Sound

     Sound!  It sounds (please forgive the terrible pun) so easy doesn’t it?  You just point the camera at the subject and the on board microphones will pick up exactly what you want and it will sound wonderful on the finished video.  Well if you believe that one then I have a story for you about a beautiful girl living in the woods with seven midgets and there’s nothing going on between them.  So
just how important is good sound quality to a movie or video.  Well prior to 1929 motion pictures were all silent and then “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson debuted.  Within a year there wasn’t a studio left producing silent movies.  As a matter of fact Howard Hughes epic production about WW I aerial combat “Hell’s Angels” was originally shot as a silent movie, but when Hughes saw the reaction of movie going audiences to the so called “Talkies”  he scrapped the silent version and re-shot the entire movie with sound.

     You could go on and on recalling scenes from movies that were profoundly influenced by their sound tracks, but in my humble opinion the reigning and all time champ has to be Steven Spielberg.  When directing “Jaws” he was saddled with a mechanical shark that looked awful and rarely worked, anyone else would have started exploring alternate career fields, but not Spielberg.  He merely went to his music composer “John Williams” and pleaded on his hands and knees for Williams to come up with something that he could use to signal the shark’s presence without really seeing the ravaging carnivore.  Some time later Williams ran the now famous two note shark music by Spielberg and he laughed at it, but gave Williams the go ahead anyhow and of course the rest is history.  Spielberg learned an important lesson from this and from that point on he demanded things from his composers and sound technicians that sometimes seemed impossible to do.  Examples like the water glass vibration in “Jurassic Park”, or the sound of the humongous bolder rolling down the cave after Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and of course who could forget the musical conversation with the aliens in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
     So, what can the low budget video producer do to compete with Hollywood giants like Spielberg, and the legendary John Ford, well actually a great deal.  You see when Spielberg made “Jaws” the internet didn’t exist, but today low budget film makers can download sound bites and music for next to nothing or even free.  There are any number of sound editors available on the internet that were unheard of just a few years ago.  You can access everything from total sound editing programs to voice altering software that allow you to use one original voice to portray a myriad of characters.  Sound effects are so abundant on the web that I don’t think you could come up with a need that couldn’t be filled.  Even the age old nemesis, background music is available from sources like Music 2 Hues, and Partners in Rhyme for a very reasonable fee.

     Now for the catch, all these things that I have mentioned are great, but they can not take the place of getting good original recordings.  The microphones that come on cameras will do in a pinch, but in general they lack good audio quality.  Almost without exception you will have to use an auxiliary microphone and recorder for achieving any sort of good sound quality.  Boom mics and remote mics that reside just out of the cameras vision are historically the best for recording sound in most cases where you are filming people.

     Outdoor filming presents another whole batch of problems ranging from airplanes flying overhead to the ever present wind noise.  A lot of this can be overcome with so called “Dead Cat” silencers but if the wind is too high I have found that it’s better to just postpone filming. Last but certainly not least, you will need to become proficient at what is called “dubbing” which is the process of synchronizing separate audio recordings with original video footage.
     I don’t have time in this blog to go into the multitudinous array of sound recording devices available on the market, or the many techniques concerning their use but I do know that a very famous director once said “get the sound right and the rest will fall into place on its own.”

Infinity!

     Infinity!

