Can a faceless RU-vid creator like me build a super RU-vid video and sound studio in an abandoned bedroom so I can finally show my face in some of my Machining and Microwaves videos? Find out what I really look like and how badly it all goes!
Machining and Microwaves has only ever had AIMEE as a public face, but now I've appeared in person on prime-time BBC TV, I decided it might be fun to scare the living daylights out of everyone by showing my face occasionally in future videos.
As well as building the video studio, I've done a quick tour of my machine shop to show the new overhead camera lights that can reach almost anywhere in the room without me tripping over stands and wires. For the RU-vid studio, I've installed a big 100 watt LED softbox light, a 20 inch ringlight, gel spots, LED RGB backlighting, uplighters, wall drapes, sound absorbing wall hangings, an electric raise/lower desk, an autocue, a Sony a7 IV with a big external monitor and a range of Sony EF lenses, a Rode condenser mic on a ceiling mount, my Shure SM58 on a Rode arm, a big 4k monitor and Gigabyte Aero5 XE4 laptop, MSI keyboard/mouse/phones, lots of data storage and a comfy chair. The analog microphones connect to a Zoom F3 with two XLR inputs. I haven't got timecode set up yet, and I'm using my Sony ZV-1 as a second camera. I rather fancy an FX30, but they are rather spendy. They take the same lenses as my a7 IV but to 120 fps 4k video for those lovely slow-mo machining sequences.
I'll shoot most new videos in 4K, and try to learn about lighting scenes properly, and I hope the sound will be reasonable once I get the hang of all this mad tech.
All of this wizardry is being paid for by some collaborative videos that are coming up in a week or two that involved me flying to the USA for several days of filming and interviewing with a major US tech manufacturer.
Now I have some reasonable facilities, I hope to get back to the core business of making videos at a reasonable cadence. I have three almost finished, but I have given myself an even steeper learning curve by making this one using Davinci Resolve Studio. I've only been using it for two days, so forgive any weirdness in the video. I want to be able to shoot 10 bit S-LOG3 and do color grading on the log encoded material and learn all of the neat trix in Resolve. Powerdirector just didn't cut it any more.
I have a series of four videos planned and mostly shot about the history, tech, machining and demonstration on TV of my replicas of the Great Seal Bug aka The Thing, a passive microwave spying devince found in the US Ambassador's residence in Moscow in the early 1950s after being installed and working for seven years. "Project Swordfish" was the name I gave the project.
That giant white and silver tube on my desk is a PTFE radome for a 10 GHz waveguide slot array antenna that I'm building for an X band propagation beacon being intalled in Somerset, near Taunton in the South-West of England. Might do a video about that.
The thumbnail? I used to watch the Lone Ranger when I was very young. I thought he was a bit of a pillock. I identified mostly with Tonto and Silver, although Tonto's horses were much more practical and sensible for everyday use.
Talking of Sony a7 IV cameras, does anyone knows how to get the zebra stripes and focus peaking to work on an external monitor?
MY PATREON PAGE: / machiningandmicrowaves
My second channel is @MachiningandMicrowavesPlus
Broadcasting House image by eriluamox, CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/... via Wikimedia Commons
9 фев 2023
