New Video Warrior
7 messages in this thread
I'm a new member. Recenty I gave up programming Daytona Registries (see WinNT
tools topic) for BillG and have since been travelling about the Land Downunder
collecting audio/video (Canon UCS5), images (Ricoh 500F, an old bomb proof 35mm
fully manua range-finder with dynamite lens, bought in Brisbane) and trading
thoughts via email with friends back home (Toshiba T3400). It was beyond
fortuity that I found someone with a car to travel with, because I'd planned to
carry all this gear on my back for the whole 5 months. Instead, I only lugged
it around the Australian bush for a couple.
BTW: Compuserve, or rather FALNET, needs more than 6 nodes in all Australia, a
land mass larger than the continental US.
Anyway, I've now got 38 hours of Hi-8 MetalE tape from the Sydney Opera House,
to Kangaroos and Wallabies, to Uluru (Ayer's Rock), to several thousand
kilometers of Australian bush. I've got a busker playing didjerido, scenes
from a far-western Queensland sheep station and crocodiles fighting over a 25
lb barramundi. When the camcorder batteries were dead in the antipodean heat,
I shot 12 rolls of 36 exp. Fuji Velvia, all ready to digitize. I printed out
the email journal I'd posted and ended up with 80 pages. Now I'm trying to
figure out if I can make a living from all this, or even just some of it.
Fresh out of mothballs, after 5 months in an attic, is the 486DX66 running
Matrox Personal Producer driving VITC Panasonic AG-7750, AG-7650 with 422.
Just one of the 7 slots on the computer is available. VL-Bus: SVGA, IDE,
Adaptec SCSI. ISA-Bus: Pro AudioSpectrum 16, 422 Com, Matrox Illuminator-16.
It took one year, two motherboards and a replacement IDE but, finally,
everything seems to work together. We'll see. In addition to the existing
multisession CDROM, two floppies and 350MB IDE drive, I'm about to purchase a
1GB drive for the SCSI bus and a 250MB tape drive for the IDE floppy
controller.
Judging from a cursory glance through the contents of this forum, I'm beginning
to wish I went with FAST. Actually, I began wondering about this earlier when
I started getting a good look at the results of 16-bit dithering generated by
Matrox. <sigh> I can't believe I spent $14K Canadian on 2 VTRs and only $3K
on my editing system. Ah well, it's a good learning tool. Such is life, and
I'm heading back to Oz, SE Asia and Japan in January '95 so any upgrade I make
now will be obsolete by the time I get back midyear anyway.
Perhaps by then I'll have more precise goals. Right now the rather broad title
of Info Warrior seems to best fit. I think the most promising aspect of DTV is
its capacity to put the means of content production in the hands of nearly
anyone. Moving images coupled with sound are the most powerful form of
communication we have and it's high time in our so-called democracy that
everyone had as much opportunity to create information as to consume it. Now
if only we can wrestle control of content distribution from the Big Guys…
In the meantime, if anyone out there is interested in stock images of
Australia, I've probably got something you can use.
Patrick.
No wonder you came to the defense of WinNT registry. 😉 Did you get tired of
working for Microsoft, and headed down under to blow off steam?
Well, not everything the Redmond Behomoth does is good. The Registry is,
though.
Since you ask, appropriately enough I left Microsoft on April 1 of this year,
for good. Three years before that, BillG liked Network Courier so much he
bought it, the company that developed it and me along with it. BillG threw out
their floundering eMail product and redubbed ours "MS Mail".
I had been on the verge of quitting the software development industry and
becoming a starving artist when all this transpired. Microsoft made me an
offer I couldn't refuse and after three years of intense creative stress I can
be a well-fed travelling artist. At least until the money runs out in a couple
years, depending on my addiction to new media toys and my ability to convert
passion to food . . . and toys.
Patrick
Patrick,
I would say that if the footage is good, which it certainly sounds like it
is, that what you are in need of now is a "thesis", or a structure that
will build your diverse video into an informative story. I am obviously
thinking documentary, but then again, with the variety of content on TV
today, maybe you can come up with some shorter, more targeted segments
that may be marketable. Welcome to the forum!
-John
>>> I am obviously thinking documentary, but then again, with the variety of
content on TV today, maybe you can come up with some shorter, more targeted
segments that may be marketable.<<<
Yeah, "doco" as the aussie's call it has been on my mind too. I'm not
certain the material's quite that coherent; this trip was something
of a reconnaissance mission, both in terms of what to shoot as well
as the technology and methodology of shooting it. While still
photography is in my past, video's still new to me. I understood
this much, "if you don't know what you're after, in the end you won't
know what you have." I seem to have gotten a little of everything.
This was OK when my intentions were to collect images and sound for a
"Lonely Planet" or "Let's Go" travel guide on CDROM. Alas, that's
already been done.
The one significant 'thesis' is hundreds of miles of abstract,
concrete and scenic video impressions collected from the left
(passenger) seat while driving through the heart of Australia. This
class of material probably occupies a good 10 or 12 hours of tape. My
first project will be to combine these images with some astonishing
Aboriginal music, both contemporary and traditional, featuring
didgeridoo. Something of a meditation on travelling the outback.
I'm fully prepared for the underwhelming response of cable operators.
🙂
Thanks for the warm welcome.
Patrick.
Haha! Keep us informed Patrick!
-John
Hi Patrick,
>>> Judging from a cursory glance through the contents of this forum, I'm
beginning to wish I went with FAST.<<<
Hey your story sounds familiar….. I started in video production
with a Matrox Illuminator 16 and personal producer, as well as a
couple 1970's. But now I am cutting tape the ///FAST way with my
Video Machine. As a matter of fact I still hve the Matrox system up
in the closset. I would try to sell it to someone but I am afraid
that they would come looking for me with a gun when they find how
well it don't work :-). But if it is worth anything my 1970's work
great!!!! with the VM, I have them hitting +/- 0 frames 85 to 90
percent of the time with VITC.