Re: Team Videographers??
 

Specific shots (Houston trip):

-I synced the introduction to Come With Us by Chemical Brothers. This segment introduced the entire team and showed shots of our bus ride (from Toronto to Houston). I attempted to do what Kar Wai Wong did in his short entitled The Follow (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285104/). The music was the foreground and the image was the background. All the sped up highway and Houston shots were syncrinized to the the drum beat in the song. I used a similar sequence as was used in Snatch [where Turkish is jumping down a flight of stairs with his booty goods], for introducing every team member who went. The song had keyboard rises onto which I put about 3 seconds of 2.5x real time footage of the member, followed by a 5 second freeze frame with thier name. Making 13 such sequences was quite tedious.

-The ending of the song was a very brisk drum beat, to which I flashed 77 freeze frames of Houston. Each picture was displayed for 6 frames.

-I gave an introduction to the venues by showing a series of panaramic shots.
Astrodome: I filmed the lineup on the first day (walking back from the fron of the line to where our team was standing), the crowd flooding into the stadium (camera was sitting on my raised hand and I used the viewfinder to see what I was doing), and a general shot of the venue from ontop of our crate.
Reliant Stadium: Just before the closing ceremonies, I had climbed up to the restricted 3rd level seats to get a nice shot of the 20000+ kids attending.

-Between each section I had faded to black and let an orange text string scroll by slowly from the middle of the screen to the left side of the screen. (our school colours are black, white and orange).

-I filmed all of our matches from the level on which the walkway was. This gave me a nice unobstructed view of the entire field.

This is what I have in mind for a promo video:

1. Shots of the build sessions (ones showing planning, teamwork, safety and operation of complex machinery)
2. Panaramic shots of the venue showing the size, the amount of people and sponsor's banners.
3. Clips from our successful matches and any neat driving that we've done.

I'm stuck on making a catchy intro. Within the first 10 seconds I want the viewer to know what the team does. Following the presentation I want the viewer to be excited about our team and achievements, and answer who, what, where, how, why and when. Any suggestions?

Below are shots from Reliant that show where I was filming from:

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Macs kick-butt in video editing. I use an old 500mzh Dual USB iBook with iMovie to edit. It's slow but good. Also, the new version of Final Cut Express is out now, so go get it! It's like the stepping stone between iMovie and Final Cut Pro.

We will be throwing together a DVD this year with iDVD and iMovie. I'm seeing if we can create our own themes in iDVD, but if not, expect a brushed metal look! For iDVD, we will be using a new Al PowerBook 15" 1.25ghz with SuperDrive.

Mike T. is our big video guy on 384. He did our video last year that we showed at Houston on our little iBook hooked with speakers. I will also be doing some stuff this year.

Re: Team Videographers??
 

I have to say, I prefer macs for video editing, it seems to be the only thing worth doing on a mac... :) no offense anyone. I'm on the same team as jake, several posts above. for the past few years i've found that having more than one videographer on a team really helps the process. if you missed something, got a different angle, had part of your tape taped over...it helps to have a backup/alternative.

as for making the videos, it can be a bit confusing, especially if you use any program more difficult than imovie. :ahh: good move using premiere, it can be very useful and advantageous to utilize a program with advanced features, like final cut pro.

another good move in starting at or before kickoff. there is so much material you can use if you just pick up a camera and start shooting. you never know when you're going to need a random shot of dean talking from a segway. :D another idea would be to get stock shots of people welding, grinding, sawing, machining, manufacturing, (videotaping), animating, anything that your team does.

when you go to produce your final movie, work from an overall theme. whether it's by chronology (build phase, regional, national) or by section (manufacturing, electronics, drive team) or anything else, it's a better idea to have a theme than a bunch of random shots thrown together. another helpful idea: use music! it's fun.

well that's about all i can contribute for now. i wish you all well in your video-oriented endeavours.

(i think there should be a video competition...) ;) :D

Re: Team Videographers??
 

