Had a YouTube viewer, “cavalrytm,” who disagreed with my point of view on military style assault packs. He got disrespectful. I went to his channel to see who this was, not that his channel would be an actual representation of who this character is, but you never know. Of course, his channel was private, allowing him to dis- whoever he wanted, free from backlash. (Since this morning, his channel has gone public and he posted a comment directed towards me in faux-fear. Whatever.)
I blocked him and posted the reason why in the video comments section (see video below).
A little while later, I receive a private email from a “MX1eleven”, writing on behalf of “a friend,” which acknowledged being blocked on YouTube. This email, from another anonymous YouTube user (and retained for obvious reasons), proceeded to berate my video prowess and lackluster channel performance (377 subscribers over 2 years), and ended with his hopes of running me over on the street with his car.
The TSF Channel isn’t doing that bad. I’ve only published 24 videos. Despite not “feeding the beast” as it were, TSF is averaging 2-3 new subscribers per day! Regardless, I don’t see this project as a competition or numbers game. I’m not a YouTube partner. I don’t derive income.
It’s a way for me to practice film craft, field craft, and remain at all times, combat ready.
The Lesson: Fuck ‘em. Don’t fear the hate. Do what you gotta do, filmmakers and bloggers.
I was pretty proud of myself. I thought I’d done good. There was room for improvement of course, but all in all, I thought I was a bad ass for broadening Scott Eggelston’s Frugal Stabilizer Rig for my purposes. I wanted to kill as many birds with one stone as I could.
My main gripe with DIY rigs is they don’t consider the ability of the operator to maintain critical focus, a challenge I’ve encountered in the field with my little Canon HV40. Focus is an issue with HV cameras in the first place with a poorly designed focus system. Sure it was probably designed with the amateur home movie market in mind, but it’s reputation for excellent color capture in 1080 HD got the attention of prosumers around the world, and the HV20/30/40 has been the poor man’s HDSLR for years.
But you can’t focus the dang thing! Enter Irv Design Focus Wheel and later the HV Follow Focus (HVFF). Things began to change as more folks embraced the HVX cameras. For me they weren’t what I was looking for. I wanted a real follow focus to shoot cine-style. Finally, I decided to try two different systems together, the Dfocus Follow Focus and the Irv Design Focus Wheel. Turns out it works! But back to my first problem:
DIY builds don’t consider follow focus applications. If a camera operator removes his left hand to adjust focus, there’s a chance the rig will tip and you’ll lose your shot composition. So here’s what I came up with last week:
You can’t really see it clearly in the photo, but there is a center rail the camera’s mounted on. What happens is, the operator removes the grip from the right (photo left), inserts into the center rail, below the matte box, and voila! The operator supports most of the weight with his right arm, now located under the camera. Worn over the shoulder, it functions like an ENG style system.
Fricken, genius, right! No, not really.
Maintaining focus is still an issue, here. The Dfocus knob is on the same axis as the upright framing. You open the side LCD monitor and things get real cramped real quick. The Dfocus/Irv Wheel solves the problem of applying focus, but it doesn’t address acquiring focus. You need a proper viewfinder system for that. Then I found this:
(Can’t you just hear the choir cue?)
This was built by RedRock Micro circa 2007 for the Cinegear Expo. Here’s an ancient blog about the HV20 RedRock rig.
I hung my head in shame. This rig solves all the problems I face in the field. Unfortunately, this was a prototype and never went into production. For me, it’s set the standard. I still want a shoulder rig that can convert to a Fig Rig. The shoulder rig will have an LCD viewfinder attached to the flip out monitor for fine focus. There must be attachment points for sound (shotgun mic XLR adapter and or recorder) and a TFT monitor for flying the camera with the Fig Rig.
So it’s back to the drawing board. This is where I’m going:
I moved the mic attachment to the right side, shrunk the overall width, and repositioned the forward uprights under the center of balance, which moved the follow focus forward of the cage, facilitating access. Still needed are quick release plates for the rod system and for the camera. Having a quick release for the camera facilitates ease of battery change and working with the lens gear. I plan on a larger, external battery and most importantly an LCD viewfinder. Once I get that, I’ll be able to determine overall length for the shoulder rest.
What’s really cool is, when I eventually upgrade to an HDSLR, it’ll fit right in there!
