"Brooklyn Bridge Ride" - In A Brooklyn Minute (Week 84) - GoPro

On Monday late afternoon I rode my bike across the Brooklyn Bridge and filmed it with a GoPro for you.

Instead of the usual smooth moving GoPro look I messed with the footage until it got this "impressionist painting stop-animation" effect.

First of all: the Brooklyn Bridge is still under construction. So sped up that footage 10x times - while the other parts before and after the construction are only 3x my biking speed.

Before I get to the technical stuff: I LOVE the Brooklyn Bridge. I love walking across it, riding on it (if no one steps into the bike lane in front of me), driving over it, stopping for a drink, taking photos, taking a boat under it, gazing at it from Brooklyn or from Manhattan. I think walking across it is the absolute "must do" for anyone visiting NYC. It's a great way to approach the city - but also a lovely way to leave the noise and claustrophobia and people of Manhattan behind and cherish the wide open space on your way to Brooklyn.

The driving song is "Bruce Lee" by Jason Matherne aka http://www.youtube.com/user/lljamelle11

Thank you to Sanity Productions for lending me the camera!
http://sanityproductions.tv/

Now the techie stuff:

When I first looked at my footage the result was nothing like I expected. It was a bit bouncy and had some issues with the rolling shutter.

The GoPro was strapped to the handlebars of my bike. And the actual bridge part is made of planks of wood. The resulting footage is tremendously jerky. Not to mention that my handlebars swerve back and forth as I fight my way up the incline.

Jerkiness wouldn't have been the worst but due to the CMOS rolling shutter situation, the image keeps getting elongated and shrunk with every bump which creates a jello or wobble effect. It's where this becomes surreal.

Using a stabilization filter in iMovie (before bringing the footage back into FCP for editing) made everything blurrier.

When I exported the h.264 timeline as is in a high quality this strange stop-motion effect was created.

When I first converted the timeline to ProRes before exporting at best quality, it becomes a smoother forward motion, but with a lot of jitters.

Finally the decision was made (thanks Scott for your input!!!) to upload the low-quality happy accident "impressionist painting stop-animation" version as the official video. I will upload the other "higher quality" version as an alternative as well.

Maybe in the future (when that stupid construction is gone) I will experiment with the GoPro further and try the chest mount or other frame rates.

But until then I appreciate that technical limitations, happy accidents and experimentation can lead you to a result that you could not have planned that way.
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Category:

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Tags:

• Brooklyn
• Bridge
• bike
• ride
• GoPro
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• animation
• New York City
• NYC
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• USA
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• In A Bklyn Minute
• In a Brooklyn Minute
• In A Bkln Minute
• In A New York Minute
• In A Berlin Minute
• sights

[MUEHLENinEUROPA]

Das Video läuft mir gerade noch einmal über den Weg und ich schaue es mir liebend gerne noch einmal an! LG Inge

[GNYBerlin]

@MUEHLENinEUROPA Das lese ich doch mal wieder sehr gerne. Vielleicht gibt's diese Woche noch ein weiteres Brueckenvideo. Bin gerade am Ueberlegen, was ich heute drehe...

x Luci

[wally1435]

That was fun !! I'd love to walk this one day...have walked our Golden Gate Bridge many times.

At least I once got to admire the Brooklyn Bridge from a vantage point while sitting and taking it all in.

[GNYBerlin]

@wally1435 We can swap dreams then. I'd love to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge - or admire it from a vantage point. It's on the top of my list of places to still see in the US. Hope we can both make it happen soon.

x Luci

[IFrenchName]

This video was one of the scariest things in my life I thought the entire time that he would crash in to someone

[GNYBerlin]

@adarkershadeofbrown It's just to the right of City Hall. You really can't miss it.

[giulianopietra]

interessante!

[AcidtigerLP]

Großartig!

Ich finde es einfach total toll, dass die Kamera beim gehen ganz natürlich wackelt, wer weiß warum?" (:

Und all die Menschen zu sehen, ob sie nun Fotographieren , laufen oder dastehen. Und natürlich die Brücke im Hintergrund. + Musik ist einfach klasse (:

Lieben Gruß Chiara

[GNYBerlin]

@adarkershadeofbrown During the day you always have people walking across the bridge. Maybe not during a blizzard. It gets colder up there when it's windy since there's no protection. If you check my video from week 75: even after 700 people had been arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge during OWS and it had rained for hours, there are still others on the bridge. Take a hot chocolate from Jacques Torres in Dumbo (Week 89) with you! ;-)

Have fun!

x Luci

[wally1435]

@GNYBerlin In case you weren't aware of it: our Bay Bridge that connects Oakland/The East Bay with San Francisco is undergoing major renovations and will finally include a huge section that will become walking and bicycling accessible. Should be done within 5 years and I look forward to walking that for the very first time - it's bound to have breathtaking views.

[GNYBerlin]

@keekabo Thank you. The music is by Jason Matherne.