Archive for the 'country' Category Page 2 of 3

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Kate’s first videoblog post

Published by
Rupert
on November 11, 2007 in Kate, NaBloPoMo, NaVloPoMo, amy, country, family, just a moment, movlog, rupert, toddler and vlog.

17 Comments - click here to join the fun

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

I handed the camera to Kate today. We were in Burnham Beeches, just outside London (map/satphoto). The colours are incredible this year. Another thing I’ll miss in evergreen Vancouver Island.

I was trying to persuade her to sing her song The Falling of the Leaves (a Yeats poem she set to music – you can hear it on her Myspace page) so that I could use it as a soundtrack for the other moments I shot all around the woods. But this is better.

I think I’m going to give her the camera more often.

Alternative file types:
Quicktime / Flash (click to play if player above doesn’t work)

Amy in Wonderland – silent moving snapshot

Published by
Rupert
on November 10, 2007 in Canada, NaBloPoMo, NaVloPoMo, amy, country, lumierevideo, moving snapshot, toddler and vlog.

7 Comments - click here to join the fun

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

NB – THIS HAS NO SOUND

—–

I said it before, I’ll say it again. I hate technology. I’m thinking of going Amish.

I’ve tried to upload this twice yesterday/today.

I’ve been away from the internet this weekend. Shocking, but true. Just testing out the Amish thing.

Anyway, here it is. I shot it in Canada in August, in the woods along Long Beach on Vancouver Island (map/satphoto). I usually shoot a lot of still photos on holiday. This time, I shot a lot of moving snapshots, only one or two of which I’ve published so far. Basically, I just experimented with keeping the camera still and shooting a movie instead of a still. Slightly different compositions from what I’d choose for photos, but you see what I mean. I was frequently surprised by what would unfold within the frame in the minute or so I kept the camera running – plus you get the extra dimensions of moving light, and sound (though not here). Futuristic holiday snaps.

This isn’t a Lumiere, strictly speaking, because it’s not under 60 seconds long, but I’ve muted it anyway because (in this case) I wanted to leave space for you to imagine the sound of a forest on the edge of the Pacific, and to imagine what’s being said and thought.

You can re-read Alice’s encounter with a mushroom here:

Alternative video files:
Quicktime / Flash

This is Red Five; I’m going in!

Published by
Rupert
on November 8, 2007 in NaBloPoMo, NaVloPoMo, country, cut to music, movlog and vlog.

22 Comments - click here to join the fun

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

This is one of the things I’m going to miss most about England when I go to Canada.

I shot this on Monday in Devon, on the way back from Kate’s dad’s cottage to the station in the nearest town. 20 minutes of death star taxi adrenaline. I was wondering what I should do with it until I saw Gogen’s NaVloPoMo Day 7 video of his drive back home through his town at night, set to music. Then I realised I’d secretly known all along what to do with it. NaVloPoMo is full of people responding to and being inspired by other people’s videos. Organic video conversations. I love it.

And I love how – when cutting quickly to music – you can find and take advantage of chance interactions between image and soundtrack.

It feels good to finally add the score for real, since when I’m actually driving at high speed along single lane country roads, this is *always* what I’m singing to myself in my head. And if I’m driving and there’s nobody else in the car, maybe perhaps sometimes I might even possibly have been known to sing it out loud. Maybe even quite loud. Especially the bit that kicks in after he turns off the tracking computer. It’s like being 11 again!

Alternative video formats:
Quicktime / Flash (click if above video doesn’t play)

Trip on the ferry to Dartmouth

Published by
Rupert
on November 4, 2007 in Kate, amy, country, family, just a moment, movlog and rupert.

16 Comments - click here to join the fun

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

Just some moments from a trip down the river yesterday.

It’s a funny thing – I probably wouldn’t post this if it weren’t for NaVloPoMo. Because it’s aspiring to be something it’s not.

I wanted to do NaVloPoMo because I thought it’d make me feel more comfortable posting just *anything* without judging it too much. I wonder whether it’s having the opposite effect. Seeing all the amazing things other people are posting has made me dissatisfied with the kind of stuff I’m doing with this phone.

It’s made me realise that I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with my mobile phone’s aesthetic limitations. It shoots good *resolution* for a phone but I don’t really like the colours, the contrast, the *character* of the video it makes.

So while it’s great for capturing personal human moments and posting them in the moment, without frills, it’s not so good for taking moving snapshots of *things* that I see and want to photograph. The images just look flat, and dull.

I know that making things on my phone has got me making things and posting more often, which is great. And the aesthetic limitation has stopped me getting too hung up about what I make, which is also great.

But in NaVloPoMo I wanted to post a whole load of different types of films up, and some of them just won’t work with this phone. I want to start playing with a proper camera again.

And the truth is, I haven’t got time to. It’s already causing tension at home, the amount of time I’m spending at my computer for NaVloPoMo – and all I’ve posted are simple single-shot nothingy little snapshots. The time spent cutting the San Francisco film last week and this film today are just *too much*.

So I guess I’m stuck with my phone and its boring image quality. And that’s what I’ve got to work with this month. That’s my challenge. Fight the aspirational demons that tell me that you’re all making more interesting videos than me. Fuck it. Just post stuff. And talk. Create and connect. Kill the artist. :)

And yeah, yeah, I know… a bad workman blames his tools…

File types: Quicktime I Flash

Lumiere: Deliverance

Published by
Rupert
on November 3, 2007 in NaVloPoMo, country, just a moment, lumierevideo and rupert.

12 Comments - click here to join the fun

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

(Lumiere films have no sound, are 60 seconds or less, have a fixed camera position – see http://videoblogging.info/lumiere for more information)

This was shot and cut on my Nokia N93 phone. Not bad, for a phone.

I hate London.
Iím in Devon, staying at my father-in-lawís house on the River Dart.
This is a Lumiere that I shot when I was out in a boat with him earlier this evening. This is him, rowing. I’d love to share with you the sound of the oar, the boat and the water, but you’ll have to imagine it. Apart from anything else, what he was saying is unbroadcastable.

Earlier in the day, we went to Dartmouth on the ferry. I shot 120 clips, and cut them together as a little moving slideshow. But then I forgot my own rules, and cut them in Final Cut Pro instead of something quick & easy like my phone or Quicktime. It didn’t improve the quality of the finished product at all, I don’t think – and I forgot to compress it before I went out for a drunken dinner. So now here I am at 11.45, with the video still stuck compressing and my Day 3 deadline unachievable.

So it’s lucky I shot this Lumiere. In some ways, I prefer it to the video I was going to post.

I’ll post the Dartmouth trip video as soon as it’s done – which will be after midnight – and so maybe I’ll even end up posting 2 videos tomorrow. Or maybe not. There’s no need to show off, is there?

As I finish writing this, it’s 23:58 and the video is just about to finish uploading at Blip. Jesus. 23:59. Copied and pasted. Here we go.

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »