, and I suggest using the flash for every shot.  Even with this camera, I found myself doing a lot of adjusting afterward (increasing the contrast and saturation, and filtering out some of the blue) but I think, given what we spent, still managed to get decent results.

THIS KESTON UNDERWATER CAMERA WITH FLASH PERFORMED BEST!

I strung together our best photos in a video slideshow, which you can check out below.  For fun, I added a parallax effect on a few of them (more about that in a previous post)

We hope to try out the Flip and its waterproof cover in a couple of weeks when we head to Crete – stay tuned!

Videomaker is proud to announce its first training webinar: Advanced Editing

One of the best parts of editing video is getting to see the pieces of your story come together in a way that enhances the moment you’re trying to capture. This webinar will cover topics that will help you do exactly that. You’ll learn techniques such as time remapping, advanced trimming, multi-camera editing and more.
Length: 1 hour.

Techniques covered:

• Correcting Mistakes
• Condensing Time
• Pacing
• Motivated Edits
• Stylizing
• Polishing the Edit
• Video Filters and Color Effects
• Compositing
• Multi-Camera Editing
• Editing Dialogue – Sound Effects – Music
• Encoding and Output 

 

 
Apparently it will a series of rotating / repeating topics. If I give a try, I’ll let you know what I think.
 

So what does every story need?  It needs a plot, with a beginning, middle and end.  You’ve got to introduce the story in a way that piques interest, by creating an environment, sketching out interesting characters, or describing a situation.  Preferably you’ll do all three – providing the setting, one or more characters, and a mood.  In video, you’ve got the added benefit of using music, sound and lighting to make up for the pages of text you are prevented from including.

Next, you have to create rising action.  The situation gets more complicated, and the first inklings of a problem or conflict begin to develop.  Eventually there is a climax, and the problem resolves in some way, and everything gets wrapped up.  And then you need some kind of theme to weave into the whole story – what’s the overall message?  Is there a teaching point, or something you’d like to communicate with the entire story?  A moral?

If you think about every movie you’ve ever watched, you’ll see these elements, and you could probably add a whole lot more detail.  There’s a certain formula.  There are cultural differences – I think American films all tend to wrap up in a satisfying way – good triumphs over evil – whereas in European films you might be in for a rude surprise.  I’ll let you decide why that is.  And I’ve noticed Central Asian films all tend to end somewhat abruptly for my taste – i.e. you decide how it ends.

So I thought I’d give it a try myself.  It seems easy enough – all the same elements as the story your grade-school teachers taught you to write – only it’s on video.  But just like its stubby-pencil equivalent, it’s more difficult than it seems.  What made it more tricky was the fact that the story was being filmed as it happened, and I intended to package it into its parts later.  But that also meant that depending on how the events unfolded, I would be unable to go back and capture footage that would be more appropriate to my story.

I started filming the story of five fledgling birds that ended up in our courtyard.  Though none of them could fly – which we already found odd and of concern, one of the five was much smaller than the others.  So the question was, “Do we intervene or not?”  It was only after the real-life story played out that I did the research to figure out that these were blackbirds, and they are not supposed to fly for their first week out of the nest.

As the saying goes, “if I had known then what I know now”, the footage would have been different.  But this is what I ended up with, in case you’re curious. Like always, suggestions, complaints and gripes always welcome.

I had only had it a few weeks, and after verifying that the electronics still worked fine, I contacted Flip, and was told “sorry, we don’t repair that part of the camera”.  In retrospect, I should have asked, if not that, then what?  It seems like one of the easiest to break – and repair.

So I carefully removed the broken glass (fingernails or a toothpick or maybe a small nail or push pin will get you started – it’s really thin) and simply went down to my local watch repair store.  They found a perfect match which lies flat on the 2mm edge.  Cost me about ten bucks.   But they’ll probably tell you that you have to mount it yourself.  And here’s the important part:  like me, you’ll probably be tempted to use super glue.  DON’T.  For any glue that fumes like super glue, the fumes get trapped inside the space between the real lens and the “watch crystal”, leaving a film on all the surfaces, to include the glass.  Instead, use a non-fuming epoxy, and try to avoid getting too much glue under the lens, sticking to the edges if possible.  Don’t worry, you have about 3 mm room for error along the edges of the watch glass.  Voila!  Ten bucks and you’re back in business.

I’m still waiting for a response from @FlipVideoBrand on Twitter.  I’m not sure they’ve figured out the Twitter thing yet.