Railroad Tracks

Now the Field Production and Editing I assignments are becoming more involved. This assignment was entitled "Favorite Place". Between three to four minutes in length, and using Final Cut Pro 7 to edit, we had to shoot our favorite place. I wanted to go a step beyond and try for an emotion level with this video. I thought for weeks on this video, of where to shot. Many ideas flowed through my head. My very first idea was a car wash, but that would have been too silly for the emotional level. Finally, one Sunday afternoon, railroad tracks popped in my head and I took my camera and tripod out to the nearby tracks here in Plymouth and Northville.

Shooting on a Sunday, trains were not an issue, which helped the central theme of my video - railroad tracks are life, they come from one place, stop here, and then go somewhere else. They might come from a bad or good place, and then head to somewhere totally different.

Shooting this video was some work, and a little scary at times. Most of the places where I got close to the tracks were restricted, but that didn't stop me. But, one overpass in Northville was a little scary because I wanted to shoot in this tunnel, and it was somewhat of a hike through weeds and over a fence to get there. Once I got there, there was a lot of graffiti down there that I wasn't sure if it was safe enough to be there. So, I shot quickly, and then left.

I did this video entirely myself. I set up the camera on the tripod, positioned the shot, hit record, ran to wherever I had to be, then ran back to stop the camera. It was a good exercise.

WATCH "RAILROAD TRACKS" ON YOUTUBE

Overall, I liked this video, but it isn't my proudest work. Music, which is near and dear to my heart in my videos, just weren't the best choices for the shots I used. And the voiceover could have been recorded on a better quality microphone.

This was the first video that I used Motion, and I did like how that turned out. I did more of the "disappearing" dissolves, like in my Ghost of Mackinac Island video.