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The Gopro Hero 5 karma advert is aspirational
I love sports and I love the outdoors. I really like snowboarding when the conditions are good and when there are few people. I love to climb, to hike and to do via ferrata. Last year during a film festival I was invited to try Paragliding for free and the flight lasted 45 minutes.
In light of this you can see why the Gopro Hero 5+ karma above is so fun for me to watch. It’s not that I want a gopro camera. I’ve had at least two of their devices and except for filming two or three dives and two or three via ferrata the cameras have stayed in drawers or boxes. GoPro show adventures and experiencers that I aspire to. For this reason we want to watch these edits. We enjoy these edits.
Modern film making does away with cranes, jibs and tripods replacing them with drones and devices like the Karma Grip. If you look at the adverts you see that video production has shifted from being a profession to a pass time. At the time of writing the Grip costs about 350 CHF and the drone has not been priced. GoPro is competing directly with DJI and their product line.
With systems like GoPro and DJI are providing the term prosumer evolves. Thrill seekers and adventurers get to play with technology that they can afford to buy and use during their trips or weekend adventures. With this technology fixed cameras are a thing of the past. The camera moves with the action. In practice the camera operator doesn’t need to be an athlete to get in position to get the shot. Assistants are no longer required to carry heavy gear. You carry everything in a bag on your back and it’s ready to use within a short amount of time.
The Right side of the transmission chain – acquisition
The right side of the Transmission Chain is at the event itself. Transmission chain is a term used to describe the route that a signal takes from an event venue to the device on which you are watching an event. As a camera operator the right side of the transmission chain for me is at the event itself.
Belaying
For the IFSC World Cup in Villars this year I was both a camera operator and a belayer. Belaying at a world cup event is an interesting experience because it’s rare to clip and unclip from so many climbers in such a short amount of time. Climbers have a limited time to get up the route. They have six minutes. This means that every 12 minutes or so you’re belaying a new climber as they progress up the wall. It’s a great task for introverts. You observe what the person is doing. When they need rope you’re ready to give it. If they’re struggling you make sure to amortise their fall. When they make it to the top or come back down you help them untie the rope and then you start again.
Camera operating
Aside from this task I was camera operator during the semi-final and final of the climbing competition. This means that whilst most people were standing in the crowd watching the competition I was on a podium in the middle of the crowd filming the climbers as they progress up the wall.
From here you see the crowd and you see the climbers from a privileged point of view. You can see the climbers and what they are doing comfortably. You’re also more attentive. You’re following their every move, watching as they clip and progress. You see them progress and you hear the commentator and hear the crowd cheering.
When you’re on the “wrong” side of the transmission you’re hearing the international sound and you’re seeing what the vision mixer is seeing but you’re not seeing the event in context. The image below illustrates this.
In television broadcasting you usually have the cameras, an OB van and an SNG truck or fibre connections. These go from the venue to the Network Operating centre. The signal is encoded either for web streaming and sent to the content distribution network or it is sent on to national broadcasters. On that side of the transmission chain you are in an air conditioned office as a passive observer ready to react if there is an issue and waiting for the event to end.
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Wow! And to think I got excited when mine reached twenty! 😀