Solved Wish You Were Here

Hi everyone,

I am working on a personal project that I am calling, ‘Wish You Were Here’ and I thought I would share it with the MSZ Community to get some feedback.

Basically, I put a video camera on my car(I'm a genius, right?) and drove down Lakeshore Drive in Chicago. The idea is that I am going to drive up and down Lakeshore Drive a few times, or until I get pulled over, to get video of the Skyline. I want to make a short(<5 mins) video to share with my family when I go home for Christmas.

My first attempt came out a little better than I hoped so I am cautiously optimistic I can get enough footage to put something together, although I am the first to admit that I don’t have a clue as to what the final version is supposed to be.

My intention is to share the project, start to finish, with the MSZ Community – I hope that it might give some people ideas in as much as I hope that people will share their ideas with me.

So without further ado……



***Note: I meant to upload a video without sound, but apparently that is not what happened, so I strongly suggest you mute the volume before playing.***

This is the ‘good parts’ of the first attempt, unprocessed. If the weather cooperates, I am going to try and get more video this weekend with a slightly different setup. Then begins my first tentative steps towards editing(shudder).

All comments and/or questions are welcome and suggestions even more so.

Thanks,

Greg

Hi Greg

A few initial thoughts on a nice steady bit of shooting.

Even if the final video will only have audio consisting of music and/ or speech, some ambient sounds would be desirable. The mic can be inside the car, which will take care of the wind noise.

When you go under a bridge or road sign the auto focus and auto exposure get confused. It would be best to disable them.

I think you have to decide if it is a shoot of skies only. If not, I would suggest the camera needs to be titled down a little, just so we can see a little more of the surroundings.

As you've said, this shoot is highly weather dependant, so I wish you good luck. Of course Vegas will allow you to enhance those nice dusk/ sunset shots.

48snapper,

Thanks for your suggestion about the Autofocus! I ddin't even think of that.

Can you explain a little more about the ambient noise suggestion? My plan is to use music with the video, but it sounds like I should keep a little bit of car/road noise from the source video as well? Is this for ascetics or to enhance the experience of watching the video(the 'feels like I'm really there' effect)? I am thinking about Hyperlasping the video, or at least portions of it so will that still work?

Unfortunately the original camera setup didn't give me a lot of options on the angle, but I am working on a new set up that should be a little less like craning your neck on a tour bus. I MIGHT even risk trying out my DSLR with the new setup since I have a lovely wide angle lens I think would work pretty well, but I am going to try out the new set up on my Handycam first to make sure its safe. It should give me a more horizontal shot.

The weather is not cooperating so looks like I have some time to prepare for my next shoot - thanks again for your suggestions!

Greg

Hi Greg

I must confess I had no idea about the term Hyperlasping. According to Wikipedia:

"The cinematic method of time-lapse, an accelerated view of real-time, is supplemented with an additional spatial component. The camera is typically aimed at an exactly defined fixed point on which it rotates around, while being moved over large distances."

If you are strictly doing the above I don't feel in would work, as the camera can't be looking at the same fixed point. But it may be you have a different version of the technique in mind.

As for the audio, I just feel it is unnatural to simply have music only. Adding a little ambient sound increases realism and puts the viewer right there in the car. For the time-lapse type sequences the music (without being too corny) should perhaps be a little brighter and livelier.

48snapper

I like your idea.

Along with the suggestion of lowering the camera, since you are willing to make multiple runs, have the camera shooting high, low, left, right and behind you then edit them together overlapping the clips so that they fade into each other. Perhaps use a screen capture to create a 'freeze frame' & highlight particular points of interest. Getting a nice sunset along with city lights would really be beautiful too IMHO.

Keep us up to speed on your progress!

K

BTW, here is a good idea for a car mount...



K

Happy New Year Everybody!!!

Apologies for not updating sooner, but that's how it goes sometimes.

The story so far.....

I was able to get some more footage and piece together something to show the family at Christmas. It's ok, not great but its a starting point. Anyway, check it out here:



This was all 'one shot' since using footage from different outings didn't seem to work out so well. This was also about my fifth attempt to get footage since I had more than a few issues with subsequent attempts. Seriously, how many times has this happened to you: you have an idea that seems good, you try it on a whim with no preparation and it works out ok, so you make these big grandiose plans and then the next 2 or 3 times you try it everything goes bonkers??? Sorry, I'm better now.

Anyway, like I said, this is all footage from the same continuous shot on the same day. I used Vegas' native stabilization tool and it came out pretty good, all things considered. In the next iteration I'm going to try removing 'problem' frames to see if I can make it smoother so we'll see how that goes. Also, my folks are HUGE Frank Sinatra fans so that's what's up with that. I have some musician friends who said they might help me 'score' later versions, but one thing at a time. I don't know if it's me, but using the audio from the camera is really grating and distracting for me, so for now I am planning to replace all audio with music of some kind.

So that is the state of the project so far. I am hoping to get another(successful) shot in the near future and get it posted ASAP.

Thanks again for everybody's comments and suggestions!

Greg