Author Archives: david

Better Stability

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Stability

This happens a lot: you’ve been running around with your iPhone or other phone camera, or perhaps even a bigger DSLR or film camera on a circuit or other event. You watch your stuff back on the tiny phone or LCD screen and it looks great!
But then you want to show your friends on your TV and you’re embarrassed by the wild shaking that you didn’t notice before… The reason is simple: A tiny shake on your small screen becomes a really big one on the laptop or TV screen. You really want to avoid shaking as much as possible, and even when you think you’re doing o.k. while filming and checking the small screen, keep in mind it needs to be more stable for good playback on bigger screens.

Nowadays many camera’s have quite good stabilisation built-in. Even some phones have it. It’s often just a digital trick, moving pixels around, but if it’s an option on your camera, be sure it’s swichted on. If you’re lucky enough to have a camera with so called “optical stabilisation” that’s even better. It can be built into the camera, the lens, or even both (working together). In this case it won’t degrade your image quality and you will get far better results. If you purchase a new camera, check for it, knowing “optical” is superior.

If you have the stabilisation or not, there’s always tricks you can use get more stable shots, even without a tripod. The first is to properly get ready. Don’t just rush around and flash your camera, but stand firm, know where you’re going to shoot. Keep your legs about 50 cm apart, so your lower body becomes like a triangle stable base. Keep the camera as close to your body as possible. The further you hold it, the more ‘enlarged’ your body movements (that can even be as small as breathing) will become. Also, when holding your camera far, there’s a bigger chance someone bumps into you if it’s a crowded place. So basically: feet: wide, upper body: small.
Then, if possible, find something to support you. Some lamp post can be useful to lean against and give stability. A wall is another obvious support. Lean against it and be stable!
Then finally, if you want to do some movement (for instance panning; moving the camera from one side to another) do it from your waist. Keep your arms in fixed position, elbows curved down, close to your chest. Move to the starting side using your lower spine as pivot point. Then move slowly to the other side keeping your upper body and arms the same position, only turnig your lower back.
I often take and hold a good breath before i do such a move to eliminate breating movements. As a side effect your lungs will be a stablilizing ‘cushion’ to keep you straight and move smooth more easily. it sounds crazy but it really works!

Happy stable shooting!

Recording Sound

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Recording Sound

When video crews want to record someone talking with clear sound they often use a dead cat. It’s nothing to worry about as “dead cat” is the term for a furry shield around a microphone to keep the wind out. Usually they put it around the microphone, which is put on a stick which is hovered above the filming scene.

But likely you don’t want to use any sound guys, and you want to keep your cat alive. So how to get good sound?

The dead cat is to combat one of the three enemies of recording sound: wind. The other two are distance and your own ears.

Even a slight wind breeze that blows into a microphone (hand-held, or the one built into your camera) will always lead to much more noise than you think. it will become hard to understand what people are saying. Therefore it’s always good to try keep out of the wind. Sometimes just turning your back to the wind direction can already help. that’s not always easy, because the light situation also changes when turning, so you need to balance that. When using a real microphone, any cloth (or indeed a “dead cat”) around it will muffle the sound a bit, but that is preferable to having the wind rumble.

Second enemy of sound is distance. especially on noisy race tracks it’s essential to be as close to your talking person as possible. Every centimeter counts! The sound level decreases exponential when going further away. At the same time environment noise gets worse. If you can attach an external microphone to your camera, always use that option. That way you can put the microphone nearby your ‘talker’ and still film from further away,. it gives you much greater control and, even with a cheap microphone, a much clearer sound. My trick is actually to use a not-sensitive microphone (so it doesn’t record much from the environment) but keep it just a few cm from the speaker (so the voice is still clear). Close enough for good voice, “non-sensitive” enough to not let through much environment noise.

The third challenge: your ears. You can never believe what you hear. Your ears and brain work together as a great noise filter, masking sounds you don’t ‘need’. But they only do this well ‘live’. Once you listen to something that’s recorded, it’s much more difficult for your ears and brain to filter out that aircon hum, some music playing from far away speakers, or a roar from a passing car. Try to stay away from any noise sources, even if they sound not so loud to you. If possible with your camera, use headphones during recording, then  you already get a much better idea of what you really record.

There is a lot more to say about sound, but for now, stay close to your talker, away from noise. Use a microphone if possible! Happy filming!

Film Tip 2; Anticipation

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Video Tip 2

Making video is much like driving a car. You go from one place to another, from A to B. Staying in the same place is boring and doesn’t make much sense. However many people make video by just holding up the camera and not thinking of where it is all going to. They stand still and don’t have a destination.

