Who would’ve thought moving home and starting a new job would eat so much time? Finally the time has been found to sit down and spend some quality time with a shuttle wheel. Here’s the third Cosplay Cascade video featuring cosplayers out and about the Keele University campus at AmeCon 2012! Due to the building works and general faff it’s not got the amazing scenery and variety I had planned but hey, at the end of the day it’s about people in brightly coloured costumes throwing things at each other. I think.

More lessons learned, and the steadicam had gained a loose screw which went mostly undetected but now has been found and severely punished, hopefully I won’t have the same troubles next time!

As an offshoot there’s a quickish video made entirely out of Avatar cosplay footage, that’s just how big the groups were over the weekend!  That can be found on YouTube here.

Second CMV! This is  a much more relaxed attempt, it’s not the fast-paced sequel to the first video that I was aiming for due to lack of time, crowding and the outside area being absent most of the con, and me messing up a lot :P    So that will have to wait for AmeCon.

Instead I picked a different track and made the best I could – I still enjoyed making it in the end, there are some great moments I’m glad to have caught!

Expo is a different kettle of fish to a more close-knit con like Kita, and with the rather packed crowd it’s difficult to explain what you’re trying to capture and some pretty awkward video comes out of it – as a result the default is usually resorted to, as it’s hard to misunderstand the instruction: TWIRLING PEOPLE IN DRESSES EVERYWHERE, so there’s a somewhat large amount of that.  If you are allergic to twirling dresses I would have to offer the medical advice of giving this video a miss.

Thanks to all who got involved and hope to film plenty more of you at AmeCon!

The sprocketed lemon slice rotates once more!

It’s been a long time, my jog/shuttle wheel hasn’t seen this much exercise in many years but it’s time I got back in the editing seat and got some movement up in my visual media deliverings!

In other words: A cosplay music video has been made! Except CMV doesn’t sound all that cool so I’m going with the far cheesier Cosplay Cascade! (I reserve the right to retract this name if the world and its dog hates it) Thanks to all the wonderful cosplayers of KitaCon 4 for putting up with me not just snapping photos but also making them spin like tops, jump about, and generally flail around like loons. This is your payoff! All 130ish of you! Apologies to anyone I filmed who didn’t make it in, there aren’t many and most are my fault at the camera end!

All weekend I was trying out my amateur steadicam and running semicircles around people in order to get that magical floating-camera effect that’s popular these days, with the aim of setting it to music and making something cool. I had a lot of fun with this and it was great to see so many people getting involved.

“But hang on“, I imagine you saying, “aren’t you ripping off CosplayFever with making music videos?”

• Not at all! I started out in music video stuffs, albeit not with cosplayers, nor with any clue what I was doing, nor were they any good, but NEVERMIND!
• I did – since we’re on good terms anyway – check I wouldn’t be stepping on toes by making one, so I think we cool. Hopefully.
• I’m ripping off acksonl, get it right! Jeez. I am half expecting a knock on the door and opening it to get the back end of a steadicam to the face for this, but I figure no one else this side of the pond is making them so..

So yes, music, cosplayers, swishy steadicam, and much silliness. As a disclaimer – beyond not owning rights the music in any way, shape or form – I’m not a pro at this. The steadicam rig is cheap, flaky, customised and abused muchly; this is only my second outing doing any filming with it and my first on this scale; my editing skills haven’t been flexed since like 2006; etc etc excuses excuses. Basically: it isn’t all sharp, perfectly focused, smoothly panned, ungrainy footage and I can’t even promise I kept peoples’ heads in view the whole time. I’ll get better!

For obvious reasons, I’ll take criticisms on the filming, the grading, the editing, music choice, what have you, but keep negative comments on individual cosplayers to yourselves – they’re out of my control XD and a lot of them are good friends of mine.

Hope you enjoy, share the love, etc. Anyone interested in taking up similar projects or donating footage to the cause of Nert Makes More Videos, I’ll be making posts about the steadicam and its trials/tribulations soonish.