     Just the sound of the word is awe inspiring, why it even sounded good when Buzz Lightyear kept yelling “To infinity and beyond” in the original “Toy Story”.  Actually the concept of Infinity in itself is hard enough to deal with let alone trying to imagine what might exist beyond it.  As a matter of fact most scientists agree that the human mind is unable to visualize or comprehend such an abstract concept as infinity.  You see we humans are undoubtedly the most finite creatures on the planet, we define everything in our lives by a starting and stopping point.  The day starts the day ends, we got to sleep we awake up, we go to work we come home, we are born we die, and so forth.
     There is nothing that we do or experience that goes on in a continuous manner, which makes it darn near impossible for us to imagine something that just goes on and on forever, like a politicians speech.  Our minds can’t comprehend the concept of infinity any more than most of us can visualize our own demise.  As a matter of fact those people who have survived suicide will almost without exception recount that right after they pulled the trigger, or stepped off the bridge railing, they suddenly realized that they may have made a slight mistake.  You see they were unable to actually conceive of their own demise until it whacked them right between the eyes, and sadly in most cases a little late.
     But that’s another subject to be covered later, for now lets get back to our original subject, infinity.   For the purposes of this post I will only be dealing with the scientific disciplines regarding infinity.  First we have  mathematical infinity, by simply dividing 1 by 3 we arrive at the .333333......... or in other words a never ending decimal, a number that goes on forever without ever coming out to an even solution.  Another famous example of a mathematical infinite would be “PI” or the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and like 1 being divided by 3 it never attains a solution with no remainder.  Or does it?  In an infinite universe can one unequivocally state that somewhere out there 3 will go into 1 and PI will reach final solution?  You see there is no way to prove it or disprove an
infinite number since it is infinite!
     Now if all this is giving you the equivalent of intellectual brain freeze then lets consider cosmological infinity.  Nearly every human being born who survived to the age where they could begin asking questions has looked into a clear night sky and asked themselves the question, “does it have an end or does it go on forever.”  Well, even the modern scientific community doesn’t seem to be able to agree on whether the Universe is infinite or not.
We can only deal with what is called the “observable universe”.  If you subscribe to the “Big Bang Theory” the universe is about fourteen billion years old, and we are only able to see the light that reaches us from the bodies that were shot out in all directions by this titanic explosion.  Cosmologists estimate that these bodies have now reached a distance from the origin of the explosion of some forty-six billion light years.

     Now for the weird part, the objects spued out by an explosion of any kind begin decelerating instantly upon expulsion.  In a vacuum these objects decelerate much more slowly but since there is no such thing as perpetual motion they will invariably begin to slow down no matter how long it takes, right?  Well that was the popular theory for years, but astrophysicists now believe that the debris is accelerating, not decelerating which defies the laws of physics.  If this is true the there exists something with more gravitational pull than all the matter in the observable universe that is attracting all matter evenly away from the center in all directions.  But wait!  Now there is a growing number of cosmologists and physicists that feel there was no Big Bang and that the universe has always existed in its present state.
     So what is my point, just this, “what a bunch of hooey”, what kind of a pompous ass do you have to be to pretend that you have a clue as to what makes something as complex and abstract as the universe tick.  It was only 600 years ago that scientists declared the world to be flat and that if you ventured too far from land you would sail off the edge.  The problem is that science is no longer a pursuit of the truth, it has become a pursuit of funding and grant monies.  There are so many
competing parties for a finite amount of money that you hardly know who to believe.  Prime examples would be the Large Hadron Collider which has promised for years that they are on the verge of solving the riddles of the universe, and year after year large chunks of cash are lavished on a project that has yet to provide anything useful to mankind.  Then there is Global Warming, a serious subject that could mean dire consequences for the human race, but now we find out that the scientists involved in measuring the extent of the problem falsified findings in order to keep their funding on line.

    The sad part of all this is that they are the same people who expect us to accept things like dark matter, black holes, dark energy, and the Higgs Boson particle as gospel.  Then these so called enlightened open minded scholars poke fun at and ridicule those people who believe in things like life after death, extra sensory perception, religion, mental telepathy, and paranormal activity.  I don’t pretend to have a degree in physics, or a Mensa membership card, but I do know this, if you blindly close your mind to the beliefs of your fellow man, don’t expect that fellow man to accept what you have to say.  As far as what we can believe or disbelieve coming from the minds of the scientific community I am always reminded of what Albert Einstein had to say about scientific theories when he said, “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.”    