I’ll keep you posted!
(NOTE: I appreciate your interest and attention to my projects. To get the latest, please subscribe to this blog, Like the Facebook page, or check out The TSF Channel!)
My ILBE pack was gathering dust in my closet, when I received a request from a TSF Channel subscriber to demonstrate how I’d pack my bug out gear into the pack. This timely request fit perfectly into the theme of the past two series. I was more than happy to grant the request.
The filming took several hours, since I am my own cameraman. I used clamp lighting on two “Frugal Stands,” DIY light stands built for cheap out of PVC pipe, with instructions by “The Frugal Filmmaker,” Scott Eggelston, a Utah-based filmmaker with a huge following due to his simple, inexpensive DIY film making solutions. Once filming was complete, I was able to capture and edit the footage in one session.
"Frugal" lighting set up for "Bug Out Contender"
The next day, I attempted a workflow change. For several episodes, now, I’ve been using Adobe Dynamic Link to color-time Premiere Pro clips in After Effects. There’s a major problem with this when it comes to clip transitions (fades, dissolves, etc). After Effects doesn’t recognize them when you import from Premiere.
Solution: Just add the transitions when you get the clip back into Premiere.
Easy, right? Uh, no.
The clip you get back is only as long as where the two clips meet on the PPro Timeline. The transition is gone. In order for a dissolve to work, to need the head and tail of the two adjoining clips to overlap. You fade out the preceding clip while you fade in the new clip, thereby affecting a dissolve. Once you replace your Premiere clip with an After Effects composition, however, the clip is locked at the now, non-overlapping joint. If you try to drop a dissolve over the two adjoining clips, you’ll get an error and a dysfunctional transition because the overlap of frames PPro had in place is now gone.
Solution: Change the workflow. Import the entire “locked” picture into After Effects to do scene-by-scene color-timing.
Easy, right? Uh, no.
This is when I learned that After Effects won’t import transitions or titles. What After Effects does do, is create a place marker of sorts, a red box for the transition or title, but what you see is the bane of all editors, the dreaded Black Box.
There’s also a special way to open your Premiere Pro Project in After Effects. Instead of File > Open > and navigating to a Premiere Pro Project, you must go to File > Import > File or Files > Import > Adobe Premiere Pro Project. What happens is AE will place each clip from your locked Premiere cut on its’ own layer, including each “empty” transition and title card, and each soundtrack element.
AE doesn’t always place the layers in correct order either. In “Bug Out Contender,” for instance, the layers containing the title cards at the end of the episode were stacked near the top of the Timeline panel. This really is inconsequential, because the clips don’t actually appear until the end of the timeline anyway. Still, it’s an aesthetic “thing” you’ll need to deal with. I found it odd to have layers whose events occur later in the Timeline appear earlier in the Timeline panel. Here’s the reality from After Effects Help:
“The vertical arrangement of layers in the Timeline panel is the layer stacking order, which is directly related to the render order. You can change the order in which layers are composed with one another by changing the layer stacking order.
Note: Because of their depth properties, the stacking order of 3D layers in the Timeline panel does not necessarily indicate their spatial position in the composition.”
Simple fix: drag the layers to where you want them. Just remember, the layer stacking order also determines which layer is on top of another, important for double exposures, scene transitions, superimposed titles, graphics, etc.
Dealing with the sheer volume of layers is a pain, too. Scrolling through the Timeline panel, losing track of where you are, which layer you’re working on, all becomes a headache. I learned quickly that Precomposing (select layers then hit Ctrl-Shift-C on PC) is my best friend. What Precomposing will do is consolidate a sequence of layers into one layer, which I can fiddle with separately on its own Timeline, much like a separate Sequence in Premiere.
These next two images show the before and after of Precomposing:
After Effects layers before Precomposing
After Effects layers consolidated by Precomposing
The sequences I chose to Precompose were determined by my color-timing scheme, which were based off of camera setups. If I had a set up like the one pictured above, even though the take may have been long, it was still edited, and each clip was on its’ own layer. So, this Scene may have had twenty edit points in Premiere, and after importing into AE, was broken down into twenty different layers. But, because the action in the Scene was consistent, the color-timing application of Curves, Levels, Saturation and Hue, and Masks spanned all twenty layers. The choice was obvious. Precomp it.
