Wild Summer Race Video

Posted Fri, June 26, 2009 - 10:09 PM
video, advracing

Here's the promised summer race video. I did a little more with the soundtrack than in previous videos, as I'm slowly learning the ropes in Soundtrack Pro. This is also the first time I've done a video that includes original music, in addition to the stock clips; and the first use of an animation, showing the control locations on the bike loop.

A few personal observations, perhaps crossing the line into nitpicking:

• Audio is difficult in these situations due to the high noise level and the effect of wind when using the builtin microphone, which is flush with the casing and not easy to cover with a windscreen (although I should try a couple things). I recently acquired a clip-on microphone with wireless transmitters and used it during some of the pre-race and race start segments to boost Jason's voice, but it has noise floor issues of its own when the transmitters are two far apart, and it appears not to work correctly when plugged directly into the mic input on my camcorder. So I didn't risk losing audio and did it the old-fashioned way on the course, although I wanted to try using the external mic as a general practice.
• I need to make more use of the tripod; handheld is easier, but it's hard to stay steady when I'm actively running around and keeping the heart rate up. FCP has a stabilization filter, but it doesn't work quite so well with interlaced video.
• Some cuts need color and contrast correction; a good example is the transition at 1:47, where the later clip looks a little washed out compared to the earlier one. FCP has filters to handle a fair amount of correction, but I've barely started to play with them.