Hi everyone, as promised I’ve been working on filming and producing the Wizard Citation DVD. I have found filming washers with black agitators to be much more of a challenge than when I filmed machines with lighter colored gray or turquoise agitators. The problem is in the lighting, what happens is if I make the lighting a bit darker, you cannot make out the details of the agitator as well as when I use bright lights. When I use bright lights when the wash water gets a little sudsy, it reflects light off of the sudsy water and makes the contrast look way too bright on the suds, but you get a nice view of the black agitator. So I decided its better to use bright lights and try to adjust to brightness and contrast in the Video editing program on the computer. I’ve got it pretty good although a little more experimenting is in order to see if I can get it even better. I used semi-low sudsing detergent (Fresh-Start) for the wash loads as not to completely block the view of the turnover during the wash cycle.
The first DVD is going to consist of two complete Wizard wash loads, one filmed from the top looking directly down into the washtub, the other filmed from a 45 degree angle looking into the wash tub. I noticed you get two completely different perspective views by using two different camera angles. Filming it from the 45 degree angle you can really see how much that wash tub indexes during agitation. In the first episode looking down into the washtub I included over 15 quick shots of the timer dial incrementing so you can see exactly where the washer is in the cycle. Sort of like what you do if you were standing there actually watching the machine.
Anyway, I hope to get this done this week and get the DVD’s over to the duplicator. The DVD format is going to be DVD-R which should play on 90% or more of DVD players made after 2000. All DVD players made today (even the cheap $39 DVD players are Target) play DVD-R format so anyone who wants a DVD should be able to view it. The format is going to be in the North American NTSC so those of you in Europe and Australia, you might need to get a NTSC player or have it converted locally if you wish to view this DVD. I’m not sure about the availability of NTSC DVD players overseas.
As an extra bonus, I’m going to include a newly found, wonderful Westinghouse Laundromat commercial that I have not put up on the site yet.
The first DVD is going to consist of two complete Wizard wash loads, one filmed from the top looking directly down into the washtub, the other filmed from a 45 degree angle looking into the wash tub. I noticed you get two completely different perspective views by using two different camera angles. Filming it from the 45 degree angle you can really see how much that wash tub indexes during agitation. In the first episode looking down into the washtub I included over 15 quick shots of the timer dial incrementing so you can see exactly where the washer is in the cycle. Sort of like what you do if you were standing there actually watching the machine.
Anyway, I hope to get this done this week and get the DVD’s over to the duplicator. The DVD format is going to be DVD-R which should play on 90% or more of DVD players made after 2000. All DVD players made today (even the cheap $39 DVD players are Target) play DVD-R format so anyone who wants a DVD should be able to view it. The format is going to be in the North American NTSC so those of you in Europe and Australia, you might need to get a NTSC player or have it converted locally if you wish to view this DVD. I’m not sure about the availability of NTSC DVD players overseas.
As an extra bonus, I’m going to include a newly found, wonderful Westinghouse Laundromat commercial that I have not put up on the site yet.
