DSLR Beginners Series Episode 2 - The Edit

Ok, it's episode 2 time. In this episode we look at the process of importing footage, how to bring it into the timeline adding some music and doing some basic editing.

Hopefully the quality will be quite a bit higher now and I hope it sets you up with some basic editing skills. Also, you can always go to my Vimeo channel and watch it in HD!

DSLR Beginners Series - Episode 2 The Edit from Simon Wadsworth on Vimeo.

I hope that helps, comment if you need anything!

DSLR Beginners Series Episode 1 - Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Setup

So here it is the first video tutorial in the series. Enjoy, apologies for the sound quality, the next one will be better.

DSLR Beginners Series - Episode 1 Premiere Project Settings from Simon Wadsworth on Vimeo.

I'll put the next one up this afternoon and it will cover getting your bins sorted, where to put your footage and the start of the edit.

At any point if you want something included in a tutorial just ask in a comment.

Addition to the blog

Hi everybody,

I'm adding a new element to this blog starting today. I've been starting to make a few little films with my new camera and I'm loving it big time. It's a Canon 60d with a few bits of cheap glass on it. The first (very short) film is here for your viewing pleasure.

Leah Crane - Winter Slackine from Simon Wadsworth on Vimeo.

I shot it for my girlfriend Leah as she was trying to get some showbiz job slack lining between two cars (she didn't get it, boo). It was a last minute rush job before we went to Greece for a climbing trip which generated another short film but is far from finished yet!

I've been scouring the internet for all sorts of tutorials to get this stuff learnt as quickly as possible and there is some great stuff out there namely www.philipbloom.net in his education section. The only thing that I have noticed is (obviously) everyone concentrates on their platform and that is very often Mac and FCP. I don't like Macs and I'm more than happy to argue until the sun goes down about why. I am not saying they are bad, I just don't like them end of story.

As a result I thought it was time someone started doing some basic, decent quality tutorials from the beginning of the learning curve through to a finished short film. I'm going to use the Slacklining video as an example to start with and post some tutorials that will show the way I worked on it on my Windows 7 PC.

It'll probably go up in a few hours hope you like it and please comment on everything as it's the only way I'll be able to make things better.

The start of the training

Okay, so I've jumped in at the deep-end with the training and I'm hitting it as hard as possible. It's now been one week since the regime began and I'm seriously drained but I need to keep going to see what my body is made of, I'm pretty sure if I push it too hard I'll soon know about it.

Step one a little endurance work to get myself eased into things. This consisted of 4 days of heavy endurance sessions and 2 days of campussing. That's 6 hardcore sessions in a week and left me with only one day for recovery. I must admit, I was ruined by Sunday.

So this week, the second week of my training and it's time to start getting strong so I am purely campussing this week. Well, that was the plan anyway. Monday consisted of a full campus session followed by a full size session on the comp wall at the climbing works and yesterday was the Westway comp followed by a campus session. My forearms feel completely blown out but I need to keep hammering away at it and not let it start to slide. This evening it's a footless session in the garage on a load of crimps and assisted one arm pull-ups on crimps, nice :(

At the moment I'm not sure what grades I'm climbing but up until now I've probably been at around 7c bouldering and 8a sport as my max redpointing grades (I did do a 7c+ but only one). I really want to tick an 8a boulder and an E8 but it's going to have to wait for a little while. At present I'm way, way, way off the pace of the British bouldering team so it will be interesting to see how my climbing improves now I'm "on it".

Anyway, procrastination over, I'm going out for some training.

Back in the UK

Well hello there! We have now been back from our travels for 3 months now and are well and truly back to the grindstone! Leah's doing the coaching and setting thing in London and I've started my own business doing Audio Visual Installations. We did the BBC's and Leah came second and I came 21st which I was pretty pleased with considering I'm out of shape and weak.

In theory I will soon be going on a new routing trip to a secret location and the ultimate goal from now is to get ready for BBC's 2012. It's a long way off but I need as much time as I can get.

And so it continued…

Two days more of this and we were done. The walk-in is too long, the routes are not really very good, you have to queue for most routes because it’s so busy and the walk-in is definitely too long! That day Bob and Tash from Portland arrived and planted the idea of going bouldering in our heads (I don’t think it was deliberate but we were infected) it took us less than twenty minutes to make the decision to leave the torture behind and go to Magic Woods. After another long walk (it’s a bit of a theme in Ceuse) we got back to the van and after an even longer drive (about 8 hours) we parked up for a sleep in a tiny Italian mountain village with about an hour to go in the morning (another theme).

