when Avatar came out, like most movie goers, the first time watching it was in 3D. not in IMAX, but in a typical movie theater where 3D was available via a pair of 3D glasses by RealD 3D. the price of watching this visual masterpiece? $14.50! later i watched it again at Jordan's IMAX in Natick with the experience being infinitely superior. price? $12. Why is IMAX cheaper?
the stupidity in all of this is the fact that in a movie complex (here in MA) you pay $10.50 for a movie. but for an extra $4 you get the movie in 3D along with the 3D glasses. at the end of the movie, when you leave the theater room, there's a bin just outside with a pile of used 3D glasses thrown in. the sign on it asked to return the glasses - the 3D glasses you paid for - by encouraging you to "re-cycle" them.
do you see the scam here? after charging you $14.50 the multiplex takes the glasses you threw away - excuse me, re-cycled - then sell it to another patron, and start the scam all over again.
it's a good scam, don't get me wrong.
in contrast at IMAX you pay $12 for a movie. you get the 3D glasses before you take your seat. then you return the 3D glasses to a friendly employee at the end of the movie.
i (and perhaps you) would think patrons would be encouraged to keep the 3D glasses they get at the multiplex, and get some kind of discount for the next 3D presentation so they're not paying the full $14.50. man, at least take $2 off the price of the ticket. or how about charging us $12 for the movie, and $2 for the 3D glasses if needed? in this economy any chance to save a few bucks is a welcome.
ever wonder how much energy is wasted to "re-cycle" those used 3D glasses whether they are simple disinfected before they are repackaged for resale, or melted down to make news ones?
the last time i saw Avatar in 3D at a multiplex, i decided to keep my 3D glasses. why not? i paid for them. plus i like wearing them better than the ones you get from IMAX. i'll bring them along with me for the next 3D movie i watch in IMAX where the experience is infinitely superior, and the price cheaper.
for a little while i've been a member of global-flat.com. it's a site dedicated to BMX riders who practice the discipline of flatland freestyling. as you may know, i too practice this discipline, and i've been fortunate to meet with some very good people from Mass on this site.
on Oct. 25 i hooked up with a bunch of guys from the Boston area. they congregate in a street hockey rink in Cambridge right on Charles St. upon my arrival i first met Rick. we first corresponded over global-flat.com. he told me that he too was a 35 y/o getting back into flatland freestyle. though married, and with children, he has made an effort to get back into a sport that he enjoyed once as a teenager. so we had a couple of things in common sans the marriage and children.
later in day more riders began to show up, and the scene was becoming more active with rider pulling off all kinds of spinning moves. initially all i could do was watch and envy at their skills, hoping that one day i could do all that.
i got to know some of them and found out they too were in their 30's, and though there were a few in their 20's, it kind of solidified my impression that, at least within the states, flatland freestyle was being practice mostly by the older crowd who lived through the glory days of BMX during its roots in the late 70's and 80's.
conversely, on an international scale, flatland freestyle is dominated by a younger crowd.
it's funny when you meet people who share the same interests as you. there's this phenomenon that occurs where you seem to do better at executing moves in the presence of others than alone. or perhaps it's just me trying to impress them, and i just got lucky. either way i felt as if anything can be possible so long as i practice with a peer group.
for example, i've been trying to nail down a pedal kick tail-whip (non-foot jam style). on rare occasions alone i'd get it, but it's mostly a miss. but in front of these guys i was able to get it down no problem. it even seemed like an effortless move. last night i tried several attempts of them in my "backyard", and damn it if i couldn't get it at all. what happened?
well, back to my story...
so i brought along my camera in case i had the inclination of recording my experience there. the guys seemed pretty cool with me taking some videos of them. so i started shooting manually, following them around trying to get some good angle shots. these were nothing but random videos that were taken of any riders as they rode by me. a few times i mounted the camera on a tripod provided by another rider name Rich (the second rider to show up at the rink). this way i could be in some of the footage.
after spending 5 hours with these guys, i decided to retire, go home, and review all of the videos taken that day. i recorded about 5GB of MPEG1 video, 640x480 @ 3000kps on my Sony DSC-H9. what was i going to do with all this footage? put it to music, of course. i told the guys that i would most likely make a music video out of them, and post it on Vimeo and YouTube. no one objected to the idea.
so i spent that week importing all these videos into a Final Cut Xpr project, picking and choosing which clips of footage i liked best. tried to keep all the riders well represented throughout the project while at the same time maintaining the actual time line of recorded events. i added a few scenes of myself, but mostly focused on the more experienced riders.
once i had initially selected all of my clips, i began to think about the music i wanted to use. like most of of my projects i was going to pick one song and use that, but i didn't have anything that would cover the 8 minute run-time. so instead i decided to use multiple samples of songs about 1~2 minutes in length. i'd mix up the tempo and style using Drum n' Base, down-tempo, and hip-hop tunes. i chose six song from my iTunes library i felt worked well in in certain portions of the video. the end result was a nice mix that, not only would keep the viewer entertained, but seemed to play well with the video.
later i started to notice moments in the video where some unintentional choreography took place between the riders and the songs. this gave some ideas, and decided to rework the video to get more of this incorporated.
i don't know why i never though of this before. that was one of my intended design for my AMV, Dyson's Revelation.
