State Fair 2011

Composed from video recorded at the 2011 North Carolina State Fair. I'm still learning how to use Adobe Premiere and would like to redo this at 24fps rather than 29. I'm also trying to work with some video stabilization filters to smooth out some of the clips. The slow motion clips were recorded at 120fps handheld. Normal handshaking slowed down 4x creates a nauseating bobbing motion on some of the clips.

I guess that the website can't really be called "undercrank" if I'm including slow motion video which would be overcranking the camera. This is some video that I took during Raleigh's 4th of July fireworks display at the state fairgrounds. I started with the idea of just getting a lot of close up shots during the 15 minute fireworks show but quickly realized that in just 5 minutes I had already recorded 20 minutes of 30fps video at 120fps. Being used to spending 30 minutes to get 10 seconds of time lapse video I was unaccustomed to being so unhurried to find the right framing for the video and had time to mess around a little bit.

I was using a Casio FH100 which is a little $200 point-and-shoot that has the ability to record 120fps at 480p, 240fps at 330p along with 480fps and 1000fps at resolutions that would only be useful for experimentation. I was actually very impressed with the picture quality that the camera put out, and it seemed to have a decent built in lens. I was pleasantly surprised to find that when I intentionally put the camera out of focus, the bokeh created by the sparks of the fireworks had a pleasant round shape due to the shape of the aperture of the lens when it is wide open.

Intrigued by this effect, I recorded the rest of my video out of focus. I think it helps focus more on the colors of the fireworks and makes the whole thing a little abstract. Unfortunately, everyone to whom I've shown this video has been bored to death. I still enjoy it though and will try to build on this if I have time to go out to the fair again this year to make another video.