A GOOD SLEEPING SPOT

Next day it was straight on the road again to get to Magic Woods and start some “proper” climbing. We didn’t have a guide book so we decided to just see what was available on arrival and got their as quick as we could. It wasn’t long before we were at the Italian/Swiss border on the Splugen Pass. It’s a truly amazing stretch of road with stunning scenery and one of the best border locations I’ve seen so far.

AN IMPRESSIVE BORDER CROSSING!

After a lot of wiggling about on hairpins (some of which were so tight we had to 3 point turn around) we arrived at Magic Woods and parked up in a large car park across the road from the campsite.

A LOT OF WIGGLING ABOUT

Naturally we didn’t want to stay in the campsite as we had all the things we generally needed and the only thing the campsite actually offers is a porta loo. Not the most comprehensively equipped site in the world and definitely not worth the 10 francs per night for the 2 of us.

We climbed almost straight away but the day and night of driving had taken its toll and we didn’t climb long. It was long enough to do a 7a traverse, cleverly named “Traversatta” it was my first 7a of the forest and on my second go. We went and looked at the Bruno blocks lack of holds and poor friction then cruised back to the van for some dinner and some much needed sleep.

MAGIC WOODS VALLEY

After my first encounter with the forest I was sure I would like it a lot, it really is quite magical and even though it’s the middle of summer once you are under the cover of the trees the air has a distinct chill to it. The reason for this is the freezing air that jets up from holes in the ground and from around the bigger boulders and the fact that you are at around 3000m above sea level. In fact the town up the road is the highest altitude town in main land Europe.

That evening at about 9:00pm there was a loud knock on the door of the van and the owner of the campsite was standing there asking for us to pay for the night in the campsite! “Err we’re not in the campsite” I said, but apparently the campsite own the car park as well. Not impressed but also not knowing where else we could park we decided to pay and find somewhere else in the morning. We woke up the next day and went up the road to find somewhere to park, fortunately there is a large layby at the side of the road near the second bridge to the climbing so we parked up and went climbing.

THE BRIDGE CROSSING

Over the next 3 days I managed a few problems that I was quite pleased with (tick list below for anyone who cares).

La Traversatta 7a

Bosna Genial 7a

Bosna Royal 7a

Dropzone 7a

Enterprise 7a

Hagletrauma 7b

Fetterfisch 7b

Jamesbong 7b

Just as I was getting into the swing of things and wanting to get on something harder more local irritation struck. Once again an angry local came knocking on the door telling us we can’t park in the valley except at the campsite and the police would be there within the hour. It’s like the Magic Woods Mafia! The campsite is frankly rubbish and to be forced to pay almost £7 a night for it is not on. That night we paid once again for the camping but planned to find somewhere else again the next day, even if it was a little way away it would still be cheaper. The next day we woke up to rain, the clouds had been sitting in the valley for a couple of days threateningly and they had finally delivered. Everything was soaked so we went up to the Edelweis (guest house) for some internet and a shower. We checked the weather and the next 5 days were forecast rain one day of sun then more rain. We finished using the internet and all freshly clean we hit the road for Chironico. It’s only 50 miles from Magic but it’s a bit lower and although the heat might be a problem at times the forecast was good and that meant climbing rather than sitting in the van wishing the rain would stop.

We got to the parking area at Chironico after a couple of chapters of Harry Potter (we’ve got the audio books read by Stephen Fry and are currently living our lives in chapter size chunks of time) and went to find some rock.

So far we’ve been largely unsuccessful at this new destination however we’ve been working things that are right at our limits. Leah has been trying an 8a that she’s very close to and I’ve been working a problem called Doctor Pinch, a savage 8a+ that at the moment only has one move on it that is out of my grasp. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it but it would mean that I had surpassed my expectations for the trip with a few months still to go! My goal was one 8a route and one 8a boulder problem, thus far I’ve got two 8a routes and a potential 8a+ boulder problem, very exciting!

The day they moved on

Once we were back in Spain we got a lift from Calpe with Kate after the slowest train ride in history and were soon back with our beloved van at the Oliva house.

We got back to find our van in fine fettle (other than the broken headlight courtesy of Kates horsebox) and temperatures at the highest they’ve been on the trip so far. We couldn’t really stick around and not climb anymore so we had a mission on our hands to get everything together and get the van back to normal so we could get going. After hours getting all our stuff together and doing some DIY on the van (the bed was a bit broken and so was the bike rack) we left the house to go to Barcelona at around 20:00.

The clear out

We knew we wouldn’t make it in one go so we decided to just see how far we could get. We managed to get about 3 miles down the road when Leah realised she’d left her sun glasses in the car and we had to turn back, a close shave but it was a crisis averted. Second time lucky we got away and pressed on into the night.

