Timelapse

Homage from Adam Elliott on Vimeo.

One year i made quite a few timelapse sequences and had grand ambitions to make a feature length movie about Alaska. I even went on several strenuous hikes specifically to get timelapse footage of certain areas. But then it came time to figure out how to process and edit all that footage, and it was during that process that i quickly started to lose interest.

I'd been thinking of one for several years, and when Fisher lost his leg i used it as an excuse to buy a Sony HDR SR11. It took great looking movies in 1080p and had a very impressive macro zoom, but it also had a diamond shaped aperture that i hated. I also disliked the ACVHD format that it recorded in. At the time there was very little support for the format unless you used Sony's proprietary Vegas Pro software, which was expensive, not user friendly, and crashed more often than not on my computer.

The other major complaint i had about the camera was the false claim that it could record HD video in slow motion. The camera could make impressive slow motion video by creating a buffer on the hard drive. The problem was that when you watch it it's obviously not HD. What it looked like was that the camera was taking standard definition movies and then up-sampling them to 1080p.

I took that camera to locations in Alaska, Utah, Hawaii and Mexico. All the movies were nice looking, and i would have really liked it back when i went to New Zealand and Panama. But then i got the Canon Eos5dM2, and since that also records HD vdieo (in .mov format) the Sony became redundant. After not using it for 6 months i decided i better sell it before it dropped in value too much.

I had all this footage sitting around for a year, and i decided finally i better do something with some or the better stuff or i'd never do anything with it. The result is the over compressed video i've put up here (i couldn't figure out how to get imovie not to over compress). These clips are made from the Sony, my older 5d, and the newer 5dm2. I found out that i could get much sharper, crisper movies by taking a series of still photos instead of video. The only problem with that is that it seriously adds some mileage to the camera shutter. Every movie takes at least 10 to 15 minutes to record and in that time you might take four to six thousand pictures! If you want to go nuts and make an HDR timelapse you can multiply that by 3.

Seeing Through American Delusions: No Glory in War

I've never been in the military. Neither has my father, nor was his father before him. Some of that is simply fortuitous. My Dad had a health deferment during WWII. Had the draft lottery not been canceled I'd have likely died in Viet Nam. I hope neither of my surviving sons ever join up or are compelled to do so. It is not that I don't want them to find some way to do good in the world. In fact, it is precisely because that is what I want for them - to have the opportunity to do good things - that the military seems a terrible option. Wars are sometimes necessary (although Obama's attempt to paint the Afghanistan debacle in that light is a bad joke) to prevent or end some bad thing. Preventing bad things from happening is not the same as doing something constructive and good.

All that is prompted by a 'review' of sorts of a new movie called "The Hurt Locker" about the ongoing and quite senseless Iraq War. I've not seen the film. You can find the entire review here, but I excerpt what I take to be the main point:

"War movies in general are great for what they are: entertainment. . . . But of course there is a darker side.

These movies glorify a situation that has no real glory in it. Turn to one of your relatives or friends who has been in combat and ask them what they think of war. I am sure that they will tell you that it is scary, gruesome and requires extreme intestinal fortitude. There are no Sgt. Strykers or Gunny Highways in the real Corps. We don’t have a director who can step in when all hell is breaking loose and yell, “Cut!” . . .

Please remember that when you watch a war movie you are watching stories about young Americans who went far from home and risked their lives; some of them died there with only their brothers in arms to witness. Hollywood is now taking our money by walking on their graves.

Maybe that’s extreme. Of course I understand why people watch war movies. I watch them, too. But I have seen my friends die and most of the movies just bring up very painful memories."

And, no, the piece was not written by some commie pinko. It was written by a guy who comes from a lineage of Marines, was a Marine himself, and nearly died in Iraq. I only wish some of our bellicose conservative cheerleaders, way too many of whom have never stepped near a battlefield, could see half as well as this guy.