Saturday, February 07, 2009

a few waves dedicated to my favorite band

This camera is amazing.

The conditions were far from being as good as they can be (very low tide, the big sets were totally closing out), but nonetheless the little gopro was able to capture some details (how about the sky?) that made it worth it to invest some time in editing a little video.
This time I didn't even have to choose the soundtrack, because while I was editing, radiorock.it passed yet another beautiful Porcupine Tree song and that was it...

a few waves at Kahana from giampaolo cammarota on Vimeo.

Talking about which, I contacted the PT representative and he was kind enough to reply to my emails. He said he had no problem at all with what I was doing with their music and to go ahead and post those two muted videos on youtube again... thanks Andy!
This post is dedicated to him and to the band.
And if you guys liked the song, check out this acoustic version. Love it.

PS. As that cymbal hit at the end of the video clearly tells, the song goes on. The total duration time is 5.26 and it really broke my heart to have to cut it short... It belongs to the album Fear of a blank planet. If you're new to PT and would like to check them out, I'd recommend to buy Stupid Dream. If you like it, then buy Coma Divine. If you like that too, you're hooked and you will buy them all...
PPS. I'm having trouble at visualizing the video with Mozilla, but IE works fine. Let me know if you guys had problems.

----------lil post update------------
Blog reader Sergey, once again, considered the video good enough to kindly post process it for me. Here's the result. I feel like leaving the original Vimeo one up, so that you guys can check the difference and also because I noticed that someone is leaving comments there too. Thanks to Sergey and to the ones who left the comments. Well, thanks to all blog readers too for reading this blog.

14 comments:

Joe Agliozzo said...

Nice vid - how come your not doing the standup anymore?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful video GP, what a great point of view. Good music too, I hadn't heard about Porcupine Tree before but this song works really well with the video, so peaceful and relaxing..

I wish I could go surfing now but it's a bit cold here in the Netherlands! Anyway, keep the posts coming until I can actually visit Hawaii ;), it's always interesting to read and watch your blog.

Fernando said...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamazin! Sensacional, man!

Anonymous said...

hi GP,
this is great...there is so much "cUore" inside this short clip...I find it very poetic !
the music as well it's just perfect!
ciao grande!
MP

Anonymous said...

Hey GP,

Best work of yours so far! It is amazing what an audio track can add to a video clip! The sky and silouette work perfectly. Those clouds are amazing! And I like your pan of the camera at the end, too!
**** four stars!!!!

Ely
P.S.: I would be jealous, but I'll be there next week causing havoc at Kanaha with my SUP!!!

cammar said...

Joe,
I enjoy regular surfing WAY more than standup. Look a the rails of a regular surfboard and of a standup one and you'll know why...
Standup is fun too, but I do it only in these occasions:
- my back is too sore to do lay down paddling
- waves are two feet or less
- I want to surf a break out of reach of lay down paddling

Also, by nature, I prefere to stand with weaker minorities.
The SUP invasion at Kanaha is a "peaceful" one there's nothing really bad about (in the end it's like when windsurfer took over Hookipa in the 80s), but I can't help feeling sorry for the regular surfers who in same days can't really surf Lowers anymore. The morning of the day I shot the video, for example, they told me there were at least 50 standuppers. Considering that, by the law of great numbers, a good deal of them were wave hoggers, that means that regular surfers stood very little chance to catch the set waves.
And I even feel a bit responsible for it.
About five years ago, in fact, I believe I was standup surfer number 4 in Maui, after Laird, Kalama and Loch, even before Sean Ordonez and Scott Trudon. That happened by chance, since I had just gotten a custom 12.6 shaped by Timpone for light wind longboard wave sailing. Then when I saw the three above mentioned SUP surfers I went to Laird and asked him where I could buy a paddle. "You can't", he said. "Nobody does them. I'm having some carbon ones made in Oregon now, but if you don't want to wait the only chance is to go to local canoe paddle maker Malama and have one custom made".
So I got myself a Mala paddle (that I still have a love) and became the first one to SUP surf Lowers on a regular basis (Laird, Kalama and Loch preferred bigger waves up the coast). At that time I was the only one and as such I didn't bother anyone. I did not foresee the SUP explosion, which would have happened anyway, of course. But I just can't help feeling a bit guilty. So now I sometimes just feel like punishing myself by not joining the more numerous standup crew.
All this said, in a week I'll put my hands on a 7.6 SUP fish and I might just forget all the b**it I just wrote! ;)

Jelmer (and Gary, who sent me an email, instead),
warning: not all PT songs are that peaceful and relaxing! MOST of them (specially lately) tend to be pretty damn hard!! But I'm glad you liked that one.
Another example of melodic song is this: ... wait a second. Let me not blew that. I'll keep it for a post entirely dedicated to them. Like the idea?

Fernando,
gostaria falar portugues!

MP,
grazie del commento. Believe it or not, I did not do any selection of the waves in the editing phase. I put all the few waves I caught in that difficult (again, mostly closing out) session. That makes me think that I can do a much better video whit much better conditions. Or maybe showing all the rides, also the shitty ones, added some real-worldness... go figure!

cammar said...

Ely,
I wrote my previous comment before having read yours...
How a propos!!

Joe Agliozzo said...

Wow - interesting history on the SUP! I am a 30 year "laydown" surfer - still ride a 6-6 or 6-8 at the age of 45 most days. That said, recently started doing some standup on really small days when I normally wouldn't surf (here in Southern California - Manhattan Beach). Good fun! But not as much fun as shorboarding.. Working my way down now in size on the SUP, hoping to eventually get to a 9-0 or so - that seems like the ticket (but still only for the smaller days!)..

Downwinding seems like a great way to go, especially in Hawaii - just cruising the open ocean catching swells with nobody around.

Great blog - keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

GP,
Enjoyed the music. Thanks for that and the great video.
Would like to know what Sergey is doing to the video. Can you share settings/compression/etc with us?

Tormod said...

Extreamly cool video GP. It is allso nice to cee all your testing with different mont and camera positions.
I for sure have to by a gopro camera my selves!

Anonymous said...

Loved it!

Sergey Menshikov said...

I wrote a short post on the matter:

http://videojibe.com/featured/quality-compressed-videos-with-gopro-hero/

Sierra said...

love the movie, absolutely love the music. went sailing at lowers today, and now I really want to go longboarding.
keep the videos coming! Its the only way for me to survive when I am stuck at school!

cammar said...

Joe,
good job for still being a shortboard surfer at 45. I guess having started at 15 helps...
I, instead, started longboard surfing in 2002 at age 39 (my first year in Maui was 2001, but I only windsurfed... what an idiot!) and last year, at 45 I decided I wanted to learn shortboard surfing. Thank god my Kazuma 6.10 is a great board, but... boy is that hard or what? Slowly but steadily progressing, though.
Liked the GP-centric SUP history pill? I have another good one about downwinders... that I personally invented!!! :)
No time to write it now, but please, if you don't see it on this blog sooner or later, remind me to write it.

Thanks to all the others for the comments.
Thanks also to the PT representative Andy who forwaded my email with this post's address to the band leader Steve Wilson. So there's a chance that he saw the little video.
Inside me, I'd like to believe that not only he did see it, but he was also the anonymous that left the comment "loved it!".
Come on, leave me with that illusion...