 
   

Luray, Virginia and the Skyline Drive

     Lying just 93 miles west of the District of Columbia nestled between Shenandoah National Park and The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests on Route 211 lies the town of Luray, Virginia.  The population of the town is less than five thousand but what it lacks in population it makes up for in charm and hospitality.  Being located in between two mountain ranges Luray serves up spectacular views in nearly all directions.  It boasts its own Art Museum, a fully renovated historic hotel named
“The Mimslyn Inn”, a great walking park, and of course the world famous caverns but these attractions aren’t why I love going there.  It’s like the old saying goes,”getting there is all the fun” (or something to that effect) especially if you ride a motorcycle or drive a sports car.  If you follow Rt. 522 South from
Front Royal, Virginia you will intersect Rt. 211 West which climbs the Blue Ridge Mountains on its way to Luray and points west.  If you like curves as much as I do then you are in for a treat, there are no less than sixty twisting curves to test your nerve and five full blown switchbacks that will turn your hair white.  Going up the mountain from either side the roadway is two lanes wide to accommodate slower traffic, while descending the mountain there is only one lane which can be
really frustrating if you run into someone who has never traveled the road before.
     At the mountains peak Route 211 crosses under the Skyline Drive.  The Skyline Drive is a 109 mile scenic highway that runs North and South from Front Royal, Virginia to U.S. Route 64 near Staunton, Virginia.  It winds along the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the views are spectacular especially in the fall but beware, the speed limit is just 35 mph.  For those of us who like a livelier pace you should either avoid the Skyline Drive or make up your mind to do the speed limit as the Park Rangers seem to have no sense of humor and the tickets start at around $185 and go up from there.  That being said it is still a beautiful drive and even at 35 mph it only takes about 55 minutes to get back to Front Royal,
Virginia.  If you intend to drive the Skyline during Fall Color Season then allow extra time to make the trip since you will probably encounter many thousands of fellow motorists who have come there for the same reason.
     For those who just can’t get enough of mountain switchbacks and winding curves you can follow Route 211 past Luray to the next mountain range where you encounter similar driving conditions.  Route 211 terminates at the town of New Market, Virginia which is located on U.S. Routes 81 and 11 making for a quick return trip if you started out from the Front Royal area.  If you decide to drive the entire Skyline Drive you should allow a full day for the trip because even though it only takes a little over three hours total driving time there are scenic overlooks where photos and selfies are a must.  As far as Lodging and Restaurants you can visit the National Park Service website for the Skyline Drive to check available openings at the numerous lodges where you can also get something to eat.
     Like the “Tail of the Dragon”, the “California Canyon Roads” and all other mountainous twisty pavements Route 211 has claimed its share of Motorcyclists over years.  So much so that the Park Service has posted a warning at the bottom of the mountain on both ends, so be smart and ride careful as in particular never try to go fast on a road you have not ridden to check out first.  Oh and by the way if you think you're a fast pilot but on you way up the mountain for what you’re sure must be the record time a sixty-five year old grandmother in a 2004 Ford Taurus with Virginia plates blows past you like you were standing still, she’s probably a local so don’t feel bad, it happens to the best of us.