You can make more interesting video when you have an idea of what’s going to happen next in your shot: your destination. Would you get into the car without any plan of where to go? Likely not. So let’s go travel.

At races there’s a lot of movement as cars and drivers go on and off.
It’s tempting to think that’s enough fun. You simply stand somewhere with a camera or phone, point it at whats going on, press “record” and wait.
But your shot isn’t going anywhere, it lingers on and the video will very quickly be boring to watch. But if you anticipate on what is going to happen and make the viewer feel there’s more coming up, you can make more interesting and dynamic shots.

Think of where your shot is going to. For instance, a car is appearing from some distance. You can simply point the camera, record and wait. But it’s much more interesting to follow the car to some good-looking location where you think it will pass by. This can as example be a garage, or a pit lane with other cars.

In your shot you see the car appear and you follow it. But now you don’t just let it go, but move the camera with it. When your camera comes to the interesting point you anticipated hold it still. Keep that good-looking point at as the end of your shot.

In this way not only the beginning, but also the middle and end of the shot are all nice. You travel through time and between two points. The viewer gets the nice ‘reward’ of watching the whole shot with the nice looking ending.

So the key is to anticipate on what is likely to happen next, and what could be the end of your shot. As example: Any grid girl will smile or wave at you when she knows she’s being filmed. Knowing this, you can make a shot moving your camera from a car to the girl and then have her smile at the end. Drivers about to get into the car will put on their helmet. He grabs it from the car roof and puts it on. Knowing this, you can follow the helmet closely from the roof to the face of the driver. It becomes much more dynamic than filming the scene from a distance.

Even when you film something that’s standing still, you can make it more dynamic by moving the camera from A to B. From a headlight to a brand badge, or simply from one car to another, there is always something to make your shot a journey in itself.

When you see a good start, already have a nice destination in mind. You will have a much better chance of getting a shot that is interesting until the end, and avoid shots that start good but then go nowhere.
Of course, in reality it will often go wrong. You can’t always predict the future, even when it’s just a few seconds from now. That car you follow goes a different way than planned, the grid girl waves to someone else… Bad luck, just delete those shots and try again. Practise makes better. The shots where it all works out will be worth it.

Anticipating on your destination makes a much better trip!

Happy shooting!

Formula 1 and… Badminton?

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Formula 1 and…. Badminton?

Sometimes things come together unexpectedly. Formula One and Badminton don’t seem to match, but today they will.

First, a simple link; both are sports of speed. Did you know that a badminton shuttle can reach over 330 km/h and accelerates much quicker than a F1 car?
The real match between the two sports however is about to happen now, on the badminton court. Red Bull organized an event before the Chinese Formula One with their Formula one heroes Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. They are not driving this time, but will take up the ‘birds’ and rackets. When the two star drivers enter the sports hall they have badminton champion and Olympic Medalist Wang Yihan on their side. She will teach the drivers the tricks of her game.

A few years ago Verstappen started my fire for Formula One again. Although it can still be a frustrating sports to watch, especially when there is little overtaking, F1 has become much more exciting now I have my favourite driver. I want Max to win, because he’s daring, fast, not afraid of what people think… and also simply because he is from Holland, like me.

Last year I already had a little chat with Max, just half a minute between PR obligations. He seemed a very friendly guy and was even interested in how life is in China. It was in a more natural surrounding for him: a karting track. He was fast as a rocket there, but here on the badminton court speed doesn’t come from a throttle.
Wang Yihan starts the warm-up with the two drivers. Daniel wears funny socks and his trademark grin, he clearly enjoys the badminton and is doing very well. He is either experienced or a natural talent in Badminton. Max wears ordinary socks, looks more serious and and needs more guidance by coach Yihan to get things right. How to hold the racket, how to smash.

It’s a big contrast with his race track performance, where he is brave and pushing forward. Good qualities if you also have patience and a good strategy. But the youngest F1 winner in racing history doesn’t seem to realize he has time on the track. In milliseconds lap time, he’s there with the best drivers already. But count in minutes, in total race duration, there is still space for improvement.
A few days after this event Max proves this again during the Chinese Grand Prix by doing too much too quickly. After a very impressive start he makes a few mistakes in his rush, which cost him a good position in the race. Ricciardo keeps his calm and brilliantly drives to victory. I wonder if he wears those socks while driving?

As the badminton event comes to an end I know that Max will certainly be world champion some day, but it won’t be at badminton.

When I have my own badminton racket bag signed by all three stars i think about how many great badminton talents China must have. And Holland now has the Formula 1 star. It’s now time to also find a Chinese Formula One hero, don’t you think?

