Summer fun with the grand kids

[Gerlinde]

My husband and I had the 3 grand kids for one week in July as part of their summer vacation. They live an hour away from us and even the 2 girls are developing rapidly into teenagers, they still like to spend some time with Oma and Opa. Our 4th grandchild is local and we get to see him every week for Monday night dinner. He joined us during that time for some of the daily activities.

We made 3 trips to the beach with them. The first time we did go to Coronado Beach, close to the famous Hotel Del Coronado.
Unfortunately I did not take my camera that time.
The girls tried boogie boarding for the first time and had a blast. The little brother was screaming his head off every time the waves came at him ( for fun - not because he was throwing a fit ), and then he started running when the waves retreated. We had our hands full to keep up with him.

Since this was so much fun, the girls wanted to go to the beach again. My husband and I decided to take them to Mission Bay for a more relaxing experience. There are no waves, but they had fun anyway. Our other grandson joined us for the trip together with his mom.

This time I made sure I had my camera ready to go.

The 3rd trip to the beach took us to La Jolla Shores. The girls wanted to have some more wave action.

I finally got around to edit the footage and I thought I will share it here for you to enjoy. I used original music for my videos. I tried to find something royalty free, but did not find anything I liked.
If this is getting me into trouble let me know and I will remove the links.

The songs I used:

Mission Bay >> Cabin by the sea, The Dirty Heads

La Jolla Shores >> Surfin in the USA, California girls, The Beach Boys and Surf Rider, The Lively Ones.

I made 2 versions of the La Jolla Shores video, a long and a short version. The long version is 6 min. long and the short version ( for the people with the short attenton span ) is 4 min. long

Mission Bay

La Jolla Shores_long

La Jolla Shores_short

[hpharley90]

When I click any of the links I get this. I'm using Mozilla.

not supported.
jpg

[Gerlinde]

Hmmmm, I just tried it on Firefox and it works for me. Although, it does not work on my iPad when I use the Puffin browser, but Safari works too. It also works in Explorer. I'm not sure what to do about it

[Bob]

Firefox (i.e. Mozilla) has long not supported mp4 and required either an add-on or flash fallback for that function. This year, that changed and they are now rolling out support. The current release supports playback on Windows 7 and 8. I don't know if Windows xp is supported yet, that may come later. Be sure you have the latest version installed.

[Gerlinde]

Thank you Bob for your explanation. Would it help if I would convert the files to a different format like .wmv?

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Bob]

Currently, MP4 (h.264) is really the best choice for online viewing and is probably the closest thing we have to a universal format. I wouldn't recommend converting to something else.

Only two modern browsers (Mozilla and Opera) originally choose not to support MP4. Mozilla has capitulated and is now rolling out support for it. As far as I know, Opera is still a holdout. But, their market share is only about 1%.

[momoffduty]

What fun Gerlinde! You are capturing family memories. The little guy sure has a lot of energy. Good thing the 2 teen girls don't mind running after him. The Mission beach looked more relaxing and probably easier to keep an eye on the little one.

How did you edit the old movie effects in the 2nd/3rd one? The camera moves looked steady.

[Gerlinde]

Thanks for the additional info Bob. I am kind of surprised that the videos did not get converted to flash after I uploaded them to Adobe Revel.

Thank you Cheryl for your comments. I used Pinnacle Studio 16 Ultimate to edit. The old movie fx is one of the many things the program offers. The effect is customizable, but I just used it at default settings. And the 2nd effect applied is the dark frame. It is also fully customizable. You can change the color, shape, opacity and size. In addition I punched up the colors to get the 60ties look together with the music.

Everything was filmed handheld. I was worried that the zoomed in footage would be all wobbly. Usually it is, but I must have had a good day...
I only applied stabilizing to the very first section of the girls surfing, everything else is as filmed.

Yes, the girls are super good baby sitters. They just love the little guy to death. Sometimes he gets really mad because they don't let him do stuff.

[TreeTopsRanch]

Well those don't play well with my version of Firefox either. (Ver 25.0) I use NoScript and that stops most every script know to man. If I enable scripting, it takes too long to start playing so I gave up. How about uploading to Vimeo so that we can watch?

[Gerlinde]

How about uploading to Vimeo so that we can watch?

I don't have currently a Vimeo account and I don't think they would let me upload the videos.I would have to change the sound track. I will think about it...

[videovillageidiot]

Watched 'em all - LOTS OF FUN!!! Really nice job - shooting and editing. The music selections were great!

Love your work!

[Gerlinde]

Thank you Sherrin

I bought some royalty free music from JewelBeat.com. They have songs for 99cts and I found something that sounded good. Now I only have to find the time to do a different version to upload to Vimeo.

[Dave McElderry]

I also was impressed with the steadiness of the handheld zoom shots. I did some handheld full zoom this past summer from the end opposite the podium across Ohio Stadium and felt lucky that mine turned out so well. I've wondered how much of the success was due to image stabilization at work in the camcorder. Didn't end up using any in post.

Anyway, it looks like everyone had a lot of fun and you caught some great moments. Aside from the effects applied in post, did you use any filters on the camcorder while shooting on the beach? Water and snow can be a challenge sometimes.

Great job!

[Gerlinde]

Thank you Dave

I've wondered how much of the success was due to image stabilization at work in the camcorder.

Yes, the camera's image stabilization has a lot to do with it.I think the Canon HV30 does an exceptional job as long as you stick within the standard zoom range. Once you get into the digital zoom range it gets really ugly quickly.

I had no filters attached, I don't have anything that fits. I don't remember what settings I used, probably just auto white balance.

[momoffduty]

Everything was filmed handheld. I was worried that the zoomed in footage would be all wobbly. Usually it is, but I must have had a good day...
.

Does your camera have zoom settings? My Canon HV30 has options for zoom speeds. I leave mine on the slowest. One option is no settings and only you control by the button. This method I am not consistent. With the setting at slowest, I just push the button over and hold and the camera keeps zooming until I let up on the button. If it does turn out too slow, then in post I speed it up just a tad.