The Wippets would like to offer our services to anyone who would like to wish a Happy Birthday to anyone you would like.
Simply e-mail me, ron@collideascope.com with Wippets Request as the subject, and provide the name of the person and where s/he is from.
We will film and post a clip of the Wippets wishing a Happy Birthday to that special person. Here's a sample: Happy B-Day to Jen
As a bonus! With Valentine's Day around the corner, the same offer goes to anyone who would like to give out a special romantic
Happy Valentine's Day video to anyone you wish!
We're always taking requests, so keep the e-mails and comments coming.
Friday, January 26
Thursday, January 25
Monday, January 22
Episode 31
Barff takes up quick french lessons and visits Paris.
Many thanks to Mike White for helping out with the filming and editing of this piece. And kudos to Caroline Jarvis for her multi-faceted performances.
See Quicktime verison here.
Many thanks to Mike White for helping out with the filming and editing of this piece. And kudos to Caroline Jarvis for her multi-faceted performances.
See Quicktime verison here.
Sunday, January 21
Camera Hunting
Alright, after a bit of research I've finally found a new video camera, my goal was to find the cheapest kind that can do the bare minimum requirements for puppet filming. Here are my results.
First off, the JVC GR-D750U Mini DV Camcorder: $375.56.
I bought this one, everything seemed fine and swell, until I rigged it on a tripod and did a quick puppet test with it. To my surprise when I played back the footage it was all jerky. Of course I was confused, read the manual, fiddled with all the settings, made sure the tripod was 100% stable and not moving, flipped the LCD screen over so I could even watch myself while it was filming, everything looked fine, but when I played back the footage it was dancing around all over the place, then I found the problem "electronic image stabilization". This is a steady-shot feature that has the camera attempting to compensate for any movement on screen by adjusting the picture frame by frame in hopes to achieve a steadier image. This is great for hand-held filming, it actually smoothens out the random motions caused by the hand-held effect, HOWEVER.... this feature is not de-activatable on this model. Therefore it is NOT meant to be on a tripod...ever!
So I returned it. I found one for nearly the same price that has far more features to customise the settings and filming options including an OFF button for "image stabilization"...
The Sony DCR-HC26 Handycam is my choice so far, and it seems to work great, for $398.94 (Sony's least expensive, bottom of the barrel model).
GOOD
First off, the JVC GR-D750U Mini DV Camcorder: $375.56.
I bought this one, everything seemed fine and swell, until I rigged it on a tripod and did a quick puppet test with it. To my surprise when I played back the footage it was all jerky. Of course I was confused, read the manual, fiddled with all the settings, made sure the tripod was 100% stable and not moving, flipped the LCD screen over so I could even watch myself while it was filming, everything looked fine, but when I played back the footage it was dancing around all over the place, then I found the problem "electronic image stabilization". This is a steady-shot feature that has the camera attempting to compensate for any movement on screen by adjusting the picture frame by frame in hopes to achieve a steadier image. This is great for hand-held filming, it actually smoothens out the random motions caused by the hand-held effect, HOWEVER.... this feature is not de-activatable on this model. Therefore it is NOT meant to be on a tripod...ever!
So I returned it. I found one for nearly the same price that has far more features to customise the settings and filming options including an OFF button for "image stabilization"...
The Sony DCR-HC26 Handycam is my choice so far, and it seems to work great, for $398.94 (Sony's least expensive, bottom of the barrel model).
BAD
GOOD
Tuesday, January 16
Tuesday, January 2
In search of a new camera...
No episodes this week folks.
I'm looking around for a new and simple little
MiniDV camcorder to do all my puppet filming for the future.
So please be patient, come mid-January I should have a couple
new acts to post.
I'm looking around for a new and simple little
MiniDV camcorder to do all my puppet filming for the future.
So please be patient, come mid-January I should have a couple
new acts to post.
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