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jackwolf · 06-30-2009, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BT17R

Have a great trip!

jackwolf, can you list links to your fav dashcam documentaries? I'm doing something similar (short trips to Oregon special places) and would like to see the best examples. Here's my rig (in a 2010 Prius) I swap out to the FJ for off-road video:

It's been awhile since I have seen any good ones. But my favorite ones are the ones that have already happened. Because of the time compression. But the new thing now is to twitter video from your phone. I'd follow that.

Also, I like the ones that are shot from a 45 degree angle while the car is being driven.

If that is a radar detector on the dash then that is also a great spot for the camera. I like to see the person not just hear their voice. I like to see them start off chipper and then fade slowly. They state that they have to be at a certain location by a certain time and they begin hourly updates. After a couple of hours they miss an update or two.

A nine hour drive turns into a thirteen hour drive because they took a wrong turn and it started raining AND they still have another 250 miles to go. And they are dealing with it. You can see it in their face and you can hear it in their voice. Sometimes everything goes well, they just get tired. Sometimes things do not go well but you see them pull through anyway and finally make it to nashville for their gig. Or to the college for their show. Or they have to cancel a gig because when they booked it they thought they could make it but it turns out they can't. I like real life. This is what happened. This is how it went down.

The ones you don't see are the ones from people who could not pull through and could not bear posting it.

I'm not saying I take pleasure in other peoples misfortune, I am saying that, there was no producer to artificially inject drama into it, people can tell. I've traveled, the same things have happened to me. I like to see them happen to other people just to see how they deal with it. I think it helps define their character and it helps me reflect on my own.

Anyway

The way you have the camera rigged in your photo is a style I do not care for unless it is a camera strapped to a motorcycle doing a time trial on some twisty back road or a car doing a time trial at Nuremberg ring in Germany.

But if you must. I would at least install a black cloth on the dash. See how the radar unit is reflected on the window? I find it distracting. Also, a polarized lens on the camera is not going to cut it since they spin for a reason. As soon as you dial in the lens, once the vehicle changes direction on the compass rose, it is going to need adjustment again. Your set up is good for cross country trips that are time compressed from days to seconds. I like those.

I also like videos that go full circle.

Perhaps a Danish couple are in front of their home, bags packed curbside. They are waiting for the shuttle that will take them to the airport. Cut to the airport; where they hook up with another couple.

We follow them along to New York and they buy a car and drive it across the USA and then they sell it in California before they fly to Hawaii. Then back to Seattle where they rent a small RV and buy bicycles at Wal Mart and the video shows them taking the bikes out of the cartons in the parking lot and stuffing the bikes into the RV.

Then another video of them inside the rv with one of them saying to the camera, hey look we finally got the bikes in the rv and the camera is pointed to the ceiling where the bikes are somehow strapped to the ceiling and they all laugh at some inside joke.

They spend some time in the state and national parks and we get to see all the antics along the way; fake rubber scorpions, shoes tied to the end of fishing lines. That sort of thing. Then maybe they go down to Mexico and so on.

It ends with them back home, bags curbside after having just been dropped off. Maybe it finishes with one of them saying," Hey look it didn't burn down." And they point the camera at the house and laugh at some inside joke."

So I say make it personal and keep it human. People love that. I know I do.