Three days at the coast at DVinfo.net

Eric Gulbransen · January 2nd, 2008, 10:42 AM

Twelve months ago I didn't know what f-stop meant. Six months ago I didn't know what a codec was. And somewhere in there I won the title (quite appropriately) for the worst shots ever taken with an HD200.

It's a tall ladder from here, but we are climbing.

Want to thank you for all the help,

Eric

John Estcourt · January 2nd, 2008, 11:44 AM

wow nice stuff enjoyed the footage of the surfers shows the cameras capabilities off really well.( and yours).damn thats made my camera choice even harder..cheers john

Jeremy Clark · January 2nd, 2008, 02:51 PM

Eric,

Great work. What format did you shoot in (24, 30, or 60P)? Looks like 24.

Eric Gulbransen · January 2nd, 2008, 04:17 PM

Thanks Jeremy. It's delivered in 24p, but shot in both 30 and 60. Besides the juttety feel from the crack monkey at the helm of the pans, I also shot with too high a shutter speed (I think). My hope was to have the footage look crisp after being overcranked, but I think I might have gotten that one reversed? I did not, however, want the two super-slow clips to look smooth. Those I actually wanted to be even more stop-and-go than they are, but I didn't nail that either.

Stuart Campbell · January 2nd, 2008, 04:31 PM

Good stuff Eric, give yourself a well deserved pat on the back! Pictures look brilliant. Good exposure, good colours, you kept your focus well (and that's not easy at the end of a whacking zoom)!

Checked out your web site, the pictures reminded me of my childhood! Memories of paddock areas of most UK circuits with close family friends who raced bikes back in the 80's. Pretty much every weekend was spent in a caravan watching mates on the Marlboro Classics, 250s. Great fun!

Was too young to appreciate Brellagirls then! We called them Brollybirds in the UK!

Could you let me know your settings to deliver that film into html please? With a very brief explanation of how you did it? It's exactly the size and quality I'm after for embedding some video onto a clients web site, but my knowledge stops when it comes to web!

Cheers Stuart

Eric Gulbransen · January 2nd, 2008, 05:27 PM

Thank you Stuart. Good pats go a long way around here.

I agree, it's a fascinating life at the track. One only a rare few get to know. My girl dresses like a movie star during the week, but sleeps in the van on weekends. No wonder I didn't get married till I was 38.. It's a strange time for us in racing right now. Not sure what the future holds - but then, when are we ever sure what the future will hold.

I am attaching a series of screen grabs for you. Each grab shows all the settings that I used to compress this video - using apple's Compressor. These are my favorite settings for compressing HDV footage from this camera - for the web. But not unlike any other day in my life, I actually forgot what they were because I have these settings saved. In my previous post I said the video was 24fps - because that frame rate is another great way to save file size for the web. But now I see it's actually 29,97 (same as my settings in the timeline that I used to edit this video - thankfully). So yes, perhaps I have landed on my head a few too many times. But it was fun?

*added note here: I plan to change these settings to 24fps, which might open a door to sliding the quality slider up a bit. Still though, even at where it is, and considering almost every shot is panning, or of moving water (which is a bitch to compress to small file sizes), this 5min video is surprisingly small (to me) yet still looks pretty clean.

Brian Luce · January 2nd, 2008, 11:58 PM

Wow a Valentine to dvinfo!

Looks good Eric!

But you'd better be careful cuz it seems what you're REALLY in love with is surfing! That's how it starts man, a few shots here at Mavericks, some more at Ghost Tree, next thing you know, the bikes, the JVC, the hammers are for sale on ebay and Eric was last seen headed for Indonesia with a quiver of surfboards.

Btw, hope you don't mind, I've been linking some of this stuff to a surfing forum I loiter in.

Eric Gulbransen · January 3rd, 2008, 12:28 AM

No I did not JUST take "All Aboard the Crazy Train" out of the dvd player in front of a box of pizza on my way over to this computer. Is that coincidence Brian or do you live next door and You're just not telling me?

Go ahead and link away. Next to anyone here I think only my mom watched it. And I'll tell you what, you teach me to surf, I'll get you wheelie'ing a superbike til you run the crankcase dry.

Glad that ending wasn't too, ahhhhh, feminine for you?

by the way, on the ending, you don't even want to ask how long it took me to figure out how to make the sun set fast, but the surf stay slow.