Driving a Supercar at the Green Hell

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Driving a Supercar at the Green Hell

Now that Audi invited me to drive a lap in a true Audi R8 on the Nürburgring, (that’s right, the “Grüne Hölle”!) I have a confession to make. I might be editor at sportauto but I do video, not the driving. Looking at my history of car ownership I might not be the right person to handle this R8 “challenge”. The fastest car I owned was a Peugeot 405 from 1994. If you look up “slow” In a dictionary, there is a picture of that car with it. I’m not sure of the top speed it had but i wasn’t brave enough to go near it anyway.

It’s a beautiful day at the Nürburgring and I’m thrilled to see the line up of brightly colored Audi R8 ready to hit the track. Excited I get into a yellow one. When it’s time to go, I get seriously confused. My old 405 had about 5 buttons in total but at least 4 didn’t do anything noticeable. The working button was on the radio, which is essential when driving slow. But this R8 had a scary amount of buttons, and most of them located on the steering wheel.

Pushing “start” seems to make sense and when I push it I get the expected result. Behind me I hear a gentle V10 grumble sound. The super nice electronic dashboard tells me to go into driving mode, which is a good suggestion. But it doesn’t say how. After shifting several handles and pushing more buttons the car starts moving. Backwards. Brake! I study and push more buttons and frown. A little throttle and suddenly I go forward, smooth as butter. A little dial on the steering wheel turns up volume of a 1920’s jazz band, so the radio works. It seems a perfect sound track for the Grüne Hölle… If you don’t speak German, it means green hell.

That hell doesn’t look scary at first. It’s a beautiful day and I enjoy the ride in this car that has at least 6 times the horsepower and over double the cylinders of my now demolished 405. With reasonable but safe speed I take a few corners. Then I see a long stretch down, continuing uphill. Behind it I suspect there is a corner but it’s invisible. It’s clear view, not too curvy, the right moment to push the throttle! And so I push it way down.

The engine roars, my passenger shouts. The R8 shoots ahead like a bullet, a sensation I never had before. Track stewerds wave flags, in the corner of my eye I see the camping people getting their BBQ’s ready for the upcoming 24 hours race. No time to watch as the end of the stretch is approaching fast. The faster we go, the narrower the track seems to be. I’m too scared to check the speedometer but don’t want to be a chicken and keep pushing the pedal down. The blind corner is now approaching alarmingly fast. This car doesn’t slow down at all uphill, it simply goes faster and faster. Race fans have written things on the tarmac but with this speed it’s all a blur. I’m now running out of road that I can actually see. I know the invisible corner is somewhere behind there and I very quickly need to brake. Brake hard. My passenger shouts again.

A happy grin on my face. A more wry grin on my passenger’s face.
It feels good that I didn’t lose control with my perfect driving capabilities! Or was it the million of electronic driver aids and the four-wheel drive this car has. Or the alarm bell in my head that told me not to overdo it..

The Audi R8 is a really wonderful car to drive. I never thought I’d enjoy it so much. And it’s super easy too (once you found the ‘drive’ setting on the gear lever.). Today the green hell was a wonderful green play garden for me. Perfect weather, and a perfect car. The Audi is born in Germany and clearly feels much at home here. And it certainly made me feel welcome too.

 

Shooting an Aston Martin, and a dog!

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Shooting an Aston Martin, and a dog!

Filming cars, I’m used to that. But this morning I’m a bit nervous as we’re dealing with two “Legends” at one day. A legendary brand and a legendary challenge.

The legendary brand is known for their long heritage. When you think England, a drive through the fresh green fields, a gentle but pleasing, non-aggressive noise from the engine, swinging sixties, a tweed hat and, well, James Bond, you think of Aston Martin.

This morning no Bond car however. I would have loved to shoot the classic DB5 used in Goldfinger, but the DB11 V12 is extremely pleasing to the eye as well. When it arrives at the filming location, appearing from around the corner, I’m certainly not the only one turning my head. At this hour the street is quiet but the few passers-by all admire our light-blue Aston Martin.
In any other setting you would probably call its color baby-blue, but it looks stunning on the Aston and certainly doesn’t give it a kiddy look. On the contrary. I get the feeling the body lines are nicely enhanced by the color, it is different but doesn’t get ‘ordinary’. Eye-catching in a subtle way. The interior is stunning as well. Every stitch between the cream-colored and darker blue leather parts is impeccable.

And the car matches extremely well with Charles, our second very British legend of today.

Charles, our Beagle.

Charles, our Beagle.

Charles is a full-blooded Beagle, who arrives by taxi accompanied by his Boss, who needs to leave for work straight away. That leaves us with a crew of just five people and a dog to tame.
The legend of shooting with animals is that they are very difficult to film. Prepare for endless re-takes, triple the planned shooting time, have plenty pet food available, and DON’T excite the dog. But of course it’s exciting. To us, but even more to a dog, this is all very exciting. Please… Charles…, be nice to us.

