I’ve uploaded two videos of the Giant Kings performance at Stone Mountain Arts Center to YouTube.
1) A “highlights” reel from the 9-May show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCJxQepJhMs
This video starts off a bit shaky (OK, very shaky) because I hadn’t set up my camera supports and the “trombone” bit was too good to pass up even if it induces seasickness when watching (I plastered a few stills in there to make it less annoying..)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCJxQepJhMs[/youtube]
2) I have also uploaded the “I Found a Love” video to YouTube (with Mark’s Earley’s name spelled properly in the credits (sorry Mark!) and with better color correction): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWR_Drh3EQ
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWR_Drh3EQ[/youtube]
Both are available in YouTube’s new HD format, which, I have to say, isn’t all that bad at all. If you have a fast connection it is definitely worth pushing that little HD button because the default format YouTube uses is pretty awful.
Technical drivel:
All shots are with the Canon 5D Mark II. The highlights reel inadvertently shows how lens selection and support makes all the difference in the world. The initial shot (Chris Cote’s “trombone”) is the 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens shot completely handheld. This lens has no image stabilization and while I’m actually pretty good at holding a camera steady for a still shot, eventually the muscles have to move. As the highlight reel continues you will see the 24-70 being used on a monopod. This takes some of the harsh erratic movements out, but it still looks pretty unclassy at times. After the intermission I changed my seating and switched lenses with my 1D, so now the 5D had the 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS lens on it. This is a stabilized lens that works pretty darn well on the monopod. Zooming and panning from the monopod are still something I need to practice more, but overall the results are much more watchable (at the expense of not being able to zoom out to the entire stage).
All footage is converted to Apple ProRes 422 for editing. I had dropped in some stills into the highlights reel (as a band-aid over the jerky footage) and used them as a basis for color correction of the video. The edited footage was compressed to H.264, 5Mbps, and uploaded to YouTube (smack in the middle of their outage earlier today, which made the whole experience just tons of fun.)
And yes, I did try running the FCP SmoothCam filter over some of the handheld footage. I played with the SmoothCam settings quite a bit actually and rendered out a few tests. None were satisfactory, so I’m taking my lumps with the raw footage.
Why YouTube vs. Vimeo? 1) Vimeo only allows 1 HD upload per week unless you pay money. I don’t currently produced enough video to warrant the subscription, so it’ll be Sunday before I can upload the next video. YouTube doesn’t seem to have such a restriction. Fortunately they both ingest the same formats/bitrates/etc.; and 2) Videos are much more “findable” by the masses on YouTube vs. Vimeo. The purpose in making these was to promote the band, so it makes sense to make the videos available as widely as possible as long as the quality doesn’t suffer too much. This was my rationale — we’ll see if it was a good decision or not.
