How much of your video is chronological?

Chris Harding · December 16th, 2013, 02:11 AM

Hey Art

Ah! the good ole days where you had to use a bit of thinking to make a nice title ...I think my first "computer" title was done on a Amiga!! I'm sure Don Bloom would have some clever ways of doing a title! The UK murder/mystery "Murder she Wrote" did the credits on a typewriter except the page flew away at the end.
On Saturday I wrote the couples name in the sand (it was a beach wedding!) and let the wave wash over it and then played the clip backwards so the names were revealed rather than washed away!

Chris

Peter Rush · December 16th, 2013, 03:11 AM

Wow a blast from the past - I had an Amiga 2000 and used a program called 'brodcast titler' - it was brilliant featuring rolls/crawls and texture fonts - happy days!

Don Bloom · December 16th, 2013, 06:46 AM

The Amiga was King of the Hill back in the day. Expensive but beat the hell out of lineal editing. I can't remember the name of the titling program I had. I got a bunch of stuff from a friend of mine who also had an Amiga. He had all the bells and whistles software. All of the "cool" flying, swirling and circling text effects one could ask for back then. ;-) Ahh, the "good" old days! I'm so glad they're gone!

Roger Van Duyn · December 16th, 2013, 07:29 AM

The titling program I used on the Amiga was Scala. Had a gizmo called a SuperGen for overlaying graphics before sending to tape.

Chris Harding · December 16th, 2013, 07:45 AM

and the younger DSLR guys would be saying "What on earth is an Amiga" ... Sheesh in those days all my photography was either 6x7 or 35mm and film ..however I did manage to find a video card later on for my PC with video out that went into a breakout box to overlay titles so you could record into your edit recorder.

Anybody use Pinnacle's first system that controlled the camcorder and the VCR and recorded segments with EDL's onto your tape? That also was able to overlay titles before true NLE's came in. It was a hit and miss affair though and my very first "computer edit software" was actually non linear and made by Corel called "luminere Version 1" it even had Smart Sound on it!! However you still had to capture the analog tape onto the drive in real time.

How times have changed!!

Come on Don ..before Amiga you must have created some really good optical titles ?? I remember when I was a mere 13 and my mate's Dad was making a super 8 movie on a Hindu Fire Walking ceremony and he had a softboard with plastic lettering and as a title effect he was dousing rags in benzene and burning them before the titles and then shooting that with his Bolex! That's when I decided I want to make movies!

Chris

Dave Partington · December 16th, 2013, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Van Duyn

The titling program I used on the Amiga was Scala. Had a gizmo called a SuperGen for overlaying graphics before sending to tape.

Damn you guys are bringing back memories …..

Peter Rush · December 16th, 2013, 08:57 AM

From the Amiga I moved up to 'FAST Video Machine' with a DPR (Digital Player Recorder) pretty much one of the earliest affordable NLE systems although the titling was pants - you had to title in something like Microsoft Word and 'Print' to the FAST print driver - beyond clunky!

Pete

Don Bloom · December 16th, 2013, 10:09 AM

Chris, I can't remember what I did last night much less the stuff I used with the Amiga and before that. :-)

I heard about the FAST machine but frankly never got into more than the Amiga until I was able to get into a computerized NLE. IIRC I think I started with Pinnacle which went to Liquid (which was really nice) then Vegas. I started with Vegas about late version 2 a few months before 3 came out.

Gotta be honest, the Amiga was for it's time the most awesome machine. Also cost an arm and a leg but it was the cats meow!

Arthur Gannis · December 16th, 2013, 04:45 PM

You guys are not that old, C'mon now.. in 1976 I got hold of my first Sony single tube Trinicon camera and the Betamax portable recorder tethered to it. That was a godsend compared to the Super 8 movies changing reels every 3 minutes and the cost. I was in heaven shooting a Betamax tape that lasted 60 full minutes. The camera top light was a 650 watt bulb in a reflector that had a 100ft. extension to the wall socket.How many dancers tripped over that wire, I can't count. Editing was done with 2 top loading betamax recorders that were constantly stressed in FF pause and rew modes. Now that was editing, your fingers were numb after one edit job. The quality of the 3rd gen tape was horrendous and customers had to put up with purchasing the VHS or Betamax decks to watch it. Prices of them VHS decks back then were over $1000 and now we have BluRay under 50 bucks. A big size color TV then was 26 inches. A 3 chip camera was the stuff of gods and if you were lucky to afford one, then you would be way above the competition with 720 lines of resolution. Those cameras required a huge amount of light at receptions and it was not uncommon to see 3 Ianniro 1000W filaments roasting the place. Oh yes, those were the good ol' days.

