Cocos & Malpelo Video Expose

Hey folks,

I have finally "finished" (one is never really finished!) editing up my Cocos & Malpelo video from my trip there this July. We were treated to some incredible hammerhead schooling action, along with the usual cast of creatures. I tried to embed one segment of hammer action in this post but it got 4x3 sqeezed!

Criticism:

I am disappointed with the amount of movement in some of my schooling hammer shots. Unfortunatley, we were in firm currents and i was holding on tightly with one hand while holding my monster FX1 setup over my head. The hammers were everywhere and often straight overhead. Trying to stabilize it using the volcanic rock created some horrible grating and jerky footage:(so i quickly stopped doing that). Oh, keep working on it:)

The vis was markedly different each time we visited Alcyone for the hammer schools. I also used dif WB techniques on each visit to the spot. As such, the look and feel of each days footage there is markedly different. No amount of post work (that i could muster) could reasonably bridge that gap. AS such, i presented several seperate sequences of the schools and did not mix days of footage.

Anyhow, let me know if you enjoy the footage or have feedback.

Link: http://www.bluespheremedia.com/cocos_malpelo-video.html

Very nice Shawn! I think the color quality/wb is great for Cocos' water - killer finishing shot.... Also like the way you had three shots up at a time, merging into one.

Aloha

Bryce

Shawn,

Totally awesome - you have some fantastic footage there. Its only too bad the Internet can't possibly show the full quality of what you have!

I too really think the ending shot is killer. The huge schools are stunning and then to "bring it home" with that last shark is nice and personal

To add to your personal critique you gave yourself One thing that jumped out at me is that it was like 99.5% Hammerheads and .5% other (whitetips, rays, etc). I think with that kind of split it might be nice to go ahead and have 100% hammers or include more other stuff. My only point was that it felt like a hammerhead video, but then there were a few frames of "other". So, I guess maybe take a look at the balance? I could be convinced otherwise though.

Overall - amazing!

-- Justin

Hey shawn,

Great work, nice hammers. Wish I could get down there some time. Were you using reef hooks? Does the boat condone the use of such devices? Seeing as it is volcanic that may be an option. Were you on open circuit? If so it seems the sharks are getting used to the bubbles but I didn't see any bubbles.

WB seems OK, the untrained eye wouldn't notice the slight color shifts. If any of this gets bought the post house using more intricate color correctional suites would sort that out anyway. I liked the final shot, very nice, very close and great fluidity of the approaching animal.

OK I gotta get down there. When was your trip? What else did you see? How was water temp? All the required info etc would be great.

Nice work, keep it up.

Mark.

Shawn you ceratinly get around all over the place.

What a wonderful experience.

Hey Shawn,

Beautiful video! I loved the split screen opening and titles. Well done. I liked the quick cuts that visually told the story of the arrival, the area and the prep. The shark footage was so cool! Not too much camera movement, and well-handled in the editing. All in all, a wonderful production!

One thing to consider, although I know it's a pain, is to use royalty free music. And this really is a pain, I know, I know. I went to only royalty free for all my trip vids on the shark boats and other onboard videographer gigs. That way I'm also able to ensure that my entire production is truly copyright-covered. The other thing I would love as a appreciative fan of your work is for you to move the copyright announcement down and drop the size and opacity (one cool way is to composite it in screen mode) so that it doesn't keep distracting from the beautiful images. I realize that was just for the web sample, but I'm easily visually distracted, and your work is beautiful and I want to enjoy more of it!

Thank you for sharing it, and keep up the great work!

Mary Lynn

http://DiveFilm.com

Oh wow! I hate you bro', why do you have to keep raising the bar so high!?

Very nice web page - can you tell me what were the exact Compressor output parameters you used? (bit rate, variable or single pass, codec, frame size, etc etc) I'm really impressed with both the quality and the large size of the page's opening sequence. As this is web streaming video you seem to have got the size/quality issue for video on your website very well balanced.

BTW I agree with Mary Lynn's comments about the royalty free music and copyright message... you now need to spend more money! - investing in SonicFire Pro or similar

Hey folks,

Glad you enjoyed the video. I appreciate all you input and let me see if i can offers some responses.

Justin, yes lots of hammerheads. Did you only watch top video or all the videos? I would say all combined, about 40% of the material was hammerheads of the 30 min video. But to be fair, on this trip, it was hard not to shoot hammerheads. They were everywhere and dominated most dives! I had to look really hard to find the other subject material!

Mark, here's some answers.

-No reef hooks, you shouldn't need them. This is a lot of drift diving or hiding as close to the volcanic rock as possible so the skittish hammers come close. You are welcome to use but no one does. Hard to explain but the diving style there didn't seem to make a good fit.

-Rebreather: nope. Just traditional scuba. With rebreather you can get even closer. To be honest, they were plenty close and the hastle of rebreather wouldn't have been worth it. I recall many occations where I coudl litterly reach out and touch a hammer (but didn't of course).

-My trip was in early July. The sweet spot is in the rainy season and I have been told July/Aug. is THE time. I would have to agree:) Most of what i saw was in one of the video clips on my site. To summarize we had (pilot whales, dolpins, mantas, hammers, galapagos, silky, white tip, silver tip, marble ray, tuna, many jacks, morays, green turtles, wahoo, ruby lip bat fish, and all kinds of other fish. We even had a mommy humpback with it's baby (i only got a fuzzy vid of the pair diving that was totally unusable). I can get you more info in a personal message. Just ping me with what you need.

Wags, yes i have. I am on a mission to see the goods before they are gone...and they are going fast!

Mary, thanks for the kinds words. I worked hard on this one and still have so much more i could do with it. A work like this always feels like a compromise at the end, no matter how much one puts into it:(

-Copyright size and position - i'll see about making that less destracting. Anyone know how to make a sexy copyright?

-Royalty free music - UGH! I spent hours and hours looking for the stuff! I went to "music bakery" and struck out. I have so little time and know i need the stuff. Help folks! Where can a get serveral hours of good mood music for a reasonable price. I am ok with paying for the right stuff, but not ok with paying just to wind up with garbage:(

Nick, you are too kind buddy. When nature throws this kind of material at you, it is hard to go wrong!

-Compressor: For the bigger video i am outputting a 640x360 file:. I'll post up the settings in a moment.

Ok, so who wants to teach a musically challenged fellow sonic fire or whatever:)

Shawn

Nick, here are my compressor settings:

Name: WebStream 800kbs 16bit mono copyright (that's the name i gave it)

Description: H.264 for high-bandwidth streaming

File Extension: mov

Audio Encoder

AAC, Mono, 16.000 kHz

Video Encoder

Format: QT

Width: 640

Height: 360

Pixel aspect ratio: default

Crop: None

Frame rate: 29.97

Frame Controls: Off

Codec Type: H.264

Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On

Pixel depth: 24

Spatial quality: 50

Min. Spatial quality: 50

Key frame interval: 150

Temporal quality: 50

Min. temporal quality: 50

Average data rate: 0.688 (Mbps)

Hinted for QuickTime

streaming server

Text Overlay

Position: Lower Right--TV Safe

Alpha: 1.000000

Text: Copyright © 2006 Shawn Heinrichs

Text Color: r:1.0000, g:1.0000, b:1.0000

Font: Geneva, 48

Deinterlacing

Algorithm: Odd

Ack! I guess I only watched the top one from your website - so "balance" I was talking about was just for the "highlight". So - nevermind, it all rocks the house .

... er didn't you leave out some of the Compressor parameters?

No seriously this is exactly what I needed, and have been playing with numerous settings etc for web streaming. Obviously there is a compromise between size and quality (sorry! ) but H.264 .mov with hardwired frame sizes (to avoid QT stretching to 4:3) seems to be the way to go.

Have you found that regardless of frame size (eg 640x360, or 320x180) the bit rate is the critical file size factor? Seems counter-intuitive but I seemed to get the same file size with a 320 sized frame as a 640 frame at the same bitrate, eg 800kbps. I guess the same amount of bits get spread over a larger area for the 640, so the quality is lower than the 320 - make sense?

Anyhow, this was really helpful thanks.

BTW love the marbled rays clip, that must look excellent in HD

Keep them coming.

Will you post your Bali molas as well, or are you in awe of the competition

Nick,

Shawn was telling me that he gave up on his Mola stuff because yours was too good, mentioned something about "shock and awe"

Also - you need to get a new photo avatar - that yellow housing ain't doing it for you any more!

-- Justin

Also - you need to get a new photo avatar - that yellow housing ain't doing it for you any more!

 

-- Justin

Just waiting for a guy with something like a D70 in a decent housing to do some action stills. 'Course that probably wouldn't be on a video dive trip because of all those troublesome strobes

BTW a big stirrer told me you were thinking of sheathing the still camera and toting an H3 videocam to the run next year? You realise that you are tempting fate and there is a whole new world of pain and investment stretching in front of you

bit rate is a mutha on file size. Larger fram sizes can deliver poor viewing experiences if you don't crank up the bit rate...and file size. I found this setting to be a good balance.

Right on the the mola stuff...who can compete with Jackson's Mola Magic!

shawn, Sonic Fire 4 is so easy to use that you won't need anyone at all to teach you. It is very intuitive and if you do need help, there are a ton of folk here who would be happy to assist. Tho I am sometimes tempted, I never use music that is not copyright free. I did that once many years ago but when a producer wanted to buy the film I had to recut the thing with new, and somewhat different, copyright free music. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Steve B)

I am in full agreement with you folks. Now it's time to become a digital musician. Darn this UW video production job is tough. When i am just providing footage to someone else, it is so much easier. Making my own demo content is a whole different deal!

shawn

shawn, Sonic Fire 4 is so easy to use that you won't need anyone at all to teach you. It is very intuitive and if you do need help, there are a ton of folk here who would be happy to assist. Tho I am sometimes tempted, I never use music that is not copyright free. I did that once many years ago but when a producer wanted to buy the film I had to recut the thing with new, and somewhat different, copyright free music. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Steve B)

Hey Folks,

I just cut a 10 minute short of my 30minute Cocos & Malpelo video. This is a good sized file of 52.6MB. 640x360 resolution.

Enjoy.

Realm of the Sharks - Short II

Top stuff Shawn.

Enjoyed watching it as it feed out to me TV

Don't you know that Stingrays can KILL you

Hope the wetliners don't find that spot.

Very nice stuff Shawn - I've just downloaded and watched the 10 min short in the SIA lounge in San Francisco after a very office bound week in Silicon Valley. Just looking at this rich material makes me itch to get back in the water.

But Mary Lynn is right; you need to do something to get rid of that pig ugly copyright notice. It especially detracts when it overlays the other titles. A semi transparent watermark would be ideal IMHO. There is a good podcast from Ripple (I think) showing how to do this in Compressor. I'll forward when I'm back home ....

BTW did you create the soundtracks in SonicFire?

I get "Error -37: a bad filename or volume name was encountered"

Interesting Nick, I got exactly the same on my WinXP laptop when I tried to run it directly from Quicktime, but it worked fine when I tried "open with" and used Internet Explorer.