SO… what I’m trying to do in this footage is gain at least an entry-level competence with a GoPro and the editing tools in iMovie. I just don’t have occasion to work at it consistently enough. It’s kind of like trying to learn a foreign language without using it day to day.
Send any tips my way. I’d like to get the basics nailed down, just on the chance I might once again ride off to somewhere interesting, roam country that’s new to me, sleep out in the weeds for a few months or a season, talk with strangers I meet, find out what they know.
I don’t really have a sense of whether I even have the chops for the traveling life anymore. Chemo was, uh… well… a swift kick in the pants to say the least. But I’ll make the attempt when I get the opportunity, see what happens. It’s not looking like anytime this year but you never know.
I have three videos here. The first two are about which lens setting might work best for what I want to do.
One’s called linear, the other is narrow. I like narrow because it’s most like what the human eye sees. It works great if you’re just sitting the bike in the right lane in a sparse traffic environment. But if you’re on a high-risk road and busy riding the bike, shifting your weight, tucking into the curves, sometimes the camera ends up looking at the gas tank.
So it goes with a chest mount, anyway. I’ve tried helmet mounts, don’t really care for how they make the world look.
With the lens set to linear, the road ahead is always visible, but linear seems artificial to me, too unlike what the human eye sees. Things are too far away.
This first one’s on the narrow setting. I shot this footage last Thursday on my way to Providence for a routine 4-month lymphoma check-in. (Hit the deer a few hours later on four wheels, happily not on two.)
The parts where you lose sight of the road are poor photography but kind of interesting psychologically. You may get an anxiety rush when you hear RPMs climbing while you can’t see what’s up ahead, just white lines going by side to side, the bike going from the right lane to the far left lane and back again.
The lens is set to linear in this next one: just slightly wider than narrow but… I don’t know, it has a kind of artifice to me. It’s just wide enough to make me unable to forget the camera’s there.
At 8 minutes in I thought I could drum up a contest with the Boxster, just for yuks. A Boxster’s not the Porsche you’re going to find a real hardhead riding around in. It’ll run away from the Twin Cam 88 on the top end but its zero-to-60 time must be roughly equivalent so… why not?
Well, this was a pretty calm Porsche owner, definitely suited to the Boxster, ha…… wouldn’t take me up on the offer.
This last one has both lens: linear up to the 6-minute mark, then narrow. And because there’s no traffic to contend with you never lose sight of the road on the narrow setting.
I include this clip more for the iMovie aspect, the editing tools I’m trying to learn. I tried out a few.
Here and there I’ve sped up the speed to twice the normal rate. The Thurbers Avenue curve looks challenging at 140mph! Strictly routine for the Isle of Man TT but, ehh, I’ll stick with my usual 70 or 80.
Some sections have music edited in, the motor edited out; some have both soundtracks going, the volume on the music turned down, volume on the motor turned up. From the 11-minute mark it’s motor only.
These are basic editing tools but they’re all new to me. Baby steps… like Bill Murray in What about Bob?
I’m usually listening to Motown, acid jazz, smooth jazz… here I dubbed in a few tracks that have more of a motor thump, college-kid alt rock, Julie Elinor’s Mislead and Gone by The Haunted Youth. All rights reserved by the artists. Hopefully they each get a few pennies off the 99 cents I just sent to Jeff Bezos.
If anybody here knows how to do video & sound right, do be in touch.
Tony DePaul, June 9, 2022, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
Hi Tony,
Thanks for the wonderful gas-tank seat rides. This is the way a lot of kids in Vietnam ride with their fathers, myself included.
Dominic
Dominic! So good to hear from you, old friend. I’m happy to know the videos brought back a few fond memories for you.
That was my early motorcycling experience, too, straddling the gas tank, hanging onto the handlebar risers. Not with the old man, though. All he ever had to say about motorcycling was: You know what they call a man with a motorcycle? A bum!
Fortunately, I’ve never cared what anybody calls me.