One last thing about After Effects – and I’m working in CS4: There are no easy linear transition effects like in Premiere Pro. I had to manipulate each layer manually and find the work around to get the results I wanted. There are a couple of choices, and each has their own problems.
The first thing to remember is, it’s not just the original video you’re dealing with. It’s also all the adjustment and effects layers on top of that. Again, Precomposing was my friend, here. Just Precomp those layers into one and problem solved.
Easy, right? Uh, no.
For a Fade In or Fade Out, you have a choice: Either create a black solid layer above, and manipulate the Opacity with key frames, or manipulate the Opacity of the actual Precomp. You have to see what works best for your needs.
Two-layer dissolve with Opacity and key frames
For a Dissolve, Precomp the before and after layers, and manipulate the Opacity of each. One good thing: after I applied a Dissolve in the original Premiere Pro edit, AE imported the clip overlap and a separate layer, the transition itself. The transition layer is a little red box containing no information, but you can use it to verify the duration of the original transition. Once I was satisfied, and had manipulated the opacity between the two Precomped layers, I deleted the transition layer from the Timeline panel. Control-S to Save…
So, the learning curve was steep on this episode. I’m continually stymied in my research by not knowing how to phrase my Google questions or knowing the proper vocabulary to use. Once I get past that hurdle, I find confidence in that everything I need to know, including tutorials on how to do it, is online. I hope you benefit from my lessons learned, dear reader and fellow filmmaker.
I’m no marketing expert. I’m a consumer. When I want something, I want to check it out online, first. I want to see what people think, how they use it, and how they incorporate it into their life style. I want to see it in action, a virtual, “try before you buy” kind of thing. I want to see a demonstration video!
There are tons of product videos across the internet. That’s good. Unfortunately for most of them, including videos by big companies like, REI or Zappos.com, their videos suck. And that’s bad. Both utilize “actual employees” in an attempt to maintain an intimate relationship with the customer, by trying to “keep it real.” Where this approach fails is the lack of in-depth information they could show us. The spokes person hits the main talking points in a :30 second to 2:00 minute video, without much detail, practical demonstration, or established authority or street cred on the subject matter. Here’s what I’m talking about:
Example by Zappos.com
Are we really supposed to believe that guy spends any time in the wilderness? The only thing that guy’s been packing is fudge.
(Just kidding. I couldn’t resist.)
Fortunately, for these companies, it is the consumer who is picking up the slack, with their own videos on products they already own, showing off, as it were, while generating free advertising for these big companies, and not seeing a dime for their efforts.
For the most part, consumer produced product videos suck just as badly, usually worse, with their poor production values and presentation. Most “YouTubers” are not trained film/video professionals, and it shows. Many aren’t concise. They ramble on about things unrelated to what their title indicates. Some never touch on their subject at all.
My biggest pet peeve is lack of a demonstration. Many times you see a product sitting on a table or leaning against a wall, while the host is off screen, rattling off specifications. Most times, the camera is hand-held and the host tries to manipulate the product with the free hand, making for another crappy video. The ones I dislike the most, are where the host is on camera, next to the product, while it just lies there, and he talks about himself instead. I made a post last year about this. Here’s the quote, so you don’t have to go look it up:
“After looking for quality instruction on the web and coming up empty handed, I produced this video series to “stop the madness” of mediocre media. Many many instructional videos on backpacking don’t show you “how-to” even though that’s exactly what the title indicates. Let’s face it. Setting up your backpack, with all the items you take on a multi-day backpack expedition, in order to shoot a demo-video is a major pain, especially for folks who aren’t instructors or filmmakers.
I’m both. Enjoy.”
That led to my 4-part series on The TSF Channel, “How to Really Pack a Backpack.“ Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. A few have tried to troubleshoot me on my point of view, choice of gear, etc, but since I’ve proven myself to be consistent, and a doer, not a talker, there’s not really much that can be said. Besides, it’s my opinion. I don’t try to mandate in my productions. This is what I’m doing. You do what you want.
