- Film Details
- Created by Katherine Barnett (beatnikblends)
- Start/End Dates: June 14th, 2018 to June 30th, 2018
- Music in Video: Our Ego by Broke For Free
- Filming Locations: Philadelphia, PA. and Ambler PA.
Ambler Drive took over 2 weeks to complete. I recorded footage of a drive from Philadelphia to Ambler, PA. Ambler is a suburb about 10 minutes outside of Philadelphia. The trip itself was about 23 minutes. Towards the end of my drive, the video stopped recording because I was running out of space on my phone. I did some editing so you can’t see the abrupt ending. I was only a few seconds from parking. The interesting part is that situation probably wouldn’t have happened if there wasn’t someone blocking the first entrance to the parking lot. You can see that I stopped at 3:30. That’s when I was about to make a left turn into the parking lot. I didn’t want to cut that out because I like how it looks in the video. Ambler is a nice suburb I discovered while working. My favorite suburb so far near Philadelphia is Blue Bell. The homes there are wonderful. I’m in Ambler a lot so I thought this would be a great video to make.
The video was definitely challenging to make. Gone are the days of simple video creation. If you haven’t read previous posts, the process I use to create these types of videos is capturing video footage and applying a design to each frame. The only part that’s automated is the script I created to replicate the design on every frame. I know in the beginning I would simply record footage, add credits and a song. Music can also be a cumbersome process. I can only use public domain music if I want to promote it commercially. If not, I run into problems. The license fees can get expensive and I prefer to use free music for now. I really like the song used in this video. I used this song before for Old City for my Philadelphia Travel Series. When I finished the video, I was going to use another song by Broke for Free but something felt off about the song with the video so I used this song instead. I think the video looks better quality wise compared to Mall Drive. I used a higher resolution to record footage and create the base design.
The design itself took longer to complete compared to Mall Drive. The design script I created for Mall drive was only 30 seconds but this one was close to 2 minutes. Since the script is longer, it took me a very long time to finish this video. Definitely a labor of love or perhaps insanity by this point. I didn’t want the design to look anything like Mall Drive. There’s lots of dark reds and blues in that one. This video does feature blue and red but it’s not as bold. Another color that’s featured heavily is green. I hate green but I think it fits very well with this design. I’m thinking about posting a video of the script running on a frame. Just so you can see the process I go through when making videos. Honestly, creating designs from frames is tiring. When I haven’t been working, I’ve been working on this video. I would like to definitely go on vacation but I can’t afford to take extended time off.
In the spirit of keeping things positive during a difficult time, I want to talk more about my plans.
I finished watching the series finale of Sense 8 the other day where one of the characters had a dream of reaching Paris and that desire got her through many dark periods. I thought at the time it was nice to see that someone had the same dream I had. Paris just seems magical to me. If I could get there it would be magic.
My plans are to build an art studio. I’m going to pitch my videos to musicians and youtube channels that might want to use my videos. I want to call these videos short films. Not sure of the appropriate “label”. Maybe avant grade… An experiment with color. I’m going to submit this video to a popular channel dedicated to 80’s music. I want to create more videos. Every travel series album made from now on will have this type of video. It would be awesome to have footage of me driving to the Eiffel Tower. That would be utterly epic. However… the next video will be of me traveling to the art museum. I would like to feature the Philadelphia skyline as well. I wanted to also highlight Lincoln Drive but it’s currently closed. There are lots of curves on that drive and I think that would look nice in the video. I had plans to record the footage last week but I’ve been really busy.
Creating a film based on nature and color would be a literal dream of mine. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be an actress. This is so much better. It’s like the best of two worlds. A beautiful mesh of my dreams. I don’t know if these videos classify as “film” but to me it is and I have so many plans. After the art museum video, I would like to create a video of me dancing in my home with one of my favorite songs. I have to ask the group if I can use it. I hope they say yes. If they do… It’s going to be awesome! Just thinking about what I want to do, what I can do with color, makes me smile. There will be some time between the next video. I’m going to focus on promoting this video for several weeks. I will continue this journey soon. I already have the colors in mind I want to use for my next video. It’s an exciting ride to be on that’s for sure.
Well… that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more videos. Thanks so much for watching Ambler Drive!!!