Moving pictures.

For most of you that know me from recent life, or from reading this blog, you probably think of me more of a still-photo-type-guy as apposed to video. This is somewhat ironic, as I was very heavily involved in video production some time ago . . . TV news cameraman, production studio manager, freelancer, and the like.

Technology left me behind . . . . during my video heyday I was spinning little knobs and punching the edit in and out points, and the edit was performed by physically moving and syncing tape. I had heard of computerized "non-linear" editing, but never laid hands on the system. (The cost of the NL editor-like Avid-made it inaccessible to anyone outside of a large commercial production house.)

So then computers get faster and faster, and hard drive capacity increases exponentially, and NL systems start to appear in the consumer computer market. I had missed video production . . . but I knew it would be nothing more than a hobby, so I knew that I had to be conservative on cost when purchasing a video editing system.

Macintosh came out with a "Performa" computer that was supposed to be a real whiz-bang system, just like the big studios. I bought one - if nothing else I was due for a new computer anyway. It was a big disappointment . . . . locked up frequently (not a often as a Windows system, mind you) and I could not really figure out how to export the edited video to tape . . . . . thus kinda making the edited video useless. (This, of course, was long before the days of email, youtube, dvd, mpeg technology.

About a decade later I ran into some grant money to buy a media PC at MOSI. I had dreams of keeping the video that looped in the IMAX lobby up-to-date with coming attractions, or even daily "news" reports that would welcome special guests, promote opportunities through the museum or even advertise a daily special at the concession stand. I scripted and shot (in hi-8) a custom "behind the scenes" IMAX technology video or a period of about two months. When my assistant and I tried to edit it I learned that technology STILL was not there . . . . I was extremely disappointed. I had the finished product in my head (and it was good!) but just could not get it on tape.

Fast forward (ha!) to the present . . . . . my high 8 camera (now quite obsolete) ceased to function (the rubber parts of it, the buttons, and drive units have actually broken down with age and started to liquefy) and while cruising Woot.com once day I see an HD camera, with wide screen aspect ratio on the cheap. I ordered it . . . . surely technology in this epoch will now allow me to edit tapes to my satisfaction. I had 30 minutes of spare time to mess around with Window Movie Maker . . . . I finally think technology is there!

So anywho . . . I shot some test footage . . . and played around with it for a bit this weekend . . . so be looking for some videos in the future!

The following is just some test footage . . nothing real exciting . . . there was just some specific things I wanted to try. I was also curious how my truck sounds OUTSIDE of the cab.


Oh, and P.S. - after I resigned from MOSI my assistant got with Bay News 9, took my storyboard and script, and produced my behind the scenes video, almost word for word and shot for shot as I conceived it. It is now showing in the IMAX lobby - VO'ed by Jen Holloway . . . It is EXACTLY what I envisioned. Nice to have a legacy, you know?