so i continued with the process where it started to take me into a different direction. more editing was done, and more thought went into the presentation.
in the end i took it about as far as i was willing to go. this video project almost became an obsession. i wanted (almost needed) to complete it by the end of the week; no more. it took some good time away that could have been spent riding. especially now that time is becoming so precious cause the air is getting colder, and i don't have a place to go ride during winter season when the snow starts to fall.
i've posted the video on both Vimeo and YouTube. so far the responses have been positive. and though this project took time away from riding, it was a lot of fun to work on. it left me thinking that i'd like to do more of these kinds of videos. perhaps i will, if the guys let me. and who knows, in time i may get better and have a nice featured moment in one where i'm doing more than a mere pedal kick tail-whip.
all-in-all meeting these guys was a good experience. one i hope will continue as i practice the discipline of flatland freestyling. global-flat.com is a great place to meet other riders in your neighborhood.
normally i would post something like this on my twitter feed, but this iPhone app, i felt, could use a little more attention seeing is how useful is has been, and, therefor, give my personal recommendation.
FreeTheApps has released a handful of free apps for the iPhone that adds some useful functions for your photo taking needs.
the first is Flash for Free. this app helps to increase the clarity of any photo from the camera roll by providing 9 levels of brightness.
the second is FilterFX. this gives the user the ability to add some fun filters to any photos. the app includes the following filters:
Vivid
Cool
Warm
Vignette Black
Vignette White
Black & White
Sepia
Vintage
Soften
check out some sample photos. the original taken on the deck of the USS Massachusetts using my iPhone 3G [S]. the rest were processed using FlashforFree and FilterFX. turn on the captions to see which filters were used, or go to the photo gallery to see them in detail.
these are just two of the apps available from FreeThe Apps, and there are several more. go check them out, and enjoy.
here is my premier video on Vimeo. it's the second installation of my Flatland Sessions
[Vimeo detail]
this video was captured on the 4th of August, 2009. it serves as a follow-up from my last video to show off my progress. it's a casual session i decided to record using my brand new iPhone 3G [S]. the video was just an excuse to play with my iPhone, so i'm not putting a great deal of effort here. however, i've gotten a little better. more time practicing would've been spent if it weren't for all this rain we've gotten over the summer up here in Massachusetts.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST YOUR SET! throughout the video you'll notice weird color shifts. in combination with the music i've chosen, this is an attempt to mellow out the mood of the video. just something i thought i'd throw in to help spruce up an otherwise boring video.
[end]
unlike the first captured flatland session where i condensed the length of the video by utilizing Fade In Fade Out Dissolve, i decided to leave this video intact and instead focus on using some kind of neat visual effect over a mellowed-out down-tempo tune.
one reason for not chopping it up, was because, where as the first session was captured in 720x480 resolution; the video resolution capture on the iPhone is 640x480 (the horizontal field of view is narrower). this posed a problem as i was riding in and out of the frame more often than before. also the video was shot from the ground and not from a tripod. i felt this too had a limiting affect of the field of view. in order to stay within the frame longer i had to be farther away from the camera.
another reason was the audio. unlike the first where i completely removed the audio in favor of a background music, i decided to leave the original audio in. i have yet to figure out how to mix the audio correctly in Final Cut Express 4 (FCE4) as it separates the audio from the video into its own track.
a third reason was simply time. the video for Session #1 contained over 40 minutes of stock footage from multiple angles. so i had a "40 minute" reason to shorten it down and highlight the important parts. in Session #2 only 00:11:50 of stock from one angle was taken. it didn't seem worth the effort just to shave off two minutes.
i did attempt to condense it, but did not worked out very well. still, i think final cut turned out just fine. in fact the end result came out looking really sharp for a VGA quality video compare to that from the original iPhone video, which contained a lot of grainy digital noise due to the low light conditions. the end-quality of the video was thanks to the process of taking the final video exported from FCE4 as an MPEG4 (@ 9000kbs), converting it into a DVD/MPEG2 video (@ 7000kbs) using Burn.app, then cleaning and polishing it up - using some pretty hefty video enhancements - by running the MPEG2 video through Handbrake, and back out to an MPEG4 video (@ 3000kbs). with all these conversions you'd think there be a loss of quality. well, there is, but you can't really tell, because 1) without the original stock there's no basis for comparison so you don't know what to look for, and 2) even if you could tell the loss of detail is way in the background.
unfortunately, because of YouTube's rule regarding video runtime - they limit it to no more than 10 minutes per video - i couldn't keep both sessions under the same roof, and , therefore, i had to find another home. Vimeo was perfect. so long as i keep my uploads to 500MB per week, my videos can be as long as i want. and the quality of videos on Vimeo are always good. i was really stoked when i saw how sharp my video came out. plus if you like the video, you have the option of downloading a copy for yourself. however, you have a week from the date of publish to do that, and you'll need to be a member.
feel free to stop by at the actual site and leave a comment.
on Oct. 25 i hooked up with a bunch of guys from the Boston area. they congregate in a street hockey rink in Cambridge right on Charles St. upon my arrival i first met Rick. we first corresponded over global-flat.com. he told me that he too was a 35 y/o getting back into flatland freestyle. though married, and with children, he has made an effort to get back into a sport that he enjoyed once as a teenager. so we had a couple of things in common sans the marriage and children.