Video Tips

     In my last post I touched on the subject of making money with your video camera.  In this article I will be discussing the different types of video cameras available, their use, and some techniques for their use.  I have owned just about every type of digital camera and video recorder that has ever hit the market, and I can tell you that while technology has made amazing progress some things have remained the same.  My first digital camera was a 1988 Canon RC-
250 XAPSHOT that boasted a whopping .25 megapixel image size.  It required a computer interface card along with a plug in charging cord that looked like it should be in my garage rather than my camera bag.  The best part of it was that whenever I used it people would state with great authority and wisdom, “that’s nice but it will never repla
ce film.”
     In a way they were right as it took almost twenty years for the digital image to surpass the film.  Depending on what expert you believe a film image is composed of what would be the equivalent of a 20 megapixels.  Amazingly that astronomical figure has been now been ground into the dust by cameras like Hasselblad’s H4D-200MS which boasts a staggering 200 megapixel image, by the way you can own one of these babies for a mere $45,000.  That would give it about 800 times the resolution of my prehistoric XAPSHOT, which I still have by the way.  I only mention these facts because as I said technology has made advances in imaging that boggle the mind, but at the same time the basic rules of photography have not changed since Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created the first known image of the view from his window in 1826.  Incidentally it only took two days of exposure to get the image transferred onto silver-copper plate and involved the use of several harmless chemicals including mercury.
     It took until the end of the nineteenth century when a man named Thomas Alva Edison gave man an invention whose impact is still amazing the world today.  Edison created what would be commonly called “Moving Pictures” and produced films with titles like “Fred Ott’s Sneeze”, “The Great Train Robbery”, and a scandalous piece called “The Kiss”.  From its very beginning the ability to see the actors moving (and later talking) not only captured the attention of the public it mesmerized them.  There was a catch though, in order for the images to be transferred to the film traveling at a rate of 24 to 26 frames per second a lot of light was needed and the camera had to remain steady and as motionless as possible.  In other words the camera shot one scene at a time at a pre-focused distance while the actors performed within the confines of that specified space.
     The reason I have drug you along this line is to try and impress you with my first rule of video and that is “THE CAMERA LOVES TO CAPTURE MOVING OBJECTS, BUT HATES BEING MOVED!  If you watch a movie you will see that the camera rarely changes position, that’s because the movie is supposed to replicate how the human eye views things. If you are wondering what this means try this little experiment.  Look straight ahead at something with depth, like your yard.  Now without moving your eyes try slowly turning your head from left to right while continuously refocusing on the different objects that your eyes encounter.  Not easy is it, as a matter of fact it’s enough to drive you nuts right?  You see when we turn to look at something our eyes really only want to focus on what’s in between, they are only concerned with the image they see when the movement stops.  Well it is the same with a camera, only worse.
     Have you ever noticed that when you pan your video camera left or right it looks nice and smooth through the LCD screen or viewfinder, but when you download it to your computer it seems to be jerky or what is called stilted.  That is because your camera which you probably have set on automatic is trying to adjust the light, focus, and white balance as it moves.  So instead of having one flowing scene what you are really seeing is a bunch of little scenes that the camera has thrown together hoping that no one will notice.  To avoid this you would have to shoot in a pure manual mode when you pan the camera which is extremely time consuming and difficult to set up.
     So the solution is the same as it has been for the last 120 years, set your scene use a tripod if possible and stay away from panning unless you are an expert.  The same rules apply to zooming, the human eye does not have the capability of zooming so whenever you use this feature the finished product looks unrealistic to the viewer.  There are exceptions to this of course when a certain effect is desired, like zooming in on a planet from outer space or using the macro effect to look at very small objects.
     And now for a word from the soap box.  Today there is a trend to not only move the camera but to move it violently and quickly from one subject to another.  Truth be told this is because the cameramen or camerawomen aren’t talented enough to film the scene properly and the use of this technique solves the problem.  Unfortunately it also leaves most viewers with motion sickness and trying to figure out what they just watched.  So don’t do it!  Well I think that is about all for this post, hopefully I have confused and bored you all at the same time.  Unfortunately that is the problem with most things you have to learn, like college algebra, or learning to speak Japanese, you’re not suppose to enjoy it, you just have to endure and survive it.

Video for Profit

     One of the fastest growing segments open to the photographic professional is the creation of original video products from digital or film photos.  While there are numerous programs available to the average person for creating his own photo-disc, it hasn’t attracted the users that one would imagine.  There are probably a good many reasons for this including, a steep learning curve, spare time to do it, and lack of high speed computer processors to handle the rendering.  Whatever the reason, it presents the professional photographer with a great revenue generating opportunity.

     Wedding photographers were at the forefront of this market and have made great use of the sophisticated video editing tools that are available enabling them to create some really fine crafted and professional looking videos.  The companies that write video editing software were not blind to the fact that weddings and family celebrations are by far the most popular subjects for the Videographer.  A great many of your popular video editing software vendors now offer various plugins such as New Blu FX, Boris Graffiti, and of course Adobe After Effects.  The great thing about the new age video editing programs is that they offer techniques for seamlessly blending both still images and moving video into a smooth coherent presentation that looks almost like it was created in Hollywood.  By using pan and movement function you can create the illusion of movement in a still photo, a technique made popular by director Ken Burns in his original PBS production called “The Civil War” some years ago.  As a matter of fact this type of effect is still sometimes referred to as the “Ken Burns Effect”.
     Another growing field is the scanning or photo-transferring of original film images into a digital format where they can be

enhanced or repaired before they are made into a video presentation.  As I discussed in a previous post the ability to restore and repair vintage photographs is a lucrative and essential part of any professional photographers business plan, but this is a skill that takes time to master and should not be offered until you have mastered the art.  Most customers really only wish to have a DVD or Blu-ray disc made for personal viewing and possibly sending a copy to a distant relative or friend, so it doesn’t hurt to offer packages suitable for mailing to your customers thereby saving them the
task of looking for a video mailer.

