Valdez Glacier Icebergs Early August 2020

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

Play, download and edit the free video Valdez Glacier Icebergs Early August 2020.

This was a fun but challenging project. The Valdez Glacier has been experiencing an epic, catastrophic collapse this summer, nearly doubling the size of the lake that it's been forming over the last 50 years as it has been melting just this summer. Nearly a half mile by half mile section split off in early July, and larger sections continue to break off, making the terminus incredibly dangerous to approach. Even the icebergs, being so massive in size, are splitting apart and causing a boating hazard in ways that cannot be predicted.

After analyzing the icebergs over the last two weeks via drone, we decided that it was time to get a better vantage point safely and legally (keep the drone within line of sight and all that) capture some up-close-and-personal media of this local event. We chose the icebergs that were covered in rock and exhibited little to no change in movement or size as our "safe" docking zones for viewing the more dangerous, actively moving, blue-white ice around us.

Putting licensed music to the test, this cinematic music mini mix blend together 4 songs that I thought had a similar theme while allowing each one to stand out. This enabled the use of much longer video clips and gives you more footage to work with for your own social media projects. Since each song had a slightly different moment in which the main theme really kicked in, this video also represented a challenge in trying to showcase 4 different "money shots" spread throughout the video. Not sure if I chose the right ones, since they were all pretty incredible in their own right.

For you aspiring aerial cinematagropher out there: the low shots were kept within several feet of surfaces (water, rock, ice, etc.) safely by dampening the controls to maintain a maximum velocity of 2 miles per hour. My distance ranged from 2 to 50 feet away from the aircraft during these maneouvers. The closer to the surface, the closer I was to the drone. I used a visual safety gap of air whose distance was maintained above the top edges of all obstacles as the drone approached each edge.

Half the shots were accidentally filmed using the Natural Color DJI profile. Once I realized that, I switched back to my standard D-Log color profile. The final 4K video was then color corrected in Premiere using the Phantom_Rec709_Gamma LUT with maximum contrast and decreased highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks. Saturation (D-log is intentionally flat, after all) ranged from 98% to 160% depending on how much the ambient light messed with the color cast on the video as I tried to obtain a realstic HDR range. Blues and purples were desaturated along a curve, with light blues increased in saturation to properly bring out that color as it looked in real life. The overall gamma curve was slightly tweaked into a minor S versus a diagonal line in some shots. I attempted to match the colors as much as possible given the 7 hour duration of light during filming and changing clouds/sun.

Download, play and edit free videos and free audios from Valdez Glacier Icebergs Early August 2020 using RedcoolMedia.net web apps