Sean Adair · January 3rd, 2008, 09:46 AM

You really should be proud. Totally ready for prime time. Not just the cinematography, but concept, assembly, detail all coming together.
Yes, this place deserves it. I should be posting memorials too - I met a great client through the forum!
Your dedication to thrashing out details and posting results has been inspiring and helpful to many of us. I've had 20 years behind a camera, and learnt from your experiences.
I guess that's one thing that brings us here - we all are still actively learning - hey - it's an ocean out there!

So tell us about that last shot Eric - I see a few well disguised dissolves in there, but I think it's more than that!

Eric Gulbransen · January 3rd, 2008, 10:09 AM

You know, I could never fool my mother either. You're exactly right, it was just well timed dissolves. I love time lapses, but not when waves are involved. Something about the slow moving sky contradicting the hyperactive surf gets me to grabbing the arms of the chair and needing to heave... I just took the whole clip and cut it into many equal length segments - all hopefully timed on similarly placed waves - then I deleted every other one and dissolved the remaining clips together. It's not perfect of course. Only my wife is perfect, apparently, but it's close to what I was after.

Thanks Sean. I hope you are one of the ones who took the chick flick ending to heart, because that would be appropriate.

:- )

Stuart Campbell · January 3rd, 2008, 12:17 PM

Hey Eric

Cheers for the screen grabs! I'm on PC but it all makes sense! Brilliant.

I'll second one of the comments previously. I've been a broadcast cameraman for many a year now and I'll never deny that I still learn new stuff every day! I came to this site to learn about HDV and editing which I've started doing at home now. Up until now I used to hand each tape to a Producer or PA and sod off home, never knowing what would happen to it!

Well done again on what you've achieved so far!

By the way, I remember the first time I went out on the back of a Norton (remember the black Wankel ones they couldn't classify in the 80's), I near soiled myself but boy was it fantastic!

Stuart!

January 2nd, 2008, 10:42 AM	#1
Eric Gulbransen Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Palo Alto, California Posts: 520	Three days at the coast Twelve months ago I didn't know what f-stop meant. Six months ago I didn't know what a codec was. And somewhere in there I won the title (quite appropriately) for the worst shots ever taken with an HD200. It's a tall ladder from here, but we are climbing. Want to thank you for all the help, Eric

January 2nd, 2008, 05:27 PM	#6
Eric Gulbransen Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Palo Alto, California Posts: 520	Thank you Stuart. Good pats go a long way around here. I agree, it's a fascinating life at the track. One only a rare few get to know. My girl dresses like a movie star during the week, but sleeps in the van on weekends. No wonder I didn't get married till I was 38.. It's a strange time for us in racing right now. Not sure what the future holds - but then, when are we ever sure what the future will hold. I am attaching a series of screen grabs for you. Each grab shows all the settings that I used to compress this video - using apple's Compressor. These are my favorite settings for compressing HDV footage from this camera - for the web. But not unlike any other day in my life, I actually forgot what they were because I have these settings saved. In my previous post I said the video was 24fps - because that frame rate is another great way to save file size for the web. But now I see it's actually 29,97 (same as my settings in the timeline that I used to edit this video - thankfully). So yes, perhaps I have landed on my head a few too many times. But it was fun? *added note here: I plan to change these settings to 24fps, which might open a door to sliding the quality slider up a bit. Still though, even at where it is, and considering almost every shot is panning, or of moving water (which is a bitch to compress to small file sizes), this 5min video is surprisingly small (to me) yet still looks pretty clean. Attached Thumbnails

January 2nd, 2008, 11:58 PM	#7
Brian Luce Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,290	Wow a Valentine to dvinfo! Looks good Eric! But you'd better be careful cuz it seems what you're REALLY in love with is surfing! That's how it starts man, a few shots here at Mavericks, some more at Ghost Tree, next thing you know, the bikes, the JVC, the hammers are for sale on ebay and Eric was last seen headed for Indonesia with a quiver of surfboards. Btw, hope you don't mind, I've been linking some of this stuff to a surfing forum I loiter in. Last edited by Brian Luce; January 3rd, 2008 at 01:32 AM.