Chris Harding · December 16th, 2013, 06:53 PM

Hi Art

Oh yes we are!! My first was a Panasonic WVP100 that also had a Saticon single tube sensor and fed initially a Sony UMatic 3/4" recorder that broke one's shoulder..later I "upgraded" to a lighter recorder which was a Panny NV100 which took full size VHS tapes .... My first "all-in-one" camera was a Panasonic M3 which had the tape in the camera - WOW!! S-VHS did help a bit with the ability to get to 400 lines of resolution compared with the usual just over 200 lines of standard VHS.

I had my brother help me at weddings with lighting and yes we used to cook people with a 1KW halogen light which I attached to an old brush cutter handle and it had extension cable all over the dance floor and could give you a healthy tan if you got too close!

To keep on track with this post ..all videos shot in those day WERE in sequence as you edited in camera and only rarely gave a bride a 2nd generation copy!!

Chris

Don Bloom · December 16th, 2013, 10:49 PM

My first video gear was like Arthurs. Big, heavy and costly. I loved being tethered by an extension cord. ;-)

Oh my how far we've come and how much we've spent. I mean invested in our business tools. Right after the first of the year, I'll be looking to try and get some of my money back when I sell off my gear. I might get enough to buy a sandwich or 2!

Arthur Gannis · December 17th, 2013, 01:53 AM

When I took a partner in with me in 1986 we upgraded to the 3/4 inch U-matics. Just for the sake of a bit better resolution at the client VHS end of things. We had an AB roll system that "only" included:
2 DXC M3 Sony 3 tube camera
2 VO6800 portable U-matics
1 VO-5850 rec.
1 VO5800 feeder
1 RM440 edit controller
1 DME500 effects unit

Those 8 items required my partner to mortgage his house for a loan of drum roll please !
$ 53,000 dollars.
Not including 6 years of repairs and maintenance on them.
Does anyone remember the format called ED Beta ? Yup, we scrapped all the Umatics for that lightweight format. Then we scrapped that one for Betacam , ad then we scrapped Betacam for MiniDV format, and that one for what I am using now. My partner gave up weddings altogether in 1998. He is still laughing at me.

Colin Rowe · December 19th, 2013, 12:28 PM

Keep it in chronological order, its what they want, not what we think they should have. Arthur, I remember those U-matic recorders, the size of a small suitcase hanging off your shoulder, 20 minute tapes, Oh, those were the days

Colin Rowe · December 19th, 2013, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

we used to cook people with a 1KW halogen light

To keep on track with this post ..all videos shot in those day WERE in sequence as you edited in camera and only rarely gave a bride a 2nd generation copy!!

Chris

How true, brings back memories. The problem is, it doesnt seem that long ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arthur Gannis · December 19th, 2013, 01:55 PM

I can just remember purchasing 12 of 20 minute U matic tapes costing a total of $360 for each wedding. Problem was if the editing was not done fast enough to put that footage onto 2-60 minute large Umatic tapes, then I needed another $360 worth of tapes, Many times I had 3 weddings back to back and then a backlog of the past month editing to do and ended up having like over 200-20 minute tapes at $30 each. That is not counting the large Umatic tapes that were $65 each and required 2 of those per finished edit per event. If anybody had that sort of editing set-up back then, it would not make any sense to charge less than $4000 per wedding. After depreciation of eqiuipment, tapes, repairs, etc.. in only 6 years time that would eat up 50% of the profits.And that is NOT counting the time and labor put in to edit . I guess we did that just because we loved our work ad never got rich out of it.

