Blog | Sewanee Annual Fund

Lucas — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:39:43 +0000

Today I shot footage for the Sewanee Annual Fund. This will be one of three videos and in this one I interviewed the infamous Dr. Haskell. We had a nice interview and then I grabbed some footage of the campus as the sun was setting.

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

I was a bit disappointed by the Glidetrack however, it already has some spots where it is getting hung up, namely the middle. I’m worried that because it’s anchor point is in the middle that the ends of the Glidetrack are already getting warped from the weight of the camera and so there’s a little warping going on in the middle of the track where it can’t smoothly run over. It seemed to do better when it was off the tripod, and thus having the opposite effect where the middle is now where the track will bow as the supports are now on the ends of the track with it sitting on the ground.

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

I’ve read one person putting some oil on the track and I’ve heard another forum post say to not do that, but I might just have to test that out because I was having a hard time getting smooth tracks, it was basically impossible, but more testing needs to be done. The one disadvantage of having the Miller DS-10 tripod is all the adapters I have to have that make it a bit heavier on the Glidetrack, thus contributing to the warping factor on the track. I may need to pick up the HD version that’s for heavier camera’s . . .

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 will be interviewing Dr. Potter and Dr. Reishman next month so if any Sewanee grads or students want certain question’s asked, let me know. I asked Dr. Haskell about his beard today.

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

Video | Slow Mo Launches 3/8/10

Lucas — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:58:00 +0000

I had a decent flight yesterday. I waited to fly until everyone else launched so I could film everyone’s launches. Go to the youtube page for this video and make comments about what you think people did right and what they did wrong:

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.

Lucas Ridley » Glidetrack

Blog | Sewanee Annual Fund

Video | Slow Mo Launches 3/8/10