January 3rd, 2008, 09:46 AM	#9
Sean Adair Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: New York, NY Posts: 463	Nice piece Eric! You really should be proud. Totally ready for prime time. Not just the cinematography, but concept, assembly, detail all coming together. Yes, this place deserves it. I should be posting memorials too - I met a great client through the forum! Your dedication to thrashing out details and posting results has been inspiring and helpful to many of us. I've had 20 years behind a camera, and learnt from your experiences. I guess that's one thing that brings us here - we all are still actively learning - hey - it's an ocean out there! So tell us about that last shot Eric - I see a few well disguised dissolves in there, but I think it's more than that! __________________ Sean Adair - NYC - www.adairproductions.com JVC GY-HM-700 with 17x5 lens, MacPro 3.2ghz 8-core, 18gb. (JVC HD200 4 sale soon)

January 2nd, 2008, 11:44 AM	#2
John Estcourt Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Scotland, Ayr www.amour weddingvideos.co.uk Posts: 305	wow nice stuff enjoyed the footage of the surfers shows the cameras capabilities off really well.( and yours).damn thats made my camera choice even harder..cheers john

January 2nd, 2008, 02:51 PM	#3
Jeremy Clark Regular Crew Join Date: May 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Posts: 34	Eric, Great work. What format did you shoot in (24, 30, or 60P)? Looks like 24.

January 2nd, 2008, 04:17 PM	#4
Eric Gulbransen Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Palo Alto, California Posts: 520	Thanks Jeremy. It's delivered in 24p, but shot in both 30 and 60. Besides the juttety feel from the crack monkey at the helm of the pans, I also shot with too high a shutter speed (I think). My hope was to have the footage look crisp after being overcranked, but I think I might have gotten that one reversed? I did not, however, want the two super-slow clips to look smooth. Those I actually wanted to be even more stop-and-go than they are, but I didn't nail that either.

January 2nd, 2008, 04:31 PM	#5
Stuart Campbell Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Hannover, Germany Posts: 400	Good stuff Eric, give yourself a well deserved pat on the back! Pictures look brilliant. Good exposure, good colours, you kept your focus well (and that's not easy at the end of a whacking zoom)! Checked out your web site, the pictures reminded me of my childhood! Memories of paddock areas of most UK circuits with close family friends who raced bikes back in the 80's. Pretty much every weekend was spent in a caravan watching mates on the Marlboro Classics, 250s. Great fun! Was too young to appreciate Brellagirls then! We called them Brollybirds in the UK! Could you let me know your settings to deliver that film into html please? With a very brief explanation of how you did it? It's exactly the size and quality I'm after for embedding some video onto a clients web site, but my knowledge stops when it comes to web! Cheers Stuart

January 3rd, 2008, 12:28 AM	#8
Eric Gulbransen Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Palo Alto, California Posts: 520	No I did not JUST take "All Aboard the Crazy Train" out of the dvd player in front of a box of pizza on my way over to this computer. Is that coincidence Brian or do you live next door and You're just not telling me? Go ahead and link away. Next to anyone here I think only my mom watched it. And I'll tell you what, you teach me to surf, I'll get you wheelie'ing a superbike til you run the crankcase dry. Glad that ending wasn't too, ahhhhh, feminine for you? by the way, on the ending, you don't even want to ask how long it took me to figure out how to make the sun set fast, but the surf stay slow.

January 3rd, 2008, 10:09 AM	#10
Eric Gulbransen Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Palo Alto, California Posts: 520	You know, I could never fool my mother either. You're exactly right, it was just well timed dissolves. I love time lapses, but not when waves are involved. Something about the slow moving sky contradicting the hyperactive surf gets me to grabbing the arms of the chair and needing to heave... I just took the whole clip and cut it into many equal length segments - all hopefully timed on similarly placed waves - then I deleted every other one and dissolved the remaining clips together. It's not perfect of course. Only my wife is perfect, apparently, but it's close to what I was after. Thanks Sean. I hope you are one of the ones who took the chick flick ending to heart, because that would be appropriate. :- )

January 3rd, 2008, 12:17 PM	#11
Stuart Campbell Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Hannover, Germany Posts: 400	Hey Eric Cheers for the screen grabs! I'm on PC but it all makes sense! Brilliant. I'll second one of the comments previously. I've been a broadcast cameraman for many a year now and I'll never deny that I still learn new stuff every day! I came to this site to learn about HDV and editing which I've started doing at home now. Up until now I used to hand each tape to a Producer or PA and sod off home, never knowing what would happen to it! Well done again on what you've achieved so far! By the way, I remember the first time I went out on the back of a Norton (remember the black Wankel ones they couldn't classify in the 80's), I near soiled myself but boy was it fantastic! Stuart!