This does feature some exposition, but it’s for the purpose of context. Who am I? Why am I talking about this? And where does my point of view come from? Some have complained that I’m doing exactly what I decried, but I point out in the video description: this is a how-to and why, not a how-to and what. It’s theory with demonstration:
In the series, I promised my audience I’d do more in-depth reviews of some of the gear I presented, which enabled me to produce, “Camelbak Ambush: Day Hike Flexibility,” garnering more positive feedback. Some have indicated the show was an eye opener for them. For me, it was an epiphany, that I’d just produced a thirteen minute commercial for Camelbak, with no chance of compensation. It was my first foray into color-timing with After Effects. As of this writing, that episode has received 1,768 views, and I’ve received many, many subscribers because of it. One comment from a subscriber was:
“I’ve learned to come to your channel for quality.”
- A friendly CAP 1SG
Quadmachine0
I didn’t produce another gear-oriented series until this past February (2012). As I browsed YouTube, I kept seeing videos for military-style assault packs being used by people (normally young men) in a “bug out” roll.
“Bugging Out,” is a term used by people in the Prepper Movement, a global sub-culture where people prepare themselves and their families, for a “worst case scenario,” everything from nuclear holocaust, natural disasters, to the post-Rapture, Tribulation. Regardless of why they prepare, the situation they envision usually deals with a world Without Rule of Law (WROL) and a loss of modern conveniences (energy, food, water, etc), sending the prepper and his/her family into a pre- industrial revolution state of existence. Bugging Out is simply “getting out of Dodge” when the shit hits the fan (SHTF), in order to affect survival, after the world has lost its’ fricken mind.
Assault packs are normally sub-30L sized backpacks. They’re too small to carry what you need in a bug out situation, nor do they have a worthwhile suspension to carry heavy loads for great distances. Yet, all these people are in love with the idea of using the same kit the military does.
I was in the military — for 23-years. Lemme tell you something. Assault packs suck. So, because I felt the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes on this one, I produced my own 5-part series, “Assault Packs: A Necessary Evil.”
Here’s the fourth episode, where I finally get into why assault packs suck:
The fallout from this series automatically led me into debunking other myths surrounding U.S. Government Issue “legacy” equipment, like the revered, large A.L.I.C.E. pack, the standard, large, military backpack, in service with U.S. Forces since 1973. Many, many, MANY people regard this pack as the cream of the crop, and actively defend their use of it, even though the technology is outdated, it’s not ergonomic, it causes undue fatigue, and in short – SUCKS! But once again, I never found a video demonstrating the how and why it sucks, or more importantly, how and why it’s so great!
Until now.
With, “The Large ALICE Pack: A TSF Perspective,” I tried removing the wool over everyone’s eyes. I tried to explain why people should look elsewhere for their backpacking solution. The jury is still out. I doubt I’ll change the world, but it can no longer be said, they were never told.
It’s funny when I see the analytics for this series, it seems the first part gets a lot of attention, as if people watching are searching for validation for choosing their own ALICE pack. When they discover the video is critical of it, they don’t continue to part-two.
Once I had covered the ALICE pack, it was only obvious what I had to explore next, the USMC ILBE rucksack, the backpack of the Marines! HOO-RAA…!!! I’d bought a surplus one about a year prior to retiring from the Army. I liked it, but it was heavy (8.4 lbs empty) and I didn’t like the hip belt’s ergonomics. My take: it isn’t optimal for civilian use. It’s a great bag, but I think Gregory backpacks are better suited for me. I did a full review of the ILBE, back when I first started The TSF Channel in 2010.
Wow…! Where was I? It’s been almost a month since I posted the last March to Painted Rocks blog. Busy.
So, fast forward to September, 2011 (or rewind, if you’re reading this out of context) . March to Painted Rocks Part I was growing mold on Vimeo. I had moved on to bigger and better things. Cain & Abel, a short film I had written and was set to direct, had fallen apart the day before cameras were due to roll because of crew issues. My growing frustration with my inability to get a production off the ground lead me to pull my friends together to shoot a Sabot Fighter episode, The Perfect Backpack.
It was the first time I’d had a crew with me, the first time I’d worked with a crew since film school. But even back then, I felt like a one-man-band. Now I had four guys, including a sound recordist, boom operator, lavalier microphones… It was pretty cool! The results, however, were dismal. I’ll save the details for later, after I salvage and publish that shoot. The end result was disillusion about what I was doing with my life. Was it even possible to do what I’m trying to do?