We’ve prepared everything. A quiet and nice location with a crossing. A completely metal-free leash for Charles so it can’t scratch our precious Aston Martin. The weather is also splendid.

Charles loves to jump. He’s the relaxed kind of dog in ordinary life but it’s early in the day and there are so many new smells to sniff! Let’s jump and sniff the car, let’s check the drivers smell! I hold my breath for the most important and fun shot of the video, where Charles is being “walked” by the Aston Martin. Audience is kept at distance, we can only block the traffic for a minute or two. The Aston Martin gently roars, I press “Record” and shout “Go!”.
To our amazement, during this shot Charles performs perfectly and with natural British grace. We do three takes just to be on the safe side. The pace of the second is best and ends up in the fun New Year video.

The only downside of this British dog-car Legend Shoot is that the Aston Martin doesn’t go faster than a staggering 4 km/h. For this video, it’s all that we need. Although it performs well, this is obviously not quite what the Aston Martin is built for.

In just over an hour the shoot is finished. After the ‘wrap’ we need to return Charles home and let him sprint at his own top speed. But not aside our pretty Aston Martin, but next to a Mobike.

The storyboard

Urbanisation in China; happiness is seen everywhere

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Urbanisation in China; Happiness is seen everywhere

 

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* Full version now available online!

A Journey of Wonder in Shanghai
In China urbanisation is at full pace. New neighborhoods and cities emerge faster than ever before. The inhabitants, often coming from small villages or demolished areas in the city centres, find a new social context in the new cities. The apartments are better than what they were used to, but do they feel at home there? Do the new cities meet their inhabitants’ expectations?

The ‘new rich’ can afford to buy a house in a new themed suburb. But the city centres of Thames Town or Holland Village look empty. These areas seem to be used mainly by frantic newlyweds searching the perfect surrounding for their wedding pictures.

Urbanisation In China: Happiness Is Seen Everywhere provides a background and context for the Chinese urbanisation and specifically lets the inhabitants speak. It is not a romantic picture of pretty old houses and alleys, but shows real situations and open often surprising views in modern China.

  • A jury of film critics and architects have awarded the film as “Best Documentary” at “The International Istanbul Architecture And Urbanism Film Festival” 2011. (translated as Çin’de kentleşme: Mutluluk Her Yerde). The prize consists of a statue and a cash prize of 4000 euro.
  • Screened on film festivals in (a.o.) Shanghai, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Seoul and the Netherlands.
  • Released on DVD, published by Architectura & Natura
  • Camera, production, editing
  • DVD and Full-HD MP4
  • Supported by the Netherlands Architecture Fund
  • In cooperation with Urban Language
  • Extra on the DVD: 16 MM Mao Man

Urbanisation in China; happiness is seen everywhere (DVD cover)

News items:

  • November 2012: Urbanisation in China is translated into Korean in order to be screened on the Seoul International Architecture Film Festival, Nov.8th / 14th 2012.
  • September 2012: Urbanisation in China will be screened on saturday 22 september 2012 in Frankfurt on the China in Motion Festival . I will do a Q&A after the screening.
  • October 2011: “Urbanisation in China” has been selected by a jury of film critics, directors and architects as best documentary at the Istanbul International Architecture and Urban Film Festival.
  • The screening of “Urbanisation in China” will be the final act of the Chinese Triptych exhibition @ Casla architecture institute, Almere. June 15, 8 pm. Free admission. See the website for details. 
  • The film has been screened at the MiNi Film Festival in Shanghai (April 23 & 24, Dutch Design Workspace). Interviews and articles in Time Out Shanghai, Global Times, Smart Shanghai and Creative Hunt.
    Thanks to all people who came to this great mini festival, the cinema room was just overcrowded. Special thanks to the people asking smart questions at the Q&A!
  • The DVD is “Book” of the month April at ArchiNed.
  • Screening in CASLA architecture centre (almere) during exhibition Chinees Drieluik: De alledaagse, Netwerk en Groene Newtown. From april 8 – june 20.
  • Radio interview CRTV about the film. Available as podcast.
  • Presentation of the DVD in Architectura & Natura, Amsterdam (3-3-2011). The DVD is for sale now!
  • A preview of the documentary was shown at the presentation of the book “Shanghai New Towns” (Harry den Hartog)(nov 30, 2010).

 

english / chinese – ISBN 978-94-614001-5-4
60 minutes
extra on the DVD: 16 MM Mao Man (short doc)

Send an email for more information (contact details on the right)