Gumby Strikes Again

You remember, Saturday Night Live, a TV Series, those little bendable play toys. For some reason when I was a kid I thought Gumby on SNL was so funny. As I watch it today I am not sure how I thought it was that funny, maybe I just liked the costume.

So enough of Gumby.

A new Rufus Promo was released the other day. Check it out. You will have to click on the F'Ning link because somebody who uploaded it turned off the embedding feature. http://youtu.be/piBUlpXeZ48 Nice job, another lesson learned. See if you don't let people embed your video to their site then your video gets seen a lot less. HMMM, was that the first thing wrong with the video, NO!!

Now that I am pissed because I could not embed the thing here lets see.... Most of this is my fault since I shot most of the footage although Skybaby did the editing.First the Camera Picture quality is only 720p which looks ok on your phone but not so much on my computer screen. I can't imagine what it would look like on my TV at home. Light is a big issue with this camera, huge amounts of light noise when it comes to dimmer lighting. Even during the day during cloud coverage it was noisy. At night, no way, those shots were not great due to ineffective light sensors on the camera.

The other thing wrong was a bit of unease in a lot of the shots, that is, there was shakiness coming from holding the camera. Part of it is the operator and part of it is the camera/ Lenses/angle. There are shots when Skyler is moving with the subject and a bit of shakey seems normal because it is like you are following the skaters movements which works fine. Then on the other hand there are times when i am stationary and its just shaky shaky shaky. Maybe a bipod or tripod for some shots.

Next I was not always impressed with the composition of shots, an editing and camera operator issue. Needs Vantage points that are more interesting. More attention needs to be paid to panning out of a camera shot. What was with the black screen pans/transitions between clips. Pan the camera down into the ground or up or out then just cut straight to the next clip next time. Having the fish-eye frame is good for some shots but not all, especially not good when filming a run in the bowl. There is a lot to learn about making good videos. Look here is another Kevin Kolwaski part that is indicative of a pretty good film. These guys have their shit together.




This is not a rant, I helped produce the video, my name is on it. I have just been studying a bit and its what I am learning. Its part equipment and part technique that will make future videos better. We need to look at the limitations of our equipment and get the best out what we got. It takes planning and patience at this point.