Bee Swarm Paintbrush with Mike

[theOZer]

[OZer Note: Reading Steve's tome on using Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13, got to the page on Time Stretching and Reverse Event. I need to work on better clip folding/transitions, and my audio is still on a rookie level. (I cheese-balled in Steve's book into the vid.)]
Bee Swarm Paintbrush with Mike
Mike Halby, PPBA Valued Member, recovered a bee swarm on our property on May 6, 2015. I took the video I shot of the event and reversed it, sped it up 2X (twice the normal speed), then dumped it to vid. Enjoy.
Love Bees, theOZer
_________________________________________________
Length: 00:06:36 Size: 723 MB Format: AVCHD
Date filmed: May 6, 2015 1:00 - 3:30 PM MDT Date published: May 20, 2015
Camera: Sony HDR-CX240 Handycam, Sony HDR-PJ440 Handycam, Ravelli AVT Pro Tripod
Video Editors used: Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13, PlayMemories Home
Video FX: NewBlue MSPPS Color Fixer Plus - OpenFX
Transitions: Movie Studio Platinum 3D Blinds
Location: Pikes Peak Region, Colorado, USA
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCA4UShB-60[/youtube]

[_Paz_]

Interesting to see it backwards, Oz.

Length of videos - and how long people will watch - has been much discussed here by those of us who want to be sure we don't go too long for our audience. I'd suggest you speed up your footage more. It would make the whole length shorter and the 'joke' would be much more obvious.

[Peru]

Creative idea doing it backwards. I also agree with Paz.

[theOZer]

I tried a 3X but it looked too jumpy...maybe should have tried a 2.5X or something...it is too slow...I agree.

[_Paz_]

ProDad makes a program called ReSpeedr that can both slow down and speed up video and make some stabilization adjustments while it is working. They offer a free download trial.

http://www.prodad.com/home/products/videoeffects/respeedr_v1,l-us.html

I'm currently reading a book about advertising that says in the early days of television they figured out 30 seconds was a good length of time for a commercial.

On this forum we've had some friendly competitions with a time limit of 1 minute, more or less. It was a challenge for me to do but as I saw the results everyone posted I realized just how much can be shown within a 1 minute time frame.

If I were editing this footage I would begin by cutting segments that don't focus on bees. Top of head shots and such. Then I'd run through it and select the most shaky footage and cut that out. I'd perhaps have some pretty large gaps from one stage to another with a simple transition between and let the audience figure out that this means some time has passed. They'll get it.

As I've watched videos on YouTube for a while now I find that I'll look at total time. I have to be really interested to even begin a 5 minute video. Three minutes, I'll watch. But maybe not all the way to the end. I may have more or less patience than the average viewer, but keep in mind that most songs last 3 minutes or less. On any video, the shorter, the better.

I'll see if I can find one of our contests so you can see for yourself what can be done (by a group of amateurs like us!) in a minute.

[_Paz_]

Okay, it took me more than a minute!

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=13315&hilit=2014+08+Muvipix+1+minute+video+showcase

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=13567&p=114801&hilit=2014+fall+video+contest#p114801

[theOZer]

_Paz_,

As always, thank you for your time spent on this. The 1-minute vidz links were well worth the look.

My main drive here in this clip was to create 'but another visual delight,' with this one being revolved around a bee swarm, an uncommon visual phenomenon.

My initial audience I had in mind to see this clip was a Facebook group I'm on called Pikes Peak Beekeepers Association (PPBA). Mike, a PPBA major player, recovered the bee swarm, and he was so, so gentle as he vacuumed up those bees. Mike was super impressive in his caring of those bees, in how he recovered that swarm; I learned a lot just watching him. So, a 2X still showed Mike's 'tender brush' as he laid out the bees on the 'canvas'...past that speed going faster it lost that edge of caring in how Mike worked the bees. And, yes, I need to cut down overall film time. Less is More; More is just more.

Love Bees, theOZer

[_Paz_]

Ah, I see your point. And I definitely missed it. Speeding things up makes a Ziiiiiiiiiiip !

Since what you want is to show slow, gentleness, I'd still cut a good bit, then I'd hunt for the most interesting segment and put that in extra slow motion so it would look fluid and effortless.