Ocean Gravity
None divers will never experience that feeling of weightlessness and flying. They found a place with a strong ocean current and let it drag them along under water to give the notion of flight.
James May is interesting. People like me know him from Top Gear and Grand Tour with Clarkson and Hammond but his side projects are interesting. Instead of farming like Clarkson, or driving cars with his daughter Clarkson plays with grown up toys. When I say toys I don’t mean adult cars, planes and more. I mean actual toys. In the video below James May sets himself the project of building a model plane that can fly 22 miles.
The video shows footage of him as a child playing with a model plane, and then as an adult playing with a slightly bigger model plane, then a prototype and then the finished project. In the episode I watched he built and played with a model plane but in others he tries to build other things and succeeds.
What I like about Naked Science, produced by Pioneer TV, is that they produce proper documentaries, rather than breathless crap like so many others do. This is television production quality content, rather than youtube content. I recently noticed that youtube content creactors use the same sound effects, the same music, the same editing, the same chaotic jumble, that makes their content tiring to watch.
In contrast when you watch James May play with model airplanes you get a well produced, well edited, well paced documentary that is interesting to watch. This is a fifty three minute video where you don’t stare at your phone, or get distracted. You watch it from the start to the end without being distracted, or fatigued.
There was a time when I would watch every documentary in the morning, and then do something else on satellite TV. I don’t do this anymore. Too many programs are designed to distract people from adverts so they’re constantly repeating themselves.
I loved watching Mythbusters but that was the decline of Discovery Channel Documentary making.
What makes James May’s Naked Science shows stand out is that they are watchable by a “dinosaur” like me. When a documentary is well paced, and edited to be watched without commercial breaks it becomes engaging. YouTubers should strive to make content that is equal to television rather than scrape the barrel of throwaway culture.
The premise of my post is simple. We live under the illusion that content has to be sensationalist to be worth watching, and we live under the illusion that youtube content needs to be sensationalist to stand out but that notion is wrong. Television quality content should be edited and produced to be shared on YouTube. In this day and age the notion that something has to be two minutes is wrong. The notion that something has to be in “YouTube style” to be noticed on YouTube is wrong. In my eyes we should produce long form content that is well produuced, for YouTube and social media.
YouTube is big enough for content that appeals to my generation and others to be produced and thrived. Algorithms should take this onboard. I want YouTube’s algorithms to provide me with content that is relevant to my age group and interests. I want more content recommendations such as the video above.
Today I went to the Geneva Motor Show and filmed lot’s of cars, from the Koenigsegg to Asimo the robot via a few girls giving information about cars and even crowds of people. I spent some time reviewing the footage and yet again I’m happy with the results. I’m going to work on a few compilation videos within the next few days but if you’d like an overview of the result then I have a sample on blip (select the mov), and on Youtube (Select HD).
Enjoy.
During my second year at university with some friends, we worked on a zombie film where my friend was a director and I was Lighting Camera Operator and editor. As a result of this, we had almost total control of the film and it was a great learning experience.
Several weeks were spent preparing the script, finding actors, and testing different types of makeup. As a result of this, I was in a pub dressed as a zombie. The shooting went well and so did the editing but I committed one stupid mistake. I didn’t leave the sound loud enough, as a result of which it’s hard to hear what’s happening.
At the time of editing, I had worked in a number of stages from rough cut to cleaner cut to fine cut and sound engineering. At some points, there are eleven tracks of sound to be taken care of. It’s taken several months but I finally have the time to re-work the project. I’ve got the project file in at least one or two places on my iBook and once I get to London I’m going to transfer it over to the Macbook pro. That’s when the fun will start.
I’m going to getting al the clips back online and export the video to soundtrack pro and that’s the point at which I will attempt to learn the software well enough to re-work sound once the other stages are finished. I’m looking forward to that stage because both my friend and I have been talking about re-working the sound on that short film for at least a year by now. Finally, I have the time and the resources to get on with it.