28 juli 2006

Mesa Verde


Preserving the “Works of Man”

Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to 1300. Today the park protects nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.
 
 


 

Disney fireworks



This firework was shot in Disneyland Paris lifesound is mixed with music from "the circle of life" 



 

27 juli 2006

Its a smal world



"it's a small world" is currently an attraction at Disneyland Paris. Like several other Disneyland attractions, "it's a small world" got its start in the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair, and after the fair closed the ride was transferred to Disneyland; when the other parks opened they, too, had versions of the ride. The attraction was designed by Mary Blair, who was also an art director on several Disney animated features including Cinderella and Peter Pan. Like many Disneyland and Walt Disney World attractions, scenes and characters were designed by Marc Davis, while his wife, Alice Davis, designed the outfits of the dolls. The English language lyrics of the ride's theme song, which shares the same title, were written by the Sherman Brothers. When the song was first released, it was originally intended as a rather wistful ballad with a considerably slower tempo.

26 juli 2006

Just Alsace



RetroCOD, Inc. provides the content on the RetroCOD Websites in an effort to preserve, and provide access to, our collective cultural history and heritage that has been captured on amateur "home movies." Visitors to this Website are invited to utilize the online content for personal, educational, and other noncommercial purposes.



24 juli 2006

A tale of two cities



Passau (Latin: Batavia) is a town in Niederbayern, Eastern Bavaria, Germany, known also as the Dreiflüssestadt (City of Three Rivers), because the Danube River is joined there by the Inn River from the South, and the Ilz River coming out of the Bavarian Forest to the North. Tourism in Passau focuses mainly on the three rivers, the St. Stephen's Cathedral (Der Passauer Stephansdom) with the world's greatest church organ - and the "Old City" (Die Altstadt). Many river cruises down the Danube start at Passau and there is a cycling path all the way down to Vienna. It is also notable for its gothic and baroque architecture. The town is dominated by the Veste Oberhaus and the former fortress of the Bishop, on the mountain crest between the Danube and the Ilz rivers. The first settlements in Regensburg date to the Stone Ages. The Celtic name Radasbona was the oldest name given to a settlement near the present city. Around AD 90 the Romans built a small "cohort-fort" in what would now be the suburbs. From about 530 to the first half of the 13th century, it was the capital of Bavaria. In 1135-1146 a bridge across the Danube, the Steinerne Brücke, was built. This stone bridge opened major international trade routes between Northern Europe and Venice, and this started Regensburg's golden age as city of wealthy trading families. Regensburg became the cultural center of southern Germany and was celebrated for its gold work and fabrics.




Windmill




For this video I did the editing including the music. The footage was shot by collegues amateur filmmakers. I personally think this is a good idea to improve your films: let someone else do the editing. This documentary is about a very typical dutch monument. Pleasant watching!



 
 


23 juli 2006

Great Canyon views



Video8 was launched in the 1980s, into a market dominated by the VHS-C and Betamax formats.
In terms of video quality, Video8, VHS/VHS-C, and Beta-II offered similar performance in their "standard play" modes; all were rated at approximately 240 horizontal lines, depending on speed, quality of tape, and other factors. In terms of audio, Video8 generally outperformed its older rivals. Standard VHS and Beta audio was recorded along a narrow linear track at the edge of the tape, where it was vulnerable to damage. Coupled with the slow horizontal tape speed, the sound was comparable with that of a low-quality audio cassette. By contrast, all Video8 machines used "audio frequency
modulation" (AFM) to record sound along the same helical tape path as that of the video signal. This meant that Video8's standard audio was of a far higher quality than that of its rivals.
Video8 had one major advantage over the full-size competition. Thanks to their compact-form factor, Video8 camcorders were small enough to hold in the palm of the user's hand. Video8 main drawback was that tapes made with Video8 camcorders could not be played directly on VHS hardware.



 

21 juli 2006

Gibraltar



The Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation operates a television and radio station on UHF, VHF and medium-wave. The radio service is also internet-streamed. Special events and the daily news bulletin are streamed in video.



20 juli 2006

Kanab & Pipe spring


Locals refer to Kanab as "Little Hollywood" due to its history as a filming location for mostly western movies and television series such as Stagecoach, The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Daniel Boone, El Dorado, Planet of the Apes, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Sergeants 3 and WindRunner: A Spirited Journey.

The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats for the NTSC and PAL/ SECAM television systems. These are the original Video8 (analog recording) format and its improved successor Hi8 (analog video and analog audio but with provision for digital audio), as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8.
Their user base consisted mainly of amateur camcorder users, although they also saw important use in the professional television production field.
In 1985, Sony of Japan introduced the Handycam, one of the first Video8 cameras with commercial success. Much smaller than the competition's VHS and Betamax video cameras, Video8 became very popular in the consumer camcorder market.
Among home and amateur videographers, Video8/Hi8 was popular enough for Sony to make equipment for video editing and production.

16 juli 2006

Vintner-market Bingen



Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
The settlement’s original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant “hole in the rock”, a description of the shoal behind the Mäuseturm, known as the Binger Loch. Bingen was the starting point for the Via Ausonia, a Roman military road that linked the town with Trier.


