Archive for the 'Video' Category

Minneapolis Train Ride Video


Below is a short video of my quick train ride to the airport through the snowy urban jungle of Minneapolis. Most of the trains were decorated in some way, and you can briefly see a gingerbread design on one of the train cars towards the end of this video. Overall, the Minneapolis public transport system exceeded my expectations, and the same passes work on both the buses and the city train. Highly recommended for travellers to Minneapolis. The speed that the train reached exceeded my expectations, and I was at the airport station in no time!

Go to Byteful Video to see this movie in large size.
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Quick Chill shortfilm


On Saturday, Quick Chill was released onto the Byteful Video page. Yesterday, it hit YouTube. Today, it will be discussed here, at the byteful blog.

Before I discuss this movie, I highly recommend you watch the movie in it’s original large size at the Byteful Video page. If you subscribe to the RSS feed, you will get an even higher quality movie because you will get a Quicktime movie instead of a Flash movie.

A Departure from Previous Movies

Quick Chill was a departure from the videos that came before it: it’s an experiment in technology and technique. First of all, Quick Chill is the first Byteful Video shot with the latest addition to my equipment: the FujiFilm Finepix s6000FD camera. While being a truly excellent digital camera, it also shoots excellent 30 fps video, so for movies such as Quick Chill it’s better than hauling around both a camcorder and a digital camera.

Another difference from past movies was that Quick Chill is the first movie that takes full advantage of accelerated time, thereby saving you the time of watching the cameraman walk a distance for 7 minutes. Instead, you can grasp the entire walk in a mere 7 seconds because the clip has been accelerated to 60 times normal speed. A minute becomes a second, and this time lapse technique gives you a new perspective and also makes the journey more entertaining to watch. Careful editing is what makes this movie work.

Audio is 50% of the Experience

Music was also utilized to a much higher degree than in previous movies. To create the desired effect, time was taken to choose the music that best enhanced the emotions that were already suggested by the final cut of the movie. You can see how much music enhances the movie if you try playing the movie while the sound is muted. For those interested, the music used is modified from music originating from Apple’s Garageband music software included in iLife, so it’s entirely royalty free and that’s a Good Thing.

Similarities

As mentioned in The Dam Ice article, places change greatly with the passing of time. If you compare this movie to the Gale Force Kite movie, you may notice there is even one short scene that is identical to both movies. Can you spot it? Leave a comment if you can.

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A larger size is at the Byteful Video page.
For a Quicktime version, subscribe to the RSS feed or Subscribe via iTunes. Both are in the right hand sidebar.