7/8/2007

Lost Footage

By Laura Moncur @ 5:00 am — Filed under:

I’m grieving the loss of footage for a Starling Fitness video. We went to Yellowstone a few months ago and I filmed a lot of walking footage around the Artist’s Paint Pots and Old Faithful. On the Old Faithful Walk, I went uphill and I was panting so hard, I thought it ruined the footage. I talked about it here:

Click here to see the video

If you watch this video, you can hear some wind noises and some strange squeaks. The wind noises are from the gentle and quiet breeze. Most of the time, there was a normal breeze, which sounded like a thunder barreling down on me. Most of the footage is ruined by the wind noises making popping sounds into the camera. I’ve added a wind screen to my camera to prevent this in the future, but that can’t fix the lost footage in Yellowstone.

What wasn’t ruined by the wind was ruined by a new tool I was trying. It’s VERY difficult to film these walking videos. I have to carry the camera a certain way, allowing my arms to be a cushion so the film isn’t jumpy or bouncy (and making half of you seasick). My arms hurt for days after doing one of these walks.

For my birthday, my wonderful family got me a steady cam that wraps around my neck to take some of the weight. It worked wonderfully and I was able to do several walks in Yellowstone without arm pain. Unfortunately, there are squeaks that were completely imperceptible to me while filming, but show up loud and clear on the video. What wasn’t ruined by wind was damaged by mechanical squeaks.

I could still make a video with warnings that this one isn’t as good as some of the others, but I really go to all the trouble of editing the video for ME. I make these videos because I want to watch them while I’m running on the treadmill. There’s no way in the world that I would watch that video with all the irritating wind pops and steady cam squeaks.

So, I didn’t make the video. The steady cam is relegated to the basement with the other failed mechanical fixes. I have no video in the hopper waiting to be released. I actually have to film something and I have no trips planned for a while.

In the meantime, I’m training. Once a day, I set the treadmill to 3 mph and walk with hand weights. I hold them like I would hold the camera and suffer through the pain in my arms the next day. I’m hoping that by the time I’m able to do more filming, my arms will be strong enough to film several walks without pain and without squeaky steady cams.

Wish me luck!


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