My childhood motorcycling rides were piloted by a man 19 years my senior, the other half of a brief marriage to a sister 9 years my senior, and he… actually… he… was a bum, a Grade-A bum, and may have figured into pop’s general decree on men with motorcycles.
Love to Thuy and family. Come see us soon!
Don’t let the police see this video, I saw your speedometer reach
90 MPH once, other than that It looks like fun to me.
Hey, Keith! Speed limit there is 55 but that would be a good way to get rear-ended. It’s a tough merge there with lanes ending on the right and everybody already on the road has had a long straightaway up from Warwick. I usually feel safer giving it a pretty good twist to quickly get over into the 2nd lane from the left, then go just a little bit faster than traffic so as not to be anybody’s sitting duck. But I hear ya… throttle control is our friend.
That’s the closest I ever came to riding a motorcycle. There is a sense of danger about it.
Well, but that’s only because you can lose your life doing it 🙂
It’s definitely gotten exponentially more hazardous over the years. At least in the DC-to-Boston megalopolis, and likely elsewhere. The I-5 in California is right up there, too.
Since this seems like the place to toss in a couple of pennies:
Depending on what you want to do with what you shoot, I think a more forward position for the camera would work out better.
If you’re making a video of four months on the road, the handlebars and speedo are gonna get old pretty quick. Especially when people will be watching to see what your adventures are, not whether the handlebars still look the same.
If you’re making a short vid about the bike’s performance, then the current shot is fine.
Good point!
I do have a GoPro mount on the bars, haven’t used it in forever. All that shows of the bike then is a small part of the headlight nacelle.
I should probably swap that mount for a new one, though. It’s had so much UV over the years I’m not sure I’d trust it to bring my camera back alive.
Either format was fine to my eye, as motorcyclists we are constantly scanning left to right, behind, repeat. Felt like I was there so was scanning out of habit. The iPhone blocking my view to the left was bothersome. Wanted to keep looking around it.
But if you mount the camera a head of the iPhone, then we won’t see the speedo.
Liked being able to see the speedo, hear the engine revs, scan left and right, sensing the bike lean in curves.
Maybe consider just for video purposes, a rectangular mirror hanging beneath the left handlebar so we can see what is either fading away or traffic that is coming up to pass on your left. Don’t remember anyone else doing that. Could be interesting or a bust. A vibration free mirror…
If you adjust the left mirror for the camera to see behind, it will be useless to you for riding.
Looking forward to your video.
Hmm… well, I could mount a second camera facing aft, edit the two files in iMovie, cut from one to the other.
Or maybe just get Scorsese to do it for me…
I’m daunted by the learning curve.
The iPhone definitely is in the way.
You know what, amigo, that two-camera thing would have been the perfect setup to capture my close encounter of the holy shit kind with those two deer in Nevada, 2018. You were some miles up ahead, iron man Nestor was about a half-mile behind me and saw it happen. That was an exercise in threshold braking for sure. Had the iron piggy down to about 50 when one deer crossed at a dead run a few feet in front of the bike, the other a few feet behind the bike. That would have been memorable footage!
Wow! Excellent quality. Felt like I was driving, especially when you went over those metal road connectors — I could almost feel the bike going thump-thump. I don’t ride anymore, although I still get the urge this time of year.
A.J.! Good to hear from you.
The roads around here really are jarring, plus I’ve got the iron piggy sprung fairly tight for carrying all the usual traveling gear. Unladen as she is nowadays she can ride like a hardtail.
Hey… Wanna make a movie… I know this guy that has a fantastic Storyline…
Haha…! Alas, my long-form fiction version of that storyline, the novel, was a failure. I recently shredded the manuscript into firestarter for next winter’s evenings by the woodstove. I’ll send you a photo of it in its trash bag out in the shed, all 140,000 words.
Those are fun, Tone. I prefer the linear setting, fwiw. If you want to access some copyright-free music beds, look at Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ I use that for the gallery’s videos. They have a subscription option, of course, but it eliminates copyright issues.
Cool. Will do, Brad.
I think linear’s going to be the consensus… I’m getting feedback via text to that effect.