The little adventure season has started again! Tails from Northumberland.

[Trailhawk]

Hi all, 

 

After a bit of a break from little adventures, its time to get back in the Trailhawk saddle and head out to 'them thar' hills again.

A gentle start in the rolling Northumberland countryside to get us going...quite a few fords, so, having read with some angst and alarm, the trials and tribulations of @Caroline12 duck dunking (glad to see you're all up and running again BTW), I took the precautions of bringing my own depthygaugingometer with me (also known as Mrs TH in some wellies!)

 

Hope you enjoy! 

 

 

[Caroline12]

9 hours ago, Trailhawk said:

Hi all, 

 

After a bit of a break from little adventures, its time to get back in the Trailhawk saddle and head out to 'them thar' hills again.

A gentle start in the rolling Northumberland countryside to get us going...quite a few fords, so, having read with some angst and alarm, the trials and tribulations of @Caroline12 duck dunking (glad to see you're all up and running again BTW), I took the precautions of bringing my own depthygaugingometer with me (also known as Mrs TH in some wellies!)

 

Hope you enjoy! 

 

 

That looks a great day out, I’m glad you have your Depthygaugingometer with you Duck dunking is really not a nice experience, up and running ready for Slindon

great video, loved it

[Trailhawk]

Apologies for those looking for a classic TH pun to do with something stinking out the back end of the jeep. I did of course mean to say "Tales" not "Tails". But I suppose maybe it gives me an idea for a future vid.

Hope there (their?) are no English Teachers (Teacher's?) on the forum reading this.

TH

[JimC]

This is one great film

[V]

Superb work again. You should start a thread discussing how you make them, the kit you use, post production etc. I used to spend a lot of time shooting off road footage years ago on analogue Hi-8 then edit on Adobe Premiere. I was spending more time shooting video than driving and the same at family events. I decided one day I would rather be part of what's happening than the bystander and didn't touch a camera for years. It's a lot different now with miniature digital recording devices. I can just switch them on and forget for as long as the battery lasts.

 

I've recently bought a clone GoPro, a few U3 cards and a few more mount bases. Depending on how my test footage turns out, I may buy another in a few weeks. I don't have a drone yet, but I would be interested in one with a follow-me mode. I will be doing all my editing using Kdenlive and Audacity mostly on FreeBSD/ZFS. I've just bought a 1080p dashcam for my Android head unit which actually gives reasonable results. Sadly, I can't switch off the coordinates and speed overlay on it. If I need any footage from that camera (to benefit from windscreen wipers) I will have to use a 'letterbox' filter on the frames to cut out the overlay. For handheld shots I will just use my ancient iPhone6.

[Deniz]

Great piece of film @Trailhawk, love the quality and the story start. Put a bit of voice and then you have a trailer  

[Trailhawk]

18 hours ago, V said:

Superb work again. You should start a thread discussing how you make them, the kit you use, post production etc. I used to spend a lot of time shooting off road footage years ago on analogue Hi-8 then edit on Adobe Premiere. I was spending more time shooting video than driving and the same at family events. I decided one day I would rather be part of what's happening than the bystander and didn't touch a camera for years. It's a lot different now with miniature digital recording devices. I can just switch them on and forget for as long as the battery lasts.

 

I've recently bought a clone GoPro, a few U3 cards and a few more mount bases. Depending on how my test footage turns out, I may buy another in a few weeks. I don't have a drone yet, but I would be interested in one with a follow-me mode. I will be doing all my editing using Kdenlive and Audacity mostly on FreeBSD/ZFS. I've just bought a 1080p dashcam for my Android head unit which actually gives reasonable results. Sadly, I can't switch off the coordinates and speed overlay on it. If I need any footage from that camera (to benefit from windscreen wipers) I will have to use a 'letterbox' filter on the frames to cut out the overlay. For handheld shots I will just use my ancient iPhone6.

Thanks V. 

I may well do a 'making of' at some point as an excuse to create another video! ( If others would be interested please let me know )

Glad you mentioned the whole "am I doing a thing to make a video or making a video of us doing the thing?" because it's hard to do both...especially if you have others in tow. 

You almost have to do things twice - once to enjoy the drive/adventure and one to make the film. On this trip, Mrs TH came along (someone has to depth test the fords) so it's a bit unfair to be stopping to get the drone out, position cameras etc etc and of course it breaks up the experience. So actually was a bit short of footage / camera views this time!

Basically I enjoy both the video bit and the adventure bit but struggle to both at the same time .

 

Sounds like you have some good kit - my main advice (if you want it!) is to mix up all the points of view...ideally inside, outside moving and fixed. About 4 secs of each is plenty. But its blumen hard work, especially if you're on your own! And of course others will disagree and much prefer something different. Such is art so just do what makes you happy in the end!!!

 

Thanks for watching and look forward to seeing your movies!

 

TH

 

 

[Trailhawk]

9 hours ago, Deniz said:

Great piece of film @Trailhawk, love the quality and the story start. Put a bit of voice and then you have a trailer  

Thanks Deniz, haven't quite succumbed to the voice over part yet. May enlist a voice double / ghost narrator in the future!

[spookie the aardvark]

Yet again another awesome video of "puppies" out playing , absolutly loved it

[V]

40 minutes ago, Trailhawk said:

Sounds like you have some good kit

 

I guess proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I received one camera as a birthday gift and bought the other afterwards. I would like one with Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS). They look like clones of a GoPro Hero3 but cheap enough to mount under my Jeep for in-cab spotting on my Android head unit via wifi. I can't really justify spending money on cameras at the moment when I have axles to build up, but your videos and those of others have inspired me to get back into making shorts.

[V]

1 hour ago, Trailhawk said:

my main advice (if you want it!) is to mix up all the points of view...ideally inside, outside moving and fixed. About 4 secs of each is plenty. But its blumen hard work, especially if you're on your own!

 

Your composition of shots is very good. So good, that I wondered if you had done a story board beforehand so you knew exactly what you needed to capture. If it was all done ad-hoc you certainly have a knack for getting good material.

 

I haven't done any editing in a long time, but I usually found that I would always be short of a sequence or two that was vital. Usually, this was due to running out of batteries or me not noticing that I hadn't pressed the record button. A professional once told me to always get the sound, even if that means having some other lower quality sound recording device running as a backup. You can overlay a variety of clips and stills over a contiguous sound track, but it's not easy to lay down contiguous video over a broken sound track.

 

I have a number of 'yesterdays' Android smartphone cast-offs from family that can shoot good enough video and stills on TF cards. But more importantly they can run for hours just recording sound without a SIM card. I think I will compare the costs of some used Androids with optical image stabilisation to that of new action cameras with EIS before I buy another camera.

[Trailhawk]

HI V,

No real story board, although most trips have a main 'thing' to do...e.g bridge, ford, christmas turkey (!), cooking etc.  But really it's just about grabbing as much content as you can and be prepared to throw most of it away in the edit (back to the 4 second rule again).

EIS is pretty useful for in car...outside though, a small tripod or clampy/bendy support thing is a much better bet IMHO. And I like to have a combo of in and out in a sequence.

Like all things though, just have some fun finding out how you want to do it!! And look forward to seeing your work  

TH

 

[V]

You must be a natural movie director, holding the concept in your head. A bit like a natural musician that can pick up an instrument and create something new within a few seconds.

 

I was experimenting today with one of my cameras mounted on a slide base stuck to my tyre carrier. Disappointingly, the waterproof shell is not crystal clear in all lighting conditions. I guess I will only use it when the risk of getting the camera wet is high.

 

I have seen those bendy things, I will add one to my list.