December 16th, 2013, 02:11 AM	#16
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: How much of your video is chronological? Hey Art Ah! the good ole days where you had to use a bit of thinking to make a nice title ...I think my first "computer" title was done on a Amiga!! I'm sure Don Bloom would have some clever ways of doing a title! The UK murder/mystery "Murder she Wrote" did the credits on a typewriter except the page flew away at the end. On Saturday I wrote the couples name in the sand (it was a beach wedding!) and let the wave wash over it and then played the clip backwards so the names were revealed rather than washed away! Chris

December 16th, 2013, 03:11 AM	#17
Peter Rush Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK/Yorkshire Posts: 2,069	Re: How much of your video is chronological? Wow a blast from the past - I had an Amiga 2000 and used a program called 'brodcast titler' - it was brilliant featuring rolls/crawls and texture fonts - happy days!

December 16th, 2013, 06:46 AM	#18
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Re: How much of your video is chronological? The Amiga was King of the Hill back in the day. Expensive but beat the hell out of lineal editing. I can't remember the name of the titling program I had. I got a bunch of stuff from a friend of mine who also had an Amiga. He had all the bells and whistles software. All of the "cool" flying, swirling and circling text effects one could ask for back then. ;-) Ahh, the "good" old days! I'm so glad they're gone! __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

December 16th, 2013, 07:29 AM	#19
Roger Van Duyn Major Player Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Lakeland Florida Posts: 692	Re: How much of your video is chronological? The titling program I used on the Amiga was Scala. Had a gizmo called a SuperGen for overlaying graphics before sending to tape. __________________ Roger My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAp...2AHr_pHFID5LDA

December 16th, 2013, 07:45 AM	#20
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: How much of your video is chronological? and the younger DSLR guys would be saying "What on earth is an Amiga" ... Sheesh in those days all my photography was either 6x7 or 35mm and film ..however I did manage to find a video card later on for my PC with video out that went into a breakout box to overlay titles so you could record into your edit recorder. Anybody use Pinnacle's first system that controlled the camcorder and the VCR and recorded segments with EDL's onto your tape? That also was able to overlay titles before true NLE's came in. It was a hit and miss affair though and my very first "computer edit software" was actually non linear and made by Corel called "luminere Version 1" it even had Smart Sound on it!! However you still had to capture the analog tape onto the drive in real time. How times have changed!! Come on Don ..before Amiga you must have created some really good optical titles ?? I remember when I was a mere 13 and my mate's Dad was making a super 8 movie on a Hindu Fire Walking ceremony and he had a softboard with plastic lettering and as a title effect he was dousing rags in benzene and burning them before the titles and then shooting that with his Bolex! That's when I decided I want to make movies! Chris

December 16th, 2013, 08:57 AM	#22
Peter Rush Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK/Yorkshire Posts: 2,069	Re: How much of your video is chronological? From the Amiga I moved up to 'FAST Video Machine' with a DPR (Digital Player Recorder) pretty much one of the earliest affordable NLE systems although the titling was pants - you had to title in something like Microsoft Word and 'Print' to the FAST print driver - beyond clunky! Pete

December 16th, 2013, 10:09 AM	#23
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Re: How much of your video is chronological? Chris, I can't remember what I did last night much less the stuff I used with the Amiga and before that. :-) I heard about the FAST machine but frankly never got into more than the Amiga until I was able to get into a computerized NLE. IIRC I think I started with Pinnacle which went to Liquid (which was really nice) then Vegas. I started with Vegas about late version 2 a few months before 3 came out. Gotta be honest, the Amiga was for it's time the most awesome machine. Also cost an arm and a leg but it was the cats meow! __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

December 16th, 2013, 04:45 PM	#24
Arthur Gannis Major Player Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: New Jersey USA Posts: 504	Re: How much of your video is chronological? You guys are not that old, C'mon now.. in 1976 I got hold of my first Sony single tube Trinicon camera and the Betamax portable recorder tethered to it. That was a godsend compared to the Super 8 movies changing reels every 3 minutes and the cost. I was in heaven shooting a Betamax tape that lasted 60 full minutes. The camera top light was a 650 watt bulb in a reflector that had a 100ft. extension to the wall socket.How many dancers tripped over that wire, I can't count. Editing was done with 2 top loading betamax recorders that were constantly stressed in FF pause and rew modes. Now that was editing, your fingers were numb after one edit job. The quality of the 3rd gen tape was horrendous and customers had to put up with purchasing the VHS or Betamax decks to watch it. Prices of them VHS decks back then were over $1000 and now we have BluRay under 50 bucks. A big size color TV then was 26 inches. A 3 chip camera was the stuff of gods and if you were lucky to afford one, then you would be way above the competition with 720 lines of resolution. Those cameras required a huge amount of light at receptions and it was not uncommon to see 3 Ianniro 1000W filaments roasting the place. Oh yes, those were the good ol' days.

