Tilt Shift

I like to tinker, if you couldn’t tell.  So when I saw the intro to Sherlock I wanted to replicate it.  You can either buy a very expensive lens with fancy knobs or you can replicate it in After Effects.  I am not so apt at After Effects that I want to make masks and blur areas that I select.  If poorly executed it looks kind of stupid.  From the samples that I found that were flawed I can see two major things that will help make it believable.  The first is the angle; you cannot be on level with the subject and expect it to look right.  The second is the lens; you want your lens to be fairly wide.  With these considerations I figured I could not get it right and kind of set the idea aside.  Then I discovered that my Nikon d5100 has a miniaturize feature.  I tested it from a campus parking garage and have linked the video below.  I was pretty pleased with the result of the camera doing the blurring for me.

High Street Miniature test from Nicolette Swift on Vimeo.

Smallest Cameras and Ultra Portable Power

After my Sphere camera quit – yes, it was only briefly resurrected – I needed something with portable battery power or multiple cameras.  I was looking for a solution that would give me up to 5 hours of camera power so that I could do my walking videos in one day.  First goal was to get another camera like my original Muvi knock off.  I decided not to make the upgrade to HD at this time because almost all of the small “spy” type cameras that handle HD seem to have a fisheye lens.  While I liked that about the Sphere, it had removable lenses.  I can’t have a wide angle when I’m trying to cut out cars and people that I encounter during my city walks.  So I’ve committed to another Muvi knock off.  Amazon had it cataloged as the exact model that I already had.  That was wrong.  This has buttons, not switches.  It is plastic, not metal and it seems to have a higher resolution.  The image appears to match fairly well so I’m least concerned about the resolution. The battery power for my first camera seems to last anywhere from 45-60 minutes.  Another camera with the same duration is not going to get me my 4-5 hours.  While my Brick o’ Power would work, I need this to be light something I can carry for the whole walk.  I decided on an AA battery cylinder that has a USB out.  The name brand seemed like the way to go and I was super excited to try it, but then I found a kit on Amazon; a portable HD camera by HDE with a cheap battery cylinder. I was game for testing both. I can carry several batteries and the spare camera in my pocket. My test was on Dayton.  The battery power worked great if only the new camera wasn’t so easy to bump on.  I only captured one hour of footage before I ran into problems and in an attempt to salvage my project I even tried the HD camera.  The problem with the HD camera is that it does not have a clip to fasten it to my armband.  This meant that I was carrying it in my palm and couldn’t attach it to my leg or my forearm.  I plan to build a bag for it that will thread through my armband.  That footage is even a bust because it was impossible to tell if it was recording.  You have to hold down the record button and make the light flash and that is the only way that you know that it is recording.  I ended up going to a coffee shop to charge my cameras, but Dayton was basically a bust. The second test was in Allentown.  I made sure that all cameras were charged and powered off.  I even double checked the new camera to make sure it didn’t get bumped.  Everything was a success both cameras lasted long enough and the battery did its job charging the camera I used first.  I was able to shoot the whole town in one day.  I was also able to recreate this same result in Youngstown, despite being caught in the rain.  I think I have my solution for making these pieces happen as quickly as possible.

Social Networking Running a Little Leaner…

  In this world of excess even I joined in on the excess.   Can I join EVERY social network?  I tried, for one purpose in 2007, to review their ability to handle online video.  The one that worked the best was Divx, hands down, but they cut hosting pretty early on.  My second choice was Myspace.  Ah, Myspace, I despise you, I make art film and you caught my 10 second fair use of The Cure.  I think at this point I’m forever banned from uploading video.  The worst, in 2007, was Youtube – their limit on length was short and the quality paled in comparison to even Yahoo.  I even had a Friendster for 10 minutes; until I discovered that I couldn’t upload video.  All this info was supposed to, or maybe it did, go into a massive school project, but it was way out of date before I even started.  Somewhere, in the back of my brain, lurks the true winner – with dust and cobwebs encasing it.  When I am 80 I will randomly start shouting, Blip, Yahoo, Bebo, damn you Myspace.  For now I am staring at a gaggle of unused social networking sites, cringing at the memory of the creeps on Badoo, and trying to decide what I still have – what I deleted and what is left to delete.  Even more importantly, why do I not have a Flixster account?  And Twitter, oh, twitter I’m too wordy for you.  My tweets end up reading like “(grunt) watch now oonga booga me from past”.  Yet Facebook and Twitter are everywhere.  For now, I am watching a proliferating number of my friends leave Facebook.  I hate it.  I don’t even post video there.  I mean that really is the only reason to social network – to post MY video everywhere.  And, getting back to Twitter, it won’t let me do that.

Before I start this mass delete let me review what is gone:  Broadcaster, Bahu, Imeem, Motionbox, Vox, Livevideo, Orkut, Vod:Pod, Jumpcut, Capazoo, Sharkle – does anyone else feel like I’m speaking gibberish?  As for what I still have; who uses Bebo, Xanga, Fotki anymore?  Hi5, do I have a Hi5?  Oh my, this is going to be messy.  To make what I have meaningful before I delete, I am planning one last upload.  If it still works I may keep it.  So I begin with a 5 minute, 200 mb, mp4.  The only test is on the site’s codec – it is an intensely motion heavy piece that makes codecs cry.  Our failures: Xanga failed to even upload a millisecond.  Fotki was promising “now upload your video”… if you pay…  Sorry I’d pay for Vimeo first.  Vod:Pod, now Lockerz, wants to be Pinterest but with some confusing monitary aspect and you still can’t upload video.  Bebo, I have to embed from Youtube.  Flickr has a 90 second limit.  Blip has become a webisode submission platform (save for future reference).  Gather has 100 mb limit.  IMVU… what was I thinking?  Phanfare now costs.

Our successes and I use this term lightly:  Photobucket, ok so your codec destroyed the quality and now my video looks like a cartoon.  Taltopia, yeah it worked it looks ok, but who uses this?  Myspace, it let me upload hmm.  Facebook, yeah it passes too.

Next time I will look at the ones that passed a little closer.  In the meantime I will be deleting the rest.