Bingen is well known for, among other things, the story about the Mouse Tower, in which allegedly the Bishop of Mainz Hatto was eaten by mice. The town was in 2008, after Kaiserslautern and Trier, organizer of the third Rhineland-Palatinate State Garden Show.

15 juli 2006

Discovery of Antarctica



A narrator is a personal character or a non-personal voice that the creator (author) of the story develops to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot. In the case of most written narratives (novels, short stories, poems, etc.), the narrator typically functions to convey the story in its entirety. The narrator may be a voice devised by the author as an anonymous, non-personal, or stand-alone entity; as the author herself/himself as a character; or as some other fictional or non-fictional character appearing and participating within their own story. The narrator is considered participant if he/she is a character within the story, and non-participant if he/she is an implied character or an omniscient or semi-omniscient being or voice that merely relates the story to the audience without being involved in the actual events. Some stories have multiple narrators to illustrate the storylines of various characters at the same, similar, or different times, thus allowing a more complex, non-singular point of view



 

Reconstruction of a fatal fire


A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters include natural disasters such as earthquakes or asteroid collisions, accidents such as shipwrecks or airplane crashes, or calamities like worldwide disease pandemics. The films usually feature some degree of build-up, the disaster itself and sometimes the aftermath, usually from the point of view of specific individual characters or their families.
These films often feature large casts of actors and multiple plotlines, focusing on the characters' attempts to avert, escape or cope with the disaster and its aftermath. The genre came to particular prominence during the 1970s with the release of high-profile films such as Airport (1970), followed in quick succession by The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974).


 

14 juli 2006

In vino veritas




Alsace wine or Alsatian wine (in French: Vin d'Alsace) is produced in the Alsace region in France and is primarily white. Because of its Germanic influence, it is the only Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée region in France to produce mostly varietal wines, typically from similar grape varieties to those used in German wine. Along with Austria and Germany, it produces some of the most noted dry Rieslings in the world as well as highly aromatic Gewürztraminer wines. Wines are produced under three different AOCs: Alsace AOC for white, rosé and red wines, Alsace Grand Cru AOC for white wines from certain classified vineyards and Crémant d'Alsace AOC for sparkling wines. Both dry and sweet white wines are produced.

In 2006, vines were grown on 15,298 hectares (37,800 acres) in 119 villages in Alsace, and 111.3 million litres of wine was produced, corresponding to 148.4 million bottles of 750 ml, generating 478.8 million euro in revenue. Of the vineyard surface, 78% was classified for the production of AOC Alsace wines, 4% for AOC Al



12 juli 2006

Fanatic filmer Bergman



Bergman usually wrote his own screenplays, thinking about them for months or years before starting the actual process of writing, which he viewed as somewhat tedious. His earlier films are carefully constructed and are either based on his plays or written in collaboration with other authors. Bergman stated that in his later works, when on occasion his actors would want to do things differently from his own intention, he would let them, noting that the results were often “disastrous” when he did not do so. As his career progressed, Bergman increasingly let his actors improvise their dialogue. In his latest films, he wrote just the ideas informing the scene and allowed his actors to determine the exact dialogue. When viewing daily rushes, Bergman stressed the importance of being critical but unemotive, claiming that he asked himself not if the work is great or terrible, but if it is sufficient or if it needs to be reshot.



09 juli 2006

The palace of the popes



Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record

A 'documentary film' was originally shot on film stock—the only medium available—but now
includes video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video, made as a television program or released for screening in cinemas. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries.



07 juli 2006

Closer to Paris



A normal motion picture is filmed and played back at 24 frames per second, while television uses 25 frames/s (PAL) or 29.97 frames/s (NTSC). High-speed film cameras can film up to a quarter of a million frames per second by running the film over a rotating prism or mirror instead of using a shutter, thus reducing the need for stopping and starting the film behind a shutter which would tear the film stock at such speeds. Using this technique one can stretch one second to more than ten minutes of playback time (super slow motion). High-speed video cameras are widely used for scientific research, military test and evaluation, and industry.Examples of industrial applications are filming a manufacturing line to better tune the machine, or in the car industry the crash testing to better document the crash and what happens to the automobile and passengers during a crash.







06 juli 2006

Etang de Thau




Étang de Thau or Bassin de Thau is the largest of a string of étangs (lakes) that stretch along the Languedoc-Roussillon, French coast from the Rhône River to the foothills of the Pyrenees which form the border to Spain. It is the second largest lake in France.

It is about 21 km long and 8 km wide, with an area of 7,012 hectares. The mean depth of the étang is 4.5m, but in the central navigation channel it can be 10 metres deep. Near Bouzigues there is a 100 metre diameter depression of 30 metres. This 'Fosse de la Vise' is the source of a hot spring that feeds the spa in Balaruc.

 


03 juli 2006

Hotair ballooning



In filmmaking and video production, a bird's-eye shot refers to a shot looking directly down on the subject. The perspective is very foreshortened, making the subject appear short and squat. This shot can be used to give an overall establishing shot of a scene, or to emphasise the smallness or
insignificance of the subjects.
These shots are normally used for battle scenes or establishing where the character is. It is shot by lifting the camera up by hands or by hanging it off something strong enough to support it. For a scene that needs a large area shot, then it will most often likely to be lifted by a crane or some other sort of machine