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Acro Camp Post-Production Goes to the Streets!

August 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post. You’re looking for show notes and links to show audio and video, right? You know you are! Check out the other posts. You’ll find ‘em. Lots of ‘em!

Lots of time lately cataloging footage from principal photography of Acro Camp in May. I have about 2/3 of the aerial footage from Friday 14 May cataloged and indexed. And I’ve even mated some of the multi-camera parts with their respective counterparts.

That day was one of the more intensive flying days. And it had some of the best weather of the camp. Thus it’s taking a long time to get through, but it’s well worth it.

I’m planning to take the editing process out on the road and edit the film in public so people can see how the sausage is made and maybe become a little emotionally attached to the project. This film is going to live or die by word of mouth and social media, so getting the buzz going by doing things like this makes sense. Ad least it makes sense in the somewhat crazy calculus of social media.

I’m planning to be at The Workantile Exchange at 118 South Main in Ann Arbor all day on Saturday,. If you want to see how the project is going (and check out a great coworking space while you’re at it), give me a call at 248-470-7944 and I’ll hook you up. Maybe get lunch or something.

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FOD Revisited

August 2, 2010 by 1 Comment


One of the best things about AirVenture or any annual event is the way that it helps mark the passage of time. Cole got his callsign, “FOD,” last year. And I shot a picture of him standing in front of the sign at the gas station in Russell, Illinois, purposely obscuring an “O” in “FOOD.” It’s the lower half of the composite above.

We hit Russell again this year to walk around the Russell Military Museum and, naturally, we took another photo to mark the time. It’s the top one.

I’m still ingesting media from AirVenture and will likely have some of that content up soon. But, in the meantime, I’m wrapped up in a reverie about the boy and how much he’s growing. Cool, eh?

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Airspeed Video Episode – Spins with Barry

July 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment

There are the show notes to a video episode. You can watch the episode in the viewer above or by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedSpinsBarry.m4v. Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free.

It’s time for another video episode!

I wanted to go up with Barry to do some acro to condition for the T-38 ride that happened on the 13th. Unfortunately, the Super D is no longer on the line at Oakland Flight Academy for financial reasons, which leaves only the Citabria. And the Citabria, not having a constant-speed prop, is limited to spins as far as acro goes. (And, even if we flew it fully acro, we’d be limited to positive-G maneuvers anyway.)

No problem. Spins are plenty fine to stimulate my vestibular system.

And, as long as I’m flying, it make sense to take along some cameras, if only to shoot B-roll for Acro Camp. This time, I took up a three-camera system so that I could show not only the view of the cockpit but the control inputs and an unobstructed view of what’s ahead of the airplane.

And it was a chance to try out the Multiclip functionality in Final Cut Pro, which is perfect for this kind of parallel-track editing (three cameras and an audio channel).

Like it says in the intro. DO try this at home. It could safe your life. Or at least improve your confidence in dealing with unusual attitudes. But be sure to do it in a duly certified airplane with a qualified instructor and in compliance with all of the regs.

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More Frame Grabs from the T-38 Ride Video

July 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio and video, please look at the other posts.
I just received a couple of DVDs from Jo Hunter containing offloads of the video that she shot at Beale AFB during the T-38 ride. Lots of her video is going to be useful in places in the episode. The shot above is an additional angle. The primary angle is handled by the camera that you see on the left edge of the frame.
Here’s a shot of the altimeter/mach meter at our peak speed (on the way from the coast back to the MOA to go do some acro). Approx. 520 KIAS and Mach 0.94. Yeah, baby! New personal best for me. But don’t think that I wasn’t eyeing that “1.0″ longingly.
How much more Top Gun can you get? Runway shimmer! I’m in the aircraft on the right facing away from the camera. The aircraft on the left departed a few moments before we did.
Can’t resist giving the thumbs-up after the ride. Jo caught this one on video, but I’ll bet that she has a good still of it as well.
Here’s a shot with the hand-held camera in the back of the aircraft. It shows the ContourHDs mounted up front in my cockpit – one looking forward and the other looking at the aircraft’s 9 o’clock. The view from the front-facing camera is great for capturing the forward view, but only captures the top of LtCol MacLeod’s head. Good for forward visibility but, if I had it to do over again, I’d probably aim the camera down about 15 degrees to capture the front cockpit. No worries, though! It’s going to be a really good episode!
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Post-Production Begins on T-38 Episode

July 18, 2010 by 2 Comments


This is a regular blog post. Please check out the other posts if you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio or video.

The adrenaline rush from the T-38 ride at Beale has subsided just enough that I can sit down and begin to rationally inventory the content that we captured on the trip. I spent part of this afternoon going through some of Mark LaCoste’s still pictures. While Mark was primarily handling video, he also shot some really good stills.

I flew four cameras on the sortie – three mounted and one hand-held. Here, I’m mounting a couple of ContourHDs. You can see the GoPro HD Hero through the glass just opposite where my belt buckle would be if I was wearing a belt. I had given a lot of thought beforehand about where to mount the cameras, so the mounting and setting took only about five minutes. The crew chief was really helpful, too, in selecting where to put the hardware.


Here, LtCol Gary MacLeod finished checking out my harness and making sore that nothing in the back cockpit becomes FOD. (Yeah, you pay close attention that. You do engine start and taxi with the canopies open for ventilation. The intakes are just abeam the rear cockpit and anything loose in that cockpit will instantly be ingested into the engines. Which would matter greatly even if the engine weren’t 50-odd years old. And, even though they’ve been overhuled many times, they’re – well – 50 years old.


Getting ready to go. I’m setting up the audio recorder.


I’m really excited about this episode. Can you tell? Contrary to prior practice, I think I have enough video – and it’s strong enough stuff – that I think this is going to be an all-video treatment. I’ll likely do an audio treatment as well on some of the more meta aspects of the flight, but this feels like a video thing. More soon as I get the rest of the inventory done and start writing the script and figuring out what other on-camera narrative input I need to film here in Michigan.
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