A video from our Mediteranian outing

henryf

henryf

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www.911virgin.com
No, we haven't left Gosport for sunnier (if a bit windy) climes. Instead we up scaled a little from 25 tonnes to 32,000 tonnes and spent a couple of weeks onboard Seabourn Sojourn.

Being a smaller ship than some out there allows her to visit places not always on the cruise ship map. In particular tendering ashore isn't a particularly difficult task with a max 450 pax as opposed to 3,500 plus crew.

I suspect some viewers might recognise a few of the places....




Weather was pleasant if a bit windy - no, not the rich food type of windy.

Henry :)
 
Very nice video. I miss Italy.
Each to their own but I just don't 'get' cruise ships; Rigid meal/entertainment timetables, thousands of other people, not enough time in each place.
I tried it once, never again.
My mother love's em though and was once describing how they visited a deserted island. Well, deserted apart from the 2,999 other people that just arrived on it!
Your clip of Monaco made me smile. We ducked in there on our boat move west last year and waved at all the people on a cruise ship docked where yours was.
What was you favourite bit?
 
Absolutely superb video. Really enjoyed it. That was so well put together you should have a production company on the side for the local tourists boards. Loved the shots of Ephesus. The library structure is awesome considering its age and the 26k seater stone stadium from 2000 years ago reminds us what engineers they were in their day.

PS: We are going to try Star Clippers next year for a cruise.
 
Seabourn is a very different entity to "mainstream" cruising. With just 450 passengers, some of whom can't or don't leave the ship you never swamp somewhere when you arrive.

Meals are taken as and when you want with who ever you want.

Lots of space per passenger, you never queue for anything, drinks etc are all found so no messing about with payment cards or tipping.

We had an overnight stop in Valletta which is simply breathtaking when entered from the sea. I mean world class breath taking. The whole place is riddled with character and historic sites. Going to be the 2018 City of Culture.

Ephesus also blew me away. I thought we were going to see an amphitheatre. Turns out it's a whole bloody city and yes, the view of the library looking down the street is stunning. To go back there in the evening for our own private concert was a treat not often available.

Calvi was pretty much shut for the season but I really enjoyed wandering around the Citadel.

Symi is a bustling little place. Shame the harbour authorities stopped us playing with the watersports toys!

Syracuse was enjoyable to wander round with some lovely places to grab a drink or a bite tucked away.

Mykonos was über quaint with its tiny streets. I can see why they have windmills there !

Henry :)
 
It was really quite good...

...for a video that was shot using a fixed platform, that is.

:)

Beautifully shot and edited video as ever, Henry. Very sharp too. A production company is something you could easily add to your enterprises as OF says. Video is the future.

Looking forward to our cruise over the xmas.
 
don't know how good you are selling porsches, but it's difficult to comprehend how you would be better than shooting and editing videos.
I can understand that you'll probably make a much better living selling cars though ;)

brilliant video, very well done, seems that you got all the celebrations on the 28th of October in Greece too.

V.
 
Another superb piece of work H, enjoyed every moment of the footage and audio. Certainly agree with the comments about the comparison to professional production.
 
Looks superb in 1080p - stunning piece of work thank you for sharing, brightened up a dull autumn night.

Having done a bit myself (not in this league) I know the work that goes into getting the shots, editing etc.

Thanks for posting a level to aspire to :encouragement:
 
Impressive job indeed H, probably the best video from a technical standpoint published here so far.
And the places aren't too shabby, either! Really conveys a Mediterranean atmosphere, well done. :encouragement:

Just one Q, am I right in guessing from the bits in front of Portofino that you couldn't go ashore?
If so, with all due respect for all the other beautiful places, it seems to me that the cruise organization shouldn't have missed the opportunity to let their guest see the real thing - i.e. the village, that is hidden from offshore view...
 
scubaman said:
It was really quite good...

...for a video that was shot using a fixed platform, that is.

:)
Click to expand...

I laughed to myself when I read that. I was waiting for the forum air squadron to spot that it was entirely terrestrial, at no point were air traffic control involved !

Whilst you boys are investing in gimbals, rotors and POV headsets I'm debating upgrading my £80 aluminium bar to a £300 set up with real bearings :)

I'd love to do some drone work in light of this seasons offerings on here but for now my feet are on the ground.

Henry :)
 
MapisM said:
Just one Q, am I right in guessing from the bits in front of Portofino that you couldn't go ashore?
If so, with all due respect for all the other beautiful places, it seems to me that the cruise organization shouldn't have missed the opportunity to let their guest see the real thing - i.e. the village, that is hidden from offshore view...
Click to expand...

We were anchored off Santa Margherita and tenders were running ashore. Unfortunately by the time I was ready to go ashore it started to p1ss down with rain so I gave it up as a bad job. This was a very port intensive cruise and I'm afraid SM suffered as a result.

Henry :)
 
Thanks for the words of encouragement, very generous of you.

I gave a little talk on the ship about how to make better home movies. I have always been able to take a picture but struggled a bit with video. The penny dropped one day and I realised what everyone did wrong. I've developed a simple formula which seems to work.

I can see myself running little workshops whilst cruising to help people create short films which they can share with friends and which provide a memory that gets watched rather than shoved on a hard drive or put in a cupboard.

Henry :)
 
Fabulous Henri, thanks

You've got (I think) a clear technique of mostly tripoding the camera still for 4 secs and having whatever people/things are moving as the only motion in the shot. Complete opposite of panning the camera around to cram everything in, or droning at Mach 1. It produces a very relaxing effect esp with soft transitions. Very nice

But how do you slide the camera, eg at 6.32? Some contraption, or editing software?

I loved the places. Where was 0.57? Between 2 MC clips but not MC. And 1.24 was SM (right?), so was 1.37 Rapallo? Calvi 2.48 was a great shot - the black things look like clouds but they're mountains. Weird at 3.20 that the <20m berths are full in Calvi but >25m empty

I loved the Valetta footage. It's on the bucket list of 10 harbours to sail into and I was lucky enough to do it on a RIB a few years ago on a business trip. I forget the full bucket list but I think it is generally thought of as Sydney, Valetta, Monaco, Bonifacio, Dartmouth, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Mahon, and couple of others (Gosport?)
 
jfm said:
But how do you slide the camera, eg at 6.32? Some contraption, or editing software?
Click to expand...

I think Henry is using a tripod mounted slider/dolly (which can be seen in the second to last closing still) and which Henry refers to as the 'bar' in his post #12. He uses it to a very nice effect too.

If the existing bar judders, it's barely visible, I thought I noticed some at 2:03 but I might be wrong.

My favourite shots are the ones you referred to (at around 6:30).

Ahh, mlines beat me to it...
 
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