It was anger from the failures of Cain & Abel and The Perfect Backpack which caused me to produce the How to Really Pack a Backpack series. I used more music tracks from my CD collection, from artists like Armin Van Buuren and Tiesto. To my pleasant surprise, the 4-episode, almost 80-minute long series wasn’t blocked by YouTube. I had to mull this over for a while with regards to MTPR.
At the end of September, I decided to attempt to republished MTPR on YouTube. This time, the audio track wasn’t blocked. YouTube confirmed worldwide distribution with the caveat that there would be advertising next to the show. Cool! I re-marketed the video on Facebook, and included it in a LinkedIn “update.” My military friends, who I’d shared these experiences with, received direct links to the short.
Everyone loved it! It was as if it had never been released on Vimeo. My other videos, seemingly much better targeted to my market, were already drawing views and subscribers, but MTPR brought a whole new level of story telling, albeit, my own story. Subscribers were growing. A subscriber who regularly viewed my channel, “QuadmachineO,” remarked in the comments section, ” Keep posting vids man, I’ve learned to come to your channel for quality.”
In a niche market, that’s something to take seriously, especially since my professional goal is to direct narrative drama. What you find when you watch most YoutTube survival/prepper videos is a complete absence of technique. I try to use traditional cinema technique to create my brand of info-tainment, a difficult proposition when you’re alone in a remote location.
I’m rambling.
Fast forward again, to Christmas, 2011. I’d produced three more shows since the release of MTPR at the end of September. Then, as season’s greetings were going around, Mike Baker, a former Soldier of mine, who’d served as my tank gunner in Iraq, asked when I was going to finish March to Painted Rocks. He’d really enjoyed it.
Oh yeah. March to Painted Rocks…
I knew it had to be done. I left it open for a sequel. But how? I was out of source material. My video camera didn’t work in the Iraqi heat. The photos I”d taken with disposable Kodak cameras had gone missing on the way back from the war.
I put a call out to guys I’d served with for any pictures or video. I was rewarded with two fistfuls of heat baked pictures, analogue photos from said Kodak “cameras in a box,” scanned and put on disk by Mike Baker at his local Walmart. The condition of the photos speaks volumes about the Iraqi experience. I was instantly brought back into to most challenging aspect of that time, the extreme environment. The collection was over exposed and browned, having been baked in the heat while awaiting development in the States. I used them, untouched. What you see is as they are, just as burnt as we were then.
With these in hand, I quickly decided to do a Ken Burns style film, a glorified slide-show, if you will. I’d ended MTPR at a period just prior to the war, as I enjoyed Army life as a tank commander. Where else to begin Part II than at the inception of my combat experiences, the 9/11 attacks:
March, 2011. I was retired. I was unemployed. The lastSabot Fighter episode I’d published was back in August, 2010. I had one thing going: I had optioned a new screenplay, OP Winchester, in January, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Rewrites where happening, but all too quickly. I felt stifled. Frustrated. I needed to create.
Then a discovery: a cache of old Hi-8 video tapes. I hadn’t messed with my old Sony DCR TRV-110 Hi-8 camera in years.
Sony DCR TRV-110
In 2003, the heat in Kuwait and Iraq rendered the unit inoperable. I wasn’t able to capture my Iraqi war experience, but I had footage from my time stationed in Germany, including a combat deployment to Kosovo in late, 1999.
Against all hope, I tried playing the tapes in the Sony. It worked! Suddenly I had a lot of rich military footage, but what to do with it? Cutting it together without a context is kind of… lame.
Then, I remembered the unusable Painted Rocks video. Now, I hadn’t considered the Hi-8 footage when I filmed Painted Rocks, but I did wax melancholy about my Army past that day, especially after I actually discovered boulders still painted with the crests from units I served in.
It all started to gel. March to Painted Rocks suddenly crystallized into more than just my journey that day. It became a Soldier’s journey. I sat down at the PC and got hot.
Burning the midnight oil on "March to Painted Rocks Part I"
There was just one problem.
When I filmed Painted Rocks and waxed eloquent about military service past, I discussed the Army units I’d come to NTC with after 9/11. The Hi-8 video I had was primarily pre-2000, with a little tank gunnery training at Fort Hood, between 2001-2002. The Hi-8 video didn’t match the era I was talking about in the Painted Rocks video, 2002-2005.
