I used the Rode VideoMic hooked up to the Zoom H4n for the audio – there will be some noise reduction to do as the HVAC system was on full humm during the interview. I also got a chance to use the Glidetrack. One thing I got burned on was the 12 minute limitation of the Canon 7D during the interview, I missed about a minute of Dr. Haskell talking. BUT, with doing the audio separate, I still captured the audio of it, even though the 7D video burned out after 12 minutes, another bonus to using separate audio with DSLRs!

Haskell and owl skeleton

Photo from Glidetrack's website, I have the longer version of this

We interviewed in the new (year old) Spencer Hall. It looks like a great place to have class and study – plenty of room and natural lighting.

Spencer Hall

I was happy with the images I got out of the 7D today, everything you see here are screen grabs from the video footage, except that picture of All Saints which is part of a timelapse. Stay tuned for the video, it should be up and viewable by the end of the month! And the other’s will follow in the next few months – Yea Sewanee’s Right!

The 'hero' shot of Haskell

Darwin's Garden - has a path that warps around it in proportion to the geological periods

Sewanee Seal

Morgan's Steep Sunset

All Saint's Chapel at sunset, this is part of a timelapse

Inspirational

1. Philip Bloom’s newest work, I just think this is beautiful. It hit’s me somewhere deep in the chest, I love the colors and locked off shots, especially the comment from the guy with credit card debt. I put this under inspirational instead of film intentionally.

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Funny

1. New York Times made a massive caption error to this photo:

2. This is an oldy but a goody: “I like turtles . . .”

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Film/Animation

I used my Canon 7D to film the launches at 60fps and then conformed it to 24fps to slow it down. You can do so in Cinema Tools and go to ‘Batch Conform’ and select the folder with all the video files, but make a backup first because it doesn’t keep the originals.

I also helped get Eric in the air when the sun was setting and picked up my newly delivered Glidetrack which is how I got a couple of those dolly shots at the end. I will post a video talking about my tripod and Glidetrack set up soon.

I stayed up late last night trying to comment on every new subscriber’s Youtube Channel thanking them for their subscription, and this morning put together just a few outtakes from filming this video. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s funny to see all the comments, almost 440 now, because the internet is such a funny place. Every other comment is either how funny the video is or how ‘gay’ it is, which doesn’t bother me, I actually think it’s funny! I included some of the funnier comments so far at the end of this video.

Blog Update | So yesterday was a fun day at Henson’s flying. There were about a dozen people set up and flew. Jim had a great flight and Lee soared as well, earlier on. The overcast stuff cleared off and there were a few thermals to be had out there.

I flew for about an hour and a half and got to about 5,000′. Eric W. came and sledded Henson’s for the first time so I knew he’d be willing to drive my car so I headed down the ridge in  a nice lifty line, but never hit much of anything again and landed at Dr. Dales field. By that time it was getting late in the day anyways. I had a great time and can’t wait to fly at Henson’s again soon!

What I mean is the fact I was on top of the hill and the road fell away from the image and gave me the ability to get the road and the sunset in the shot together, but also because it had been snowing, the road was wet which reflected the sunset. It goes back to the adage that the best camera is the one you have with you (I also didn’t go to this spot to take a photo, I just happened upon the situation). I didn’t have my Canon 7D so I used my iPhone and tweaked the photo in some Apps: TrueHDR, Cropulator, TiltShift Generator.

This is the image I talk about:

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Inspirational

1. Great short film on a guy who does what he loves

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Funny

1. Irreverent humor from SNL that parodies horrible local commercials with the random business of flags.

2. Like two scoops of raisins in your cereal, not after this:

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Film/Animation

1. Cute little music video:

2. Ok Go did it again with this viral music video:

Last year when I was sitting in my graduate-level Environmental Chemistry class my mind got blown away by a realization. I’ve always heard about ’stardust’ and other things of that nature and I didn’t pay much thought to it, but put it in the realm of unicorns and lyrics from70’s or 80’s music. But that class brought a whole new meaning to it and this video touches on that realization I had that day. I say I had a realization in the sense that I learned something new.