December 16th, 2013, 06:53 PM	#25
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: How much of your video is chronological? Hi Art Oh yes we are!! My first was a Panasonic WVP100 that also had a Saticon single tube sensor and fed initially a Sony UMatic 3/4" recorder that broke one's shoulder..later I "upgraded" to a lighter recorder which was a Panny NV100 which took full size VHS tapes .... My first "all-in-one" camera was a Panasonic M3 which had the tape in the camera - WOW!! S-VHS did help a bit with the ability to get to 400 lines of resolution compared with the usual just over 200 lines of standard VHS. I had my brother help me at weddings with lighting and yes we used to cook people with a 1KW halogen light which I attached to an old brush cutter handle and it had extension cable all over the dance floor and could give you a healthy tan if you got too close! To keep on track with this post ..all videos shot in those day WERE in sequence as you edited in camera and only rarely gave a bride a 2nd generation copy!! Chris

December 16th, 2013, 10:49 PM	#26
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Re: How much of your video is chronological? My first video gear was like Arthurs. Big, heavy and costly. I loved being tethered by an extension cord. ;-) Oh my how far we've come and how much we've spent. I mean invested in our business tools. Right after the first of the year, I'll be looking to try and get some of my money back when I sell off my gear. I might get enough to buy a sandwich or 2! __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

December 17th, 2013, 01:53 AM	#27
Arthur Gannis Major Player Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: New Jersey USA Posts: 504	Re: How much of your video is chronological? When I took a partner in with me in 1986 we upgraded to the 3/4 inch U-matics. Just for the sake of a bit better resolution at the client VHS end of things. We had an AB roll system that "only" included: 2 DXC M3 Sony 3 tube camera 2 VO6800 portable U-matics 1 VO-5850 rec. 1 VO5800 feeder 1 RM440 edit controller 1 DME500 effects unit Those 8 items required my partner to mortgage his house for a loan of drum roll please ! $ 53,000 dollars. Not including 6 years of repairs and maintenance on them. Does anyone remember the format called ED Beta ? Yup, we scrapped all the Umatics for that lightweight format. Then we scrapped that one for Betacam , ad then we scrapped Betacam for MiniDV format, and that one for what I am using now. My partner gave up weddings altogether in 1998. He is still laughing at me.

December 19th, 2013, 12:28 PM	#28
Colin Rowe Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Cornwall UK Posts: 793	Re: How much of your video is chronological? Keep it in chronological order, its what they want, not what we think they should have. Arthur, I remember those U-matic recorders, the size of a small suitcase hanging off your shoulder, 20 minute tapes, Oh, those were the days __________________ Colin

December 19th, 2013, 01:55 PM	#30
Arthur Gannis Major Player Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: New Jersey USA Posts: 504	Re: How much of your video is chronological? I can just remember purchasing 12 of 20 minute U matic tapes costing a total of $360 for each wedding. Problem was if the editing was not done fast enough to put that footage onto 2-60 minute large Umatic tapes, then I needed another $360 worth of tapes, Many times I had 3 weddings back to back and then a backlog of the past month editing to do and ended up having like over 200-20 minute tapes at $30 each. That is not counting the large Umatic tapes that were $65 each and required 2 of those per finished edit per event. If anybody had that sort of editing set-up back then, it would not make any sense to charge less than $4000 per wedding. After depreciation of eqiuipment, tapes, repairs, etc.. in only 6 years time that would eat up 50% of the profits.And that is NOT counting the time and labor put in to edit . I guess we did that just because we loved our work ad never got rich out of it.