Video Coach ... versatile Playmobil stuff

[Little Jo]

Currently I'm making some videos of our (real live) rabbits and their room (for my Web site relaunch).  As special effect I wanted to make some video from their perspective showing how they see their living space and the environment. First try was to carry arround the POV (point of view) camera in my hands near the floor. Problem was that the result was that shaky that when afterwards looking at the video the watcher gets sea sick.

Then this morning I had a nice idea that I want to share with you preventing any shaky camera movements, maybe somebody had a similiar issue and needs a solution or just an inspiration for some other ideas, e.g. not making videos from rabbits but from some Playmobil scenery 
I mounted the POV camera on the 3182 fire rescue ladder vehicle just with some rubber bands (cf. pics).

This has quite several advantages in near-floor video recording:

• First of all you can attach the recorder and the camera to the vehicle so you just need one hand to carry around the recording unit and can use the other hand to crawl on your knees behind the vehicle.
• You can move around the camera quite smooth together with the vehicle just as the vehicle has been designed: put it on the floor and push it to drive on its wheels.
• By turning the ladder you can turn the camera also quite smoothly for panoramo views from left to right or the other way round.
• And by moving out the ladder you can even higher the viewpoint from the ground; using the mounted basket let you position the camera in the right angle to the ground.

So Playmobil is not only versatile for playing and customizing but also for "professional" video recording 

Only disadvantage was, that one of the rabbits was afraid about the red rescue vehicle being moved around ...

[playmofire]

An excellent use of Playmobil, Jochen, and thank you for showing it.  All that's needed now from Playmobil is a radio-controlled ladder.  As for the frightened rabbit, maybe a fur cover on the truck might help.

[Little Jo]

As for the frightened rabbit, maybe a fur cover on the truck might help.

[macgayver]

Lol

thanks for sharing

[Gepetto]

Excellent Little Jo! I have seen similar applications with the model railroaders mounting cameras in the cabs of their trains to film the scenery as they go around the layout, that is a nice looking camera you have there by the way.



Gepetto

[Rasputin]

That looks a lot more professional than what i attempted . I just rubber-banded my Treo phone on the front of my train and was not impressed with the low quality image. I have never seen a POV camera like yours , what is it ?

[Little Jo]

I have never seen a POV camera like yours , what is it ?

Actually it's a "helmet" camera (I'm normally using it within my car mounted). Best would be to have a look at the V.I.O. POV.1 homepage; there you can get the best information with also lots of video material (showing samples, explaining the camera, etc.).
It's quite handy and giving very good results for a compact wearable video technology camera with 720 x 480 pixels resolution (but for sure not comparable with a high definition camcorder with it's 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and high end zoom lense).

Although the digital camcorders are also quite small those days I used the POV camera because of it's (very) wide angle lens which is more suitable indoors and especially in rabbit's cages 

I have seen similar applications with the model railroaders mounting cameras in the cabs of their trains to film the scenery as they go around the layout, that is a nice looking camera you have there by the way.

Good idea. One of my first thoughts was also to use a remote controlled car; unfortunately I do not have one (I think my wife has one -- a none Playmobil one -- but that's not suitable to mount a camera on it). And I'm not sure if you can make smooth movements with the remote control. With the trains for sure I think it's something different and perfect: it runs on rail roads (like the real video coaches) ... hm, maybe I should buy some Playmobil railroads and a train to let the camera run like the real professional moviemakers (I must admit, I do not own any train equipment from Playmobil at all  ) Only problem would be how to do with straight forward films: the rail roads would be visible in the movie what's not the intention (at least not within rabbit movies  )

Does anybody have some experiences with remote controlled cars? Is the remote control that sensible to make fine grained movements? How is starting to drive? Is there a small "jump" when the electro engine starts to work? Or when stopping? Such a behaviour would be disturbing the video quality ... 
I can remember from childhood that my remote controled cars -- non Playmobil -- behaved like that and it was quite difficult to drive on the "millimeter accurate" especially when start driving and stopping driving.

I have seen some remote controled cars moving around at the Funpark in Zirndorf but never operated one by myself with in focus of fine grained movements

[Rasputin]

Does anybody have some experiences with remote controlled cars? Is the remote control that sensible to make fine grained movements? How is starting to drive? Is there a small "jump" when the electro engine starts to work? Or when stopping? Such a behaviour would be disturbing the video quality ... 
I can remember from childhood that my remote controled cars -- non Playmobil -- behaved like that and it was quite difficult to drive on the "millimeter accurate" especially when start driving and stopping driving.

I have seen some remote controled cars moving around at the Funpark in Zirndorf but never operated one by myself with in focus of fine grained movements

Is it not a Rabbit film ? The jump would be perfect . There is definitely a electric engagement to the motor and once going you do have some options as to how fast you would like to go . There is also the loud engine sound and the servos for steering , but it is quite smooth .

[Little Jo]

Is it not a Rabbit film ? The jump would be perfect .

Yes, but I do not want to simulate the rabbit movement with the Playmobil fire engine (and actually I want to prevent spectators from becoming sea sick when watching).

There is definitely a electric engagement to the motor and once going you do have some options as to how fast you would like to go . There is also the loud engine sound and the servos for steering , but it is quite smooth .

Ah, thanks a lot for the info. This is really very valueable for me. So I actually should think about organizing a remote control, somehow.

The loud engine and the sound of the servos is not an issue and I wouldn't care about because I edit & dubb the video anyway: the sound will be removed completely from the recording completely and added later from scratch (some spoken text and maybe some background music). With rabbits this isn't such a big issue because rabbits normally do not make any sounds (although I actually have by coincident some recordings of a "screaming" and a "hissing" rabbit).

[playmofire]

The loud engine and the sound of the servos is not an issue ..

Maybe the rabbits would disagree here