We are composed of atoms from dead stars that exploded a long time ago. We could not exist if these stars did not shrink, burn up, and die! Think about it for a second. We are made of stars that died and exploded, and are only in existence because of those events. It’s hard not to share something like this. I know when I found out about it I immediately told several people, and thought ‘how did I not know this already?’

I couldn’t find my notes from this class (so feel free to correct me in the comment section below, even if you think the Earth is only 4,000 years old), but essentially this is what happened:

After the big bang there was only Hydrogen in the universe and all other elements, like what we’re made of, were created from Hydrogen. That happened from a star burning Hydrogen for a long time (understatement), and as it ran out of Hydrogen the star began to shrink, it also became hotter with it’s smaller mass. As it became hotter it excited elements to the point where it formed Helium which would only be able to be formed at this high heat and pressure (nuclear fusion), and the star would burn Helium, until it ran out again and the process would continue burning up an element, the star shrinking, thus increasing the heat and pressure to create new elements, until it would turn into a supernova and die, exploding these new elements all over the universe, to eventually form us, and everything we know. It’s called stellar nucleosynthesis.

That is at least a super simple version that I can remember without my class notes from 2 years ago. Here is a link to NASA explaining it a bit:

http://nasascience.nasa.gov/big-questions/when-and-how-did-the-elements-of-life-in-the-universe-arise

and other smart people:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=37551

http://www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/t-34911.html

I used old footage from when I was making my Nikon Festival Contest video and color corrected in an interesting way to me using Magic Bullet Looks. All the footage used came out of my Canon HF100 too.

I also posted this to my new Youtube account LucasRidley. I thought it would be easier for people to remember than my other account, alta8bird. So I thought I better make the switch before I get any more subscribers. It’s really something I’ve been putting off because I’m afraid none of my current subscribers will make the switch.

The name alta8bird came from my first AOL account a long, long time ago and when I signed up for Youtube in 2007, I thought, eh, what’s this thing, Youtube? I’ll just use that random name I had back in the day . . . even though I really didn’t like it, it’s not memorable, and I don’t think I’m doing myself any favors by keeping it if I’m planning on posting more videos to youtube, plus everything else I have, like this website, vimeo, twitter, etc. is in my own name too.

So you can click HERE to subscribe to my new Youtube account, I hope to post a video weekly, but we’ll see . . .

Thanks for watching!

We watched the races with mild enthusiasm as it’s hard to keep track of who is in what place on a video like that, all we were looking for was our alumnus, Jed, who was in the race. Then towards the end this incredible moment happened. Watching the finish line these guys are tearing through trying to make All-American, which is top 25, and we see this guy fall down over and over again, then a guy with huge chops can’t even run in a straight line. We must have rewound that clip a million times with our team peeing in their pants they thought it was so funny! Sad part is if that first guy could have kept it together till the finish line he would have been an All-American.

Ever since then I thought, someone must do the world a favor and get this on the internet. Well, 8 years later, today is that day. I would like to thank Media Enterprises who is responsible for taping the race and Coach Heitzenrater for preserving the VHS to DVD.

Like I mention in the video, I have a lot of respect for what those guys were doing. On one hand it is absolutely amazing that they push themselves to those limits, then on the other hand it is absolutely hilarious to watch. I don’t know if it’s just a runner thing, if maybe no one else will think this is funny. Maybe it’s because I have an idea of what they’re going through that I can laugh at it. Either way it’s hilarious to me.

Hope you all enjoy and stay tuned for more coming very soon.

Below is just another funny running-related image. This one is from our conference meet a few years back when we almost ran over a photographer and you can see a couple of guys flipping out on her. I’m to the right in the image looking bewildered over at those guys.

Depauw guys flipping out on the photographer for being on the course.

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Inspirational

1. Learn to be Lucky:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html

2. This is a great video that is inspirational to anyone running their own business or thinking about starting one:

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Funny

1. Nice homage to the Monty Python’s Holy Grail troll. I can relate from getting random haters on my youtube videos every once in a while:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMEe7JqBgvg

2. One of my more favorite spoof inspirational posters:

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Film/Animation

1. Very well done stop motion t-shirt animation: