JR
* Ace Member *
I do not know what the guys from zerocoolace did and why. They had a guy at the tee much or all of the time. Not so sure about the hat camera pointing in the correct direction. It looked like it was pointing way above the sight line of the guy wearing it. It might have been on purpose so that when he's looking down at the view screen of the main camera the hat cam points at the action hopefully above the players and caddies showing the flight. If that's the case. At the moment i'm too tired but i think the hat cam guy operated a larger camera. They had 3 cameramen and they were in multiple places vs the throwers. Often times there is only a small area from where you catch the whole flight of the disc. At times it is inches in size. I filmed the course and event in what one camera can cover in 2010 and the guys seemed to choose different filming positions and that necessitated filming from behind stuff often. I welcome the idea to show a different perspective and vistas of the course. I think those guys made life more difficult for themselves trying to differentiate the video from the perspective we had. That must have influenced the video. Having difficulty seeing the disc makes following and centering on the disc all the more difficult. View screens on the cameras are often too low in contrast and too dim and sometimes glossy so that you see little or nothing at all from them so following the disc is hard. Often times we've had to raise our eyes from the view screen and reacquire the disc by eye and hope that guiding the camera by muscle position sense and dumb luck. And trying to view over the center of the lense to aim visually with that in a rough manner.
I've noticed that setting up a tripod level takes a lot of time and is difficult. The pace of play is quick vs the time to perfect the upright position of a tripod. One can put the tripod legs together and tilt it upright manually but it will be at least as unstable as a monopod and more difficult to maneuver. Especially in bushes and with tall tough undergrowth. A tripod has a way tougher time of allowing free fast unimpeded panning sideways. Sideways and vertical panning simultaneously gets even more difficult. Even on the loosest settings of the tightening screws of the camera head. We have filmed in free hand mostly, lately more with monopod and only in sparsely and more toward the earlier videos with a tripod. Because the discs rise and fall in the flight and one often must position away from the line the disc is flying at the camera operators need to pan sidweays and up and down. That is difficult even with a monopod unless you make it short and raise it to free hand position panning up. When the disc lands near you even the monopod has difficulty to follow the disc down.
A major issue is where to film from showing the flight of the disc. We've operated under the assumption that people like to see the whole flight of the disc and preferably how the player throws. Often times one has to sacrifice some of the other to improve on the other. With one camera per group we've chosen to show how the disc flies and with two cams one cam films near the tee to show how the player threw and at a later stage in the flight the edit can be switched to the receiving end camera to show where the disc finished up. Often the tee cam has obstructions in the way so the landing position and the whole flight gets impossible to film.
We try to operate zoom and keep the disc in the middle of the picture while panning in each necessary dimension. It is so difficult that we can't pull it off often. Especially keeping a close and fast flying disc centered in the view. I'm always worse in operating the camera (make sure to get one small enough to reach all the controls comfortably for dexterity and all the most useful functions manipulable in the shortest amount of time) early in the season thanks to the situations moving so fast. One has to be set up properly and ready for the shot and even then i made a lot of bad mistakes this year at Tali Open. I overextended my brain capacity trying to live narrate the video. Shhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Embarrassing not pointing the camera to the tee not realizing i had drifted off while concentrating on speaking. Filming is also very physical. I'm always more tired after filming than playing a round. The receiving end camera has to move a lot more than the players and needs to not breathe much of the time and run in between at times. That is a poor equation. The more tired you are the more mistakes you make and the slower you get.
Routine has to be kept up or the filming will be worse. After learning some tricks the filming has become a little easier but it is still very fast no margin of error effort.
I've noticed that setting up a tripod level takes a lot of time and is difficult. The pace of play is quick vs the time to perfect the upright position of a tripod. One can put the tripod legs together and tilt it upright manually but it will be at least as unstable as a monopod and more difficult to maneuver. Especially in bushes and with tall tough undergrowth. A tripod has a way tougher time of allowing free fast unimpeded panning sideways. Sideways and vertical panning simultaneously gets even more difficult. Even on the loosest settings of the tightening screws of the camera head. We have filmed in free hand mostly, lately more with monopod and only in sparsely and more toward the earlier videos with a tripod. Because the discs rise and fall in the flight and one often must position away from the line the disc is flying at the camera operators need to pan sidweays and up and down. That is difficult even with a monopod unless you make it short and raise it to free hand position panning up. When the disc lands near you even the monopod has difficulty to follow the disc down.
A major issue is where to film from showing the flight of the disc. We've operated under the assumption that people like to see the whole flight of the disc and preferably how the player throws. Often times one has to sacrifice some of the other to improve on the other. With one camera per group we've chosen to show how the disc flies and with two cams one cam films near the tee to show how the player threw and at a later stage in the flight the edit can be switched to the receiving end camera to show where the disc finished up. Often the tee cam has obstructions in the way so the landing position and the whole flight gets impossible to film.
We try to operate zoom and keep the disc in the middle of the picture while panning in each necessary dimension. It is so difficult that we can't pull it off often. Especially keeping a close and fast flying disc centered in the view. I'm always worse in operating the camera (make sure to get one small enough to reach all the controls comfortably for dexterity and all the most useful functions manipulable in the shortest amount of time) early in the season thanks to the situations moving so fast. One has to be set up properly and ready for the shot and even then i made a lot of bad mistakes this year at Tali Open. I overextended my brain capacity trying to live narrate the video. Shhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Embarrassing not pointing the camera to the tee not realizing i had drifted off while concentrating on speaking. Filming is also very physical. I'm always more tired after filming than playing a round. The receiving end camera has to move a lot more than the players and needs to not breathe much of the time and run in between at times. That is a poor equation. The more tired you are the more mistakes you make and the slower you get.
Routine has to be kept up or the filming will be worse. After learning some tricks the filming has become a little easier but it is still very fast no margin of error effort.
