kraftschaum

We met at 3:00 PM, starting with shooting at 4:00 PM at Meyer Werft. We had to wait for the darkness, meanwhile, I did some timelapse shoots outside. It was already snowing, and the Sony EX-1 got a little wet. I did not expect this to be a problem, but when I went inside again, and turned the camera off and back on, it won´t start properly. The menu screen showed up for a second, then the camera rebooted. I turned it off, removed every removable accessories and put it down to get dry again.

We were unlucky, because we needed to get some shots, and we decided to take one of the ship´s cameras, which were stored back in the hotel, so we had a delay. Then we continued with the Sony Z5 to do some interviews and insert shots.

After 2 hours, I tried my EX-1 again, worried about all the telephone calls and time needed to get it fixed in case it is broken. But I was lucky, and it turned on again!

We shot lots of interiors, walks and details of the ship, finishing with the recording at 1:00 AM, going into the edit, which was done at 5:00 AM. The material of two different cameras, the little amount of sleep and lots of footage worked out fine, I expected to spent more time on editing.

The work starts to improve, we learn to know each other better and this makes us faster.

This episode won´t get graded, because we need to see how it looks on the web like in its purest form. I´ll try to improve my understanding of our  technicial infrarstructure and the look from episode to episode.

I went to Media Markt to buy an SDHC card for the GoPro HD camera, which I got yesterday from Ingo. Ingo is a pleasent guy who works at Meyer Werft , we met during shooting and talked about cameras. He distributes the GoPro stuff, and so I ordered the GoPro HD. I will make some recordings with it the next days, maybe I can use it for production.

Now, I am on my way to go swimming, but Aqua Park opens at 1:00 PM, I have a cup of coffee meanwhile.

Papenburg seems to be quite nice, loveley people who know what they want, and how to socialize. I’ll add some pictures.

I did not have time to get back to my site earlier, but finally, here I am.

On the third day, we recorded the provision area with loading of supplies for the ship and some interviews with crew members. The work was different thatn the first two days, because it involved more conversation with people and timing, so I had to switch to a different style. I used my Zylight Z90 a couple of times, I am very satisfied with it! A great light, very helpful in lots of situations.

I own the 8″ Articulating Arm, which was also very helpful! There was a talking head with a safety helmet, so the light dropped some shadows on the upper part of the face because of the light. I adjusted the Zylight in no time on a different height, it showed upwards, and the shadow was gone!

The fourth day was used the completion of recordings we needed for the second episode, afterwards we went into editing. It took quite a while. I switched to Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 with Mac OS 10.6.2, the performance improved. I had some issues with sound leveling of noisy interview sound, in the end it worked out, but it took more time than expected. We chose to use the look from episode 1, with little modifacations here and there.

The fifth day just ended, and we made recordings of the brewery and some interviews as well. Again, very noisy background situations. Andreas,  who will be responsible for brewing on board, is a very nice guy, first time on a cruise ship. It was still not easy to make our recordings, because there were a lot of workers hurrying around, and we had to interrupt now and then, and it took more time, again.

Back in the edit, we checked the online version and feedback to episode 2, and we need to change the look. We learned that on lots of computer monitors, our film is to blue and washed out, overexposed. Although we wanted it that way, it seems to be to much when watched on non-apple computers. Strange. We checked on two Apple machines, it looked basically like the way we wanted it (despite from the fact that the web encoding settings have the tendency to be “low quality”, which we have to accept). As far as I know now, on Windows PC´s, the quality is worse. We watched my output file on video reference monitors, and it looked fine. But in the end, it has to be nice on the user´s screens, so we need to reduce the effect look.

Today (production day 6), we will start in the afternoon and record and edit later during night,due to necessity that certain departments need darkness for their work…

Waking up at 5:30 in the morning and hitting the road to Meyer Werft at 6:15, this day started like a day which is very usable for getting a lot of things done, and so we did.

Shooting began instantly after arrival, we did some shots of our car arriving at Meyer Werft, followed by our protagonist facing AIDAblu for the first time. The ship was about to leave the building in which it was constructed so far, and that was our main task to film, along with 2 interviews with the president of AIDA and a responsible manager.

The overall process took about 3 to 4 hours. We tried to shoot in the style we agreed upon the day before: coldness, beauty, snow, elegance, confidenceness combined with the scent of new “magic”, these are words to describe what we wanted to achieve with the pictures.

Finished with the recordings, we returned to the hotel to start editing, wich we finished at 00:45 o´clock. We were satisfied by the result, which is to be seen here

When I saw the final quality in the web, I was dissapointed, because my file looked much better. Maybe the reason is the slow internet connection which I tend to use in the hotel. As far as I know, the film will also be presented on YouTube, but it is not yet to be seen there. I was told that the quality is expected to be better. I hope so.

I used the Basic Cool Max preset in the Magic Bullet Looks to create a look to orientate, and although I like it and I think that this is the way to go, I will try a couple of things the next days. I think, there is still some unused potential, we will see…

Today, we started with our production of the podcast series. We arrived at the Meyer Werft Papenburg to see AIDAblu inside the building of Meyer, waiting to get outside.

I made first recordings of the ship and Meyer Werft workers to get an idea which kind of pictures we will deal with. Because of the fact that our story starts tomorrow, I just shot everything that I liked, easy for me, I like all the tools, working people, protection clothes, breathing in cold air, welders with their equipment, all things like that. The goal was to get some pictures to play around with them, especially with the grading software Magic Bullet Looks.

Later, a new story arose which we followed instantly: the move of a big part of AIDAsol from inside the building to the outside. This might become a part of the first part of the podcast series.

Finshed with recording, off we went at 15:30 o´clock back to the hotel to check the recordings and to have talks about what kind of look we want to achieve.

I furthermore structured my Avid project when importing all the files, now I have a my raw material, gfx, music and sequences organised to get along the next weeks.

Later I prepared my Sony EX-1 with the Zylight Z90 headlight, and I really looking forward to it! These will be the first recordings for me with this headlight, I think it will be very nice to use it, it has many great features. We will do a couple of interviews tomorrow.

After going to sleep, we went out for dinner, and found am italian-indian-german-everything restaurant to support us. One of the funny things to see there was the advertisement, which looks like this

If you follow the 2 rules, the personnel at “Mamma Mia” will be forced to prepare your food as fast as possible. And that was EXACTLY the way I felt about that food after eating it.

Looking forward to tomorrow, it will be much time, need to get to sleep now.

I just arrived in Papenburg, northern germany, for doing a video production concerning the new cruise ship AIDAblu, which is to be finished within the next month.

I will work with a producer and some protagonists, we will tell different stories about the last phase of the ships construction. The result will be a podcast, the aim is to do an episode roundabout every 2 days.

I built up my little studio in our hotel, that is what it looks like

A small audio mixer from Behringer, Genelec 8020A studio monitors, Apple MacBook Pro, a couple of hard drives, Sony video monitor and tape machine for playouts

Tomorrow, I will have first contact with the new ship, and I am looking forward to it!

Now, I am tweaking my MacBook Pro, so that I can start using everything tomorrow. I downloaded Magic Bullet Looks from RedGiantSoftware, I think it will do a benefit to the videos, I will try it out during the next days and weeks.

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