I don't really plan what kinds of shots I want before shooting, mostly because I don't know how the matches are going to play out. I try to get as much video as I can of our robot doing everything it can. Afterwards I log it all and rate each shot. After I know what I have for clips, I use a storyboard, well Jeremy does the storyboarding, to plan out the video. I organize it into sections and set each one to music. As for video labs, we do most of our work on our team's iMac. But when we need to do animations or when the website team needs the iMac our teacher lets us into the video lab.

iDVD
 

about iDVD, you CAN make your own themes!!! :D :D go to custom under themes, and you can import your own background, choose the font, etc. the only disappointing thing about iDVD is that you can't put a video or anything before the opening menus.

we're producing a dvd that has video and pictures from the last three years of competition. the layout is something like
2001
Video (all videos are montages)
Pictures
2002
Video 1
Video 2
Regionals Pix
Nationals Pix
2003
Video 1
Video 2
Regionals Pix
Nationals Pix
Highlights
Highlights Video (this is the one we're playing on public access tv here to try to get people aware of robotics. it's basically about first, with some stuff about our team in the end.)

hope this was helpful. :)

Re: iDVD
 

Thanks! Anyway, I'll tell you something good. In the new iDVD coming out with iLife '04 on January 16th ($49), you can add movies before the menus!!!!

http://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/

Re: Team Videographers??
 

How do you pull something out of trash in iMovie??? :ahh: I've never been successful (I'm not talking about undo here, but restoring everything).

Wow, Jeremy, thats going to have to be split into a trilogy, 2001, 2002 and 2003. lol. Thanks for the suggestion. We don't have any material from 2001, so all we can do is make a sequil to last year's season.

I definately agree that there should be a video competition. Perhaps there should be a FIRST film festival at the finals, where teams enter in thier videos of thier build and regional. All teams can vote on their favorate pick (comedy, documentary, fx, sponsorship,..., along with the FIRST judges). This could be screened on the first night (thursday), leaving the following two evenings for something that FIRST has already booked [like Six Flags last year].

I'm looking for a camera to buy soon. My price range is between $1000 - $1500 Canadian, $750 - $1000 US). I'm interested in (if possible) 3 CCDs, 1.33 Megapixel+ CCD for stills, MiniDV or MicroDV taping, 10X optical zoom. The bigger, the better as the image will be much more stable (when filming freehand). Any suggestions?

Re: Team Videographers??
 

http://www.samsung.ca:3304/av/camcorder/

Samsung Duocam: the only true dual camera ive heard of, though the CCD's for the video capture dont seem too impressive, its 1500 CAD with 4.13 megapixel stills and mini-dv tapes for the video, but a 680 K CCD capture.

i use a jvc 680 K pixel CCD GR-DVL 300

any suggestions on a pure good digital camera? stills components are not necessary.

also im wondering, was the equipment that everyone listed above provided by the school or did you pay for it/family paid? my camera was a family tool for our vacations, but im looking to see if i can upgrade to a better camera, with maybe just maybe the team subsidizing, but most likely, ill just ask them to pay for some mini-dv tapes =D

a video competition would be really spectacular, and add yet another focus to the already broad range of first. the only complaint i would have is that i wouldnt be spending enough time helping with the robot ;), id be filiming everyone else do it and editing it. but there should be plenty of time between ship dates and regionals to edit!

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Hey what do you guys use for video editing?? (the only program I have access to is the windows movie maker :ahh: ) What would you recommend Blae or Final Cut Pro?? Thanks

Re: Team Videographers??
 

For Mac, go iMove first, then move to Final Cut Express 2. On Windows, go online, go to e-bay, sell your PC, then get a Mac. ;)

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Editing is always faster when you've got a plan. The best is to edit as your clips come in. Then you'll be able to get an idea as to what your missing or what you want to change, while still having the oppertunity to reshoot.

BTW, does anyone know of a method/software of/to capturing the Kickoff stream from the net? (other then video out -> camera)

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Hey, does anyone know how to convert analog video (VHS, etc) to digital (.avi, DVD, mpeg, etc)??? I dont have the money for any expensive software or cards. I need a quick+easy solution

Re: Team Videographers??
 

I remember doing this last year in media arts before we got all digital cameras. from what i can remember, you take the vhs tape and put it into a vcr, with audio LR and video outs. then there is a cord that has the three plugs that goes into the VCR and comes out to a fireware compatible digital camera, with a blank minidv inside. then you record it from the digial camera and then upload it to the computer..

at least thats how i remember it, but the cord in question may not be the easiest to find = T

Re: Team Videographers??
 

Yep, actually those cords (RCA cable) come standard with any videocamera- you should be able to get them at radio shack

Re: Team Videographers??
 

One way you could do it is by using something from Dazzle like this. I'm not sure how much they are in stores now, but the Dazzle website says $70. It's very easy to use, and you can record video to a TV from an older camcorder, tv, or VCR (I've even recorded video from a Playstation 2 with it before.)