It was gone 3:00 when I finally decided to jack it in and stopped about 80 miles short of Barcelona. No amount of Red Bull can take away the monotony and although I could stay awake I felt like I was going slightly mad and needed to stop!

In the morning we pressed on to Barcelona and the closer we got the busier and busier the roads became until it was grid locked.

Is it London? Nope it's Barcelona

I was very much reminded of London but it was much sunnier and this London has a beach. Its Londonesque traffic, slightly more mental drivers and crazy road markings added up to a rather stressful drive through the centre. It was incredibly unfriendly to a large red van with the steering wheel on the wrong side and bike wheels sticking out the sides at the back.

After a long hunt we finally managed to find a space big enough and parked briefly, got the bikes off the back and went for a scoot about. We needed to find somewhere better to park (i.e. not 45 cents a minute!) and although the city looked awesome we kept focussed and made a beeline for tourist information. The woman in the tourist info hut told us where we could go to park but unfortunately it was about 6 miles down the road out of the city centre. We managed to find the car park, had a look at the nasty beach nearby and decided to get on the bikes again and make the 6 mile mission back into town without the burden of expensive parking.

The naff beach at Barcelona

We got into the city centre after a cool ride along the sea front where there was loads of stuff going on (even though it was fairly late afternoon by now) and we couldn’t help thinking that we could really do with a large helping of Euro’s in our pockets.

By the time we got into town most things were being packed up and we saw a vast number of shops and stalls that were tempting us. In the end we decided that we needed to come back another time with some serious spending money and bit more time to explore. Another trip is already planned (non-climbing) and we’ll be making the most of it when we get there.

We rode back to the van in the warmth of the evening and decided to have a go at getting as close to Ceuse as possible that evening. We ended up leaving Barcelona at around 8:00pm (a recurring problem with our journeys) and drove relentlessly into the night.

With about an hour to go we decided to call it quits and stopped in an “Aire” at the side of the Autoroute. We found a good spot in the trees and went to sleep.

There was only a (relatively) short drive left in the morning so we had breakfast in the sun and pressed on to Gap, the closest town to the crag.

Breakfast at an aire... Bit nicer than Watford Gap

On Arrival we saw a McDonalds and pulled in for some free internet action. After checking a few bits over and finding out where we could get the guide etc. we headed into Gap centre to find the climbing shop and get the guidebook. Gap itself is a really nice medium size town which is almost completely pedestrianized. We wandered about in the sun taking photos and finally found the climbing shop, after asking a policeman where it was. We got the book and headed for an E’Leclerc to get some supplies.

While we were there we discovered their value brand “Eco+” its ridonculously cheap and there’s loads of different stuff to choose from. We bought a selection of their tinned veg for evaluation and some treats to make the pain of the infamous Ceuse walk-in a little more bearable and headed to the van. Next up was to solve our gas problem, it seems every country has different gas bottles all with different attachments and it makes it very difficult to change your gas while you’re on the move. We had to get a new bottle but fortunately got a deal where you got a free regulator so it could have been a lot worse as they are 25 euros each!

Once our gas issues were solved (excuse the expression) we dug out the guidebook and navigated our way towards the crag. After a long climb up the hill in our incredibly slow van, we caught site of the car park that we would be sleeping in and the crag at the top of the hill.

It is MILES up the hill!

The crag a million miles away!

We both shuddered at the thought of walking all the way up and having to climb once we got there but we got ourselves and the van sorted and prepared for the monster day to come.

We awoke at a sensible hour and after getting all the kit together we packed our bags until they were rather heavy and looked ready to burst.

The kit we had to lug up the hill

After locking up the van we started the walk up the hill, it’s long, really long! It’s also very steep and very dull. It’s not really my idea of fun to go hiking before a hard days climbing and when we finally got to the top I was ready to collapse, it had taken us about 1.5 hours!

We had some lunch and tried in vain to climb something. The routes couldn’t really have suited me any less well, there is no good rests, they are long, not very steep and are covered in poor hand holds and worse footholds. We both managed to do a 6c+ on our second go and we were ruined already!

The view from the top was good

After another long walk to the other end of the crag and checking out some routes for the next day we decided to get back to the van. We couldn’t really see a path so we came up with the genius idea of making our way through the bushes until we found one, unfortunately we didn’t find one for ages and when we finally made it to a proper path we could barely hold our own weight on our legs. It must have taken us almost 2 hours to get all the way back to the van and we arrived exhausted and hungry.