Stills from the trip can be seen here on Flickr.

Our home movie from our trip to Brazil for Wider World of Sports in 2011 – Edited by Michael Andrus

More pictures on Flickr here.

We shot everything in the first season, including Kenny’s studio segments and the stop motion transitions between countries – Producer Matt Doyle

My summer reduced to 23 minutes…

Producer Matt Doyle

Kenny Mayne’s Wider World of Sports pressed on last month into Queenstown, New Zealand, home of all things extreme. If you’re into white water rafting, bungee jumping, sky-diving, binge drinking or helicopter drop snowboarding, this place is for you. Set amongst mountains dubbed “The Remarkables”, Queenstown is stunning with snow-capped peaks in every direction. Crisp and pure, it felt very much like the Colorado Rockies, only with much less human interference. A perfect spot for Kenny to get in touch with his daring side (which hasn’t really been on display thus far). Stills from the shoot can be seen here on flickr.

Andrus and I were able to have some down time at night to shoot time lapses off our hotel balcony, some of which can be seen in the video below. There are so many components that go into shooting good time lapse video, particularly at night. Add a programmable moving dolly like the one we own from Kessler and things get even more complicated. Camera settings, intervalometer settings, weather, ability to leave the camera (or baby sit it for hours), temperature, reflected light from sources you don’t want to see, power/charged batteries, post process – twenty other considerations all contribute to making a good time lapse. We had another issue in that we were sent to New Zealand not to get beauty shots but to capture Kenny being silly, leaving us precious few moments to shoot pretty stuff.

18 months ago, as an afterthought walking out of NAB in Vegas, the guys from DGA threw 200 bucks at a disposable camera.  The HD Go Pro booth and demo movies were impressive, and we couldn’t believe a camera this small was delivering the goods.  On the bus back to the hotel, upon opening the case for the first time, we realized why the low cost.  Without ANY type of viewfinder, you couldn’t tell WHAT you were shooting.  A complete guessing game.  This thing was a matchbox car with a bubble on the front, a toy.  We all had a good laugh and moved on, not thinking much of our impulse purchase.

Of course a week hardly goes by now without the Go Pro working a job.  Car mounts, POV angles, timelapse, underwater rigs, super wide angle, interior driving shots – all used to be costly and time consuming to set up and execute.  Its incredible how many things the HD Go Pro can do.  With a waterproof housing and multiple mounting options, the Go pro’s versatility is without peer.  1080/30p or 720/60p – the images are stunning.  It even shoots stills at four different intervals.  Go pro has come out with an add on lcd monitor for viewing that makes this little camera a must have in any DP’s bag of tricks.  Andrus put together some of our recent Go Pro shots…