I decided to worry about that later.
"Backdraft" (OST) by Hans Zimmer
One of my favorite pieces of film music is Fighting 17th from the Backdraft original soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. If you want hero music, Hans Zimmer is the go-to guy. His sound is epic. He has his critics and his clones, but he’s aces to me. I liked this track so much, that I played it over my tank’s intercom system for my crew, as we moved through Baghdad, that first eerie night of combat. I don’t think they heard it over their adrenalin pumping hearts. I knew I had to have this track over the powerful images of M-1 tanks thundering down the tank trail. I laid the track down and dropped in the Hi-8 footage.
M1A1 Abrams en route to the railhead. Vilseck, GE. 1999.
It all flowed. The decisions came easy. Use this. Don’t use that. Logging and capturing the clips in Premiere helped my editing process. I began formulating the plan in my mind’s eye. There was no script. I was pulling it out of my ass, so to speak, letting the music influence some decisions, and the quality of the footage influence others.
The Animatrix: The Album
Next, the Kosovo sequence. I’d done some musing over a possible biopic for The TSF Channel to establish my outdoor street cred (which probably weighed in on MTPR). I’d found a piece of music from The Animatrix soundtrack, Who Am I?, by Peace Orchestra (subsequently used as title track in MTPR Part II). So, the CD was fresh in my mind.
If you don’t know anything about the Serbian/Kosovo thing in the ’90s, basically, it was a religious war between Christian Serbs and Muslim Kosovars. I felt that a trippy, eerie, religious theme, with a Eastern bent would work well over the footage, and there happened to be another track on The Animatrix CD that fit the bill, Ren 2 by Photek.
Serbian Orthodox Cross
The mysterious transition video, between the Germany and Kosovo footage, was the inside of an Orthodox church steeple. Part of our mission in Kosovo was to protect Serbian churches. Most of the Byzantine-style church architecture was topped by a Serbian Orthodox cross, a symbol also on the Serb national flag. Kosovar insurgents resented it after the Serb massacres, and felt they had to destroy it. They were going around blowing up all the churches in town.
Church under guard. Stanisor, Kosovo. 2000.
We lived in a combat outpost in Stanisor, which included the bones of a new church under construction. The shot was the inside of the steeple dome. I didn’t think it was that big deal and kind of lame as video transitions go, but I’ve actually been asked about it.
We had an opportunity to conduct MEDEVAC training with an actual helicopter crew. We split the platoon into two squads and each squad took turns running through the drill. Once each litter team had loaded the casualty into the bird, they boarded for a quick ride in the Blackhawk. It was a great day to have a video camera.
UH-60 Blackhawk lands for MEDEVAC training. Kosovo, 2000.
Segue to Fort Hood, Texas. Most of the Hi-8 footage after 2000 was tank training, including a great deal of live fire action at the tank gunnery range.
For tank crews there’s no greater challenge than Tank Table VIII, tank crew qualification. It’s a ten-event live-fire “exam.” Events are split, normally six day engagements and four night, depending on the time of year, how long the days and nights actually are. Each tank company must push all fourteen tanks through the qualification range within a 24-hour period.
Each event is worth 100 points, 1000 points for a perfect score. Each crew must engage single and multiple, stationary and moving targets, from their stationary (defensive engagement) or moving (offensive engagement) tank. Some engagements require a weapons system swap between targets, like say switching from a tank target to a troop target. That would mean switching from main gun to machine gun for the respective targets.
Each event is timed. Targets are only presented for a maximum of 50-55 seconds. Some events, like the one shown in March to Painted Rocks Part 1, have four targets, three tanks and a set of troops. Crews are evaluated for crew duties. Each crew’s intercom is monitored in the control tower by TCEs (Tank Crew Evaluators). Points are docked if there are safety violations or crew errors detected by the TCEs.
It’s a lot of shit. And it’s awesome!
M1A2 SEP Firing at Sugarloaf Range. Ft Hood, TX. 2002.
