Waiting 2B Scene

Tag: Review

  • HIMM: How to Get Smooth Footage

    How It’s Made Monday is meant to inspire you with some of the secrets of videocraft: and today, we’re sharing a great little tip on how to get smooth footage. In short – by yourself a gimbal!

    The 3-axis gimbal market has been exploding all over the place for the last little while: and there have been some pretty cool advances since the first generation of commercially available gimbals hit the market. Little things like going from a 10-bit system to a 32-bit system. And then there is fun bits of kit like this to contend with: the CAME-TV Single!

    https://vimeo.com/146584738

    For under US$1K, you can now get a pretty sweet hand-held motorised 3-axis gimbal… with encoders! In geek speak, encoders are often used in robotics for highly accurate monitoring of motor position. Some of the benefits of using encoders include: preventing motors from losing synchronization and skipping steps, providing important information about frame and camera angles, decreasing power consumption (this is my biggest plus – longer battery life!!), increasing torque, increasing precision of stabilization, and more.

    So check out the review by Tom Antos (which includes some visuals he shot using the Came Single), and be inspired… super smooth professional looking footage is well within reach of the average videographer!

  • Review: Smartphone Stabilisation

    Even though there are lots of stabilising options out there, today I wanted to share a recent clip by the FilmRiot team who have reviewed the US$379 iKan Fly-X3 Plus 3-axis brushless motor gyro stabilising system. Specifically for use with smartphones, it doesn’t look too bad. Even though it is probably a little on the expensive side, this seems like it might still be a nice little piece of kit: and as we all know, having the right tools for the job is as important an aspect of videography as what happens in front of the lens. Enjoy.

  • Blog: “Which Lie Did I Tell: More Adventures In The Screen Trade”

    As a young 80’s child my grandparents bought me the Little Golden Book Record Read-Along Collection (which featured 20 stories with a corresponding 33.5 rpm vinyl for each story). It sparked a lifelong joy in stories – and to this day I still love to grab a good book and wile away the hours reading.

    Having been on holidays for the last few weeks, I have been able to indulge in this favourite pastime of mine (as well as finishing the TV series Fortitude – but that is a different blog post!). So what have I been reading? A pretty great book by screen-writing maestro (and novelist) William Goldman (author and screenwriter of The Princess Bride) entitled, “Which Lie Did I Tell: More Adventures In The Screen Trade”. I picked it up from a charity shop in the London’s Hammersmith for a measly £2 last year… and it is turning into a most excellent little investment!

    Now is it all good? No – much of Goldman’s gruff humour and charm derives from emphatic statements of the obvious – and by about half way through, you start to get the feeling that the book may just be devolving into a conspicuous case of sour grapes. BUT, if you are willing to wade past his personal biases (and honestly, what writer isn’t biased? That includes you, Mr/s Reviewer!), then there is some treasure therein. I am not a screenwriter. But you don’t really need to be to enjoy it. There is some advice to wannabe screenwriters as well as some script analysis – but the book is also full of funny anecdotes, uncomfortable truths about Hollywood, and an array of personal insights which have been gleaned from over 40-years in the industry. It is well worth checking it out… especially if you can get it for £2 from a second-hand store like I did.

    And that’s it peeps. I am back on board with my blog roll-outs – and look forward to sharing a bunch of great bits and pieces over the next little while!

  • Demo: Lily Camera Drone

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share two different clips: the first is the promo video for a new drone camera that is getting set to hit the market soon (pre-order sales are already available) – the Lily. The second is little bit of a hands-on (as it were) demo of the machine.

    The tech specs on this little piece of kit are certainly interesting enough to warrant a further look. Even though the chances are that the first gen of Lily won’t be as great as it could potentially be (when are they ever?), there are always going to be subsequent releases with updated mods (amiright?). In fact I can already imagine version 2 will incorporate an object awareness sensor that is currently MIA from version 1. So, with its intuitive hands-off approach to shooting, I still think that it would still be fun to have one of these to play around with.

    Anyway, that is enough from me. Here is the hands on demo from the team at Resource Magazine for you to check out.