     The final market where photographers-videographers  can generate income with their video productions is Youtube.  I am sure we are all familiar with the phrase “they put the video of their cat coughing up a hairball on Youtube and made a fortune.”  Well that may be but before you start filming your puppy devouring one of your socks you should be aware that making money by uploading a video to Youtube is not as easy as it sounds.  In the early days of Youtube it was realatively easy to become a “Youtube Partner” and monetize (allowing Youtube to run commercial ads on your video upload) your video channel, as a matter of fact if you utilized Blogspot you automatically qualified.  Needless to say this has changed, now only about 3 in 1000 applicants are accepted to be a Youtube Partner and the process is neither short or simple.  That being said if you do get accepted and have a talent for making videos there is the potential for making very good money from producing videos that the vast internet public will willing view.  A great example would be the EvanTubeHd channel which is hosted by seven year old Evan who reviews toys for other children and makes 1.3 million dollars a year doing it.  So maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to video your Yorkie performing personal hygiene on his rear end, you might make a million from it!                  

Antietam

     On September 17, 1862 the armies of the United States of America and the Confederate States of America attacked each other with a savagery that was, and still is unparalleled in our nation’s history.  Before the sun set on the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland located near Antietam Creek, the combined casualties for the two sides totaled more than 22,720.  The National Park Service states that a total of 3,650 were killed, 17,300 wounded, and 1,770 listed as missing or captured.  Most historians agree though that the killed in action total was actually much higher than the official record indicates.   Civil war record keeping only accounted for the actual number of soldiers killed on the day of the battle and did not include those who succumbed to their wounds during the weeks and months that followed.  It was not unusual for 15% to 20% of the wounded listed in the report to die of complications during their convalescence.  The missing and captured figures were also misleading due to the fact that both sides were committed to the Napoleonic battle strategy which called for the massing of your forces shoulder to shoulder and advancing in a compact line toward the enemy.  Unfortunately for the infantry on both sides artillerymen of the day made use of what was called canister shot when faced with enemy infantry.  Canister shot converted the artillery piece into what many have described as an oversized shotgun, capable of literally vaporizing the bodies of advancing infantrymen.  Due to this grisly fact many of the men that were listed as missing on the action report were actually blown into atoms and were never seen again.
     Today our Civil War Battlefields are once more tranquil and peaceful, and they are getting more and more tranquil and peaceful all the time.  The more than twenty million World War II and Korean War Veterans that loved and visited our National Battlefields are nearly all gone now.  Political correctness has also taken its toll, anything that is connected to the Confederate States is associated with slavery, and so school systems and families no longer visit our battlefields like they once did.  Also the never ending death and destruction that seemingly has no end or solution in the Middle East has changed the average American’s opinion of war and the men who fight it.  Combine all this with the fact that the White House and Congress played a spiteful game with our parks by closing them during the “Sequester” it is a wonder that there is anyone at all is visiting our Civil War Battlefields.
     So much for my time on the soapbox, the National Battlefield Parks are a great and beautiful place to visit, and if you ride a motorcycle they make great destination rides.  Most are located in rural areas connected by great back country roads which for those of us who appreciate the great outdoors as seen from the saddle of a motorcycle can’t be beat.  Whenever I visit one of these parks I seek out a quiet place overlooking some part of the battlefield where the fighting took place and try to imagine what motivated these men (and in some cases women disguised as men) to give up everything including their lives for what they believed in.  Whenever I do this I can’t help feeling a sense of gratitude and remembering the words of philosopher George Santayana who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”