The gunnery sequence was challenging. I’d never made subtitles before, a decision I felt necessary because the ambient noise in the tank turret. I want the audience to see how violent and audacious you need to be to fight as an armor crewman. Being a tanker is inherently dangerous. You see how the breech of the main cannon jumps violently when fired. The turret is deafening. I want people to know what it takes to be a modern man-at-arms, to understand why veterans are the way they are, so their words of compassion are more than just lip service.
"Things changed, for all of us."
I ended it with a sentimental statement.
THE SABOT FIGHTER: “Of course, Iraq hadn’t started yet. Life was simple… Things changed, for all of us.”
DISSOLVE TO:
TSF’s shadow continues to march across the sand. The roaring WIND continues to howl…
FADE OUT.
Once the Fort Hood sequence was done, so was I. I’d sampled all my Hi-8 footage. The film was already pushing 17-minutes, my longest show to date, back then. I wondered if YouTube would even accept it, being so long. And then there was the problem of not having any Iraq war footage to continue. I wrapped.
DISTRIBUTION PAINS:
YouTube immediately blocked the soundtrack and instead suggested audio replacement with one of their lame, licensed tracks.
Uh, no. There was a painstakingly edited soundtrack with voice over, sound effects, and music I felt pulled the right emotional strings for the viewer. This wasn’t some kind of home movie made by a non-professional. Was I gonna loop a Beyonce track for 17-minutes while it shows me talking to the audience directly? Hell no!
I deleted MTPR from YouTube, loaded it on Vimeo under “private,” put a link to it on TSF with the password, and tried to spread the word as best as I could. As of today, it’s only received 62 views on Vimeo.
Disappointed again and angry with the results of my efforts, I shelved the project. It would be lost forever under copyright violation even though I paid for the CDs the music came from.
Do I have to charge people when they sit in my car and hear the music coming from my dashboard? How many DJs pay proceeds to the record labels after a night’s set? They’re getting paid to play records. I’m not getting a dime. I’m sharing the soundtrack of my life, man.
March to Painted Rocks, from now on referred to as MTPR, is a two-part episode on The Sabot Fighter (TSF), a YouTube web series focusing on outdoor adventure. MTPR is an amalgamation of footage from a long military career and a day hike I conducted across open desert in the Mojave, on a cold November day in 2010. At that time, I was two weeks away from hanging up my Army uniform for good; retiring. It had been 23-years. I was done.
The show’s inception began in 2010 along with TSF. I’d filmed (incorrectly used here to mean, “captured on video”) two mountain adventures earlier in the year, Limaville Mountain and Raiders of Avawatz. Both were major outings and subsequent editing projects. Limaville became four-episodes, while I held Avawatz down to three. YouTube was kind of frustrating back then. They had a 10-minute video time limit, which is why the multi-episodes.
Between those videos, I produced two gear reviews: USMC ILBE System and Outdoor Demos. These two videos have garnered the most hits on TSF, teaching me that what people really want to see, in my demographic, are product demonstrations. This was furthered by another series I posted, mid-2011, How to Really Pack a Backpack. TSF viewership and subscriptions began to skyrocket. But I digress.
FLASHBACK
2006 was a bad year. While dealing with the IEDs and RPGs, I was an “extra” senior NCO, assigned to a Military Transition Team (MiTT), instead of an American platoon, training the new Iraqi Army — and my pregnant wife had shacked up with another man back Stateside. To be clear, I was already a platoon sergeant, and was ready to move on, but was reassigned just prior to deployment.
Out in sector. Iraq, 2006.
Mid-summer I was moved to a different battalion entirely, and was assigned as a platoon sergeant again,but this time, over a group of men who’d had their asses handed to them by the insurgency for six months. They’d even lost their Lieutenant. When I got there and asked them to “go Army,” they weren’t trying to hear it anymore. All but three of them were stop-lossed. The Army held them in service past their contract expiration to deploy the unit as close to full strength as possible. It was like they were all draftees, there against their will in the first place. I had to fight them to do my bidding, a dangerous leadership challenge when everyone’s armed and you need them on the battlefield, not in the rear, up on charges. So, yeah, 2006 sucked on a whole new level.
Fort Irwin, deep in the Mojave Desert, north of Barstow, was my follow-on assignment after Iraq. Three years living and working in the Mojave affected me deeply. You can’t compare Iraq to Fort Irwin. Don’t even try. The Iraqi desert is akin to a sand-filled ash tray under a heat lamp, while Fort Irwin and the Mojave is a raw, naked, extreme wilderness on a massive scale.
