End of Season Boredom
At the end of the season for Tractor pulling there was one Motocross event left for me to experiment with. Rather than focus on the race itself I played with the Camera’s abilities purely to gain more experience. I couldn’t follow the entire course from a single spot anyway, so I put together some footage that leaves a general impression of what attending an MX event looks like, including a few dead spots while waiting for the group of bikes to come around again.
With a number of local events getting rained out I decided on moving indoors, but what? Talent shows? Bars and Cafés? I didn’t want to spend a fortune to gain experience and end up with footage I wouldn’t be allowed to publish. Well, I ran into an event held in a countryside Schoolroom surrounded by pasture land and dairy Farms, so I tried my luck there to see what would happen. With mooing Cows as background noise I shot video from every possible angle but didn’t want to get in the way of the audience. So here is a music video shot while crawling on the floor. This was a good learning experience because the best shots for a Camera are usually in the worst spot for sound. This next video didn’t turn out too badly though, even if I did everything wrong and used the wrong Camera for this situation.
From this footage I learned that the Microphone needs to be in the middle, above the audience and about 8-10ft away from the stage. But how to get it there without the Camera also being there ruining/limiting the video footage?
Answer: a $6 9Ft Fly Fishing Pole and a separate recording device.
At this point I also realized that Microsoft’s wonderful little Moviemaker would no longer suffice to adequately meet my needs; I needed new skills and new software which I’ll get to in the next post. Thanks for reading if you got this far.
onnovocks 
Nice! I really like the bikes coming off the berms! Especially at the tail end of the video. I know, while you are preoccupied with the “quality” of your production, I’m fixated on the content. So what does that tell you? I’d say it ain’t bad at all.
And D.C. Bell do a great rendition of “Bring Me Some Water!” Again, your production values did not at all get in the way of enjoying “that.”
How have you been, Onovocks? I haven’t seen you in my “in box” in, oh, what feels like a year or more! Hope all is well with you! Aye!
May 11, 2017 at 1:50 pm
Yeah, I explained my absence a bit in the previous post, but the main reasons were the developing of new skills, tinkering with kaput’rs and Operating Systems and getting my health back on track. In that time my focus has shifted toward getting good footage in places the professionals don’t really want to work in. Thanks for hanging in there.
May 11, 2017 at 2:19 pm
Onovocks! What health issues are you talking about?
May 11, 2017 at 2:20 pm
Well, the short version is that since 2016 I get infusions every 6 weeks again or my joints swell up.
May 11, 2017 at 2:34 pm
I guess I hadn’t been paying attention. Are you, then, a hemophiliac? I understand, from a brief google search I just did, that that is an issue associated with that particular disease.
May 11, 2017 at 2:41 pm
No, I have several forms of Arthritis and conventional treatment does not work.
May 11, 2017 at 2:55 pm
Okay. But like hemophilia, a condition for which there is no cure. I do recall my mother’s mother having some serious joint pain and deformations in her hands. And in her early sixties, my mother began to develop the same symptoms, but she was deceased before it became a plague for her, as it had been for her mother. I hope the transfusions help. Obviously they must, otherwise you wouldn’t be going back every six weeks. I’m presuming you must be getting up to where I am in age or older. I’m 57, and apart from clotting issues that are ideopathic, I’m reasonably healthy, but compared to how I used to feel only 5 or so years ago, I have to say that I now feel my age. It’s taking me time to adjust, to accept that I’ll never again be as agile or kinetic as I used to be. But what can we do? We raise our arms and “offer it up,” as one of my university professors used to say. Life does change, unfortunately.
I do bid you better days, Onno, as to your mother.
May 11, 2017 at 7:00 pm