"There's no comparison..."
It’s that immense scale and brute force of Mother Nature which spellbinds in the Mojave. Nature is the ultimate equalizer. Her voracity forces you to tear your mind from yourself in order to survive. The Mojave consumed my pain.
"It's the scale of the place..."
BACK TO SCENE
NOV, 2010. Two weeks out from Army retirement, I went on a day hike. I planned to film it, run & gun style, with no real story or plan. I’d film what I liked and try to piece something together when I got back. It had worked well enough on Limaville and Avawatz, so why not this time?
The day was extremely windy, a steady 20mph was in effect the whole day. Wind noise had been a major problem on my first Sabot Fighter episode, Paddle Nomination, so I was keen to eliminate it.
AT875R
I bought an AT875Rshotgun microphone and a Rycote Softie wind sock, dead cat included.
Rycote Softie
Ineffective and too heavy to hand carry on a hike when you include the required XLR adapter.
I use a JuicedLink CX231. I tried improvising a wind sock for the on-board microphone with a piece of spongy foam and duct tape. Ehh…
JuicedLink CX231
I went with, essentially, a naked Canon HV40, wide angle adapter, PL filter, lens hood, and monopod. The video footage I got was okay. The HV40 shoots beautiful video. The pictures never disappoint.
You have to understand what it takes to shoot an outdoor movie on your own. Your pack is usually heavy. You have the 11 Essentials in your pack plus camera gear: lenses, batteries, media (the HV40 shoots on tape), plus additional support equipment. For a non-hand-held shot, you have to walk to a vantage point, set up the camera with support, start recording, walk back to the point of interest, travel through the location, then walk back to recover your camera equipment. Economy demands you film the return shot as well. It’s a lot of back and forth, on top of the core journey. Even with a crew, the pain-in-the-ass factor is high. The rewards can be great, but so must be your passion and physical stamina. I want to cite the work of Ray Mears and the BBC as my main influences, here.
It's a lot of back and forth...
Some things went wrong. The wind made it extremely difficult to hold the camera steady. The shoot was dynamic. I was on the move and most of the shots were traveling, but on occasion, I’d extend the monopod to the ground to capture wide, steady, panoramic shots. Impossible in the wind. My attempt to shield the mic was also an epic fail. Most of the soundtrack was ruined by roaring wind rumble despite my improvised attempts.
Then, I dropped the camera.
I was shooting an upside down shot, skimming the camera above the ground (I’d flip the image later, in Premiere Pro). It was attached to the monopod, which I held comfortably from waist height. When I went to right the camera, I lost my grip, and wham! right in the dirt, landing on the lens face. The rubber lens shade around the PL filter absorbed the impact. No damage. I cleaned it off and continued the trek. What I failed to see was a tiny fiber which got caught at the base of the lens shade. It blew around erratically in the wind, ruining the rest of the day’s work. Didn’t see it until I played it back at the house.
"Iron Knights...!"
The journey back was worse. I planned to ascend a large hill, which I’d pointed out at the beginning, and actually described on camera how I’d get there on the way back. At the foot of the hill, I tried a new shot technique where I put the camera in the pack, creating an over-the-shoulder shot for the ascent. Of course, with the camera behind me, I couldn’t frame the shot, check focus, or maintain the camera’s orientation.
I remember struggling with making sure the HV40 was actually recording. I had to use the remote control because I couldn’t reach the record button behind me. Too easy, right? The HV40 has an audible chime which signals it’s begun recording. Couldn’t hear it in the wind, even though the cam was just behind my shoulder. It amazes me how hard simple tasks are when you’re a one-man-band. The footage from that sequence, after all that, was unusable. The camera was either zoomed in or misoriented. What I got was psychedelic, blurry rocks.
By the time I got back to post, I was exhausted. I’d been walking for eight or nine hours. I couldn’t hold the camera straight, nor did I care. I shot a lame concluding monologue which didn’t address the goals of the hike I’d stated in the first place, and in the end, the whole second half of the footage was useless because of that stupid lens fiber. Disappointed in the footage and myself, I shelved the project.
