Airplanes with cameras!

So i am no pro when i comes to rigging stuff up to my plane (E-Flite Apprentice) but i thought i did pretty good with putting my camera on it and flying it up in the sky!

Tools i used:
- Gopro HD HERO
- GoPro mount
- Duct Tape

yes.. i said duct tape :)

it was a project i did months ago so i don't really have pictures i can show or take but i will demonstrate.

1. Where i put the camera
2. GoPro HD HERO, great camera for outdoors and sports. Its so durable that its survived falling off skydivers, race cars, surfers etc. I highly recommend these cameras, you don't need their newest model, the older ones film the same but you can grab it for roughly $150 (10/17/12) 
 - http://goo.gl/dLmBH (via Amazon)
3. The mounting bracket for their mounts, the included sticky mount slides on that and that's it!





So, i highlighted with a circle where i put the camera.
I knew that you don't want to put it somewhere that is not in the center of balance because it would make flying it difficult. On this particular plane i was sort of limited on where i could put it but there was an open space right behind the back wheels which would make it so the camera wouldn't hit the ground when i landed. It wasn't exactly center but it was under the wings and on the far side so it wouldn't dive down.  I attached the sticky mount that comes with the camera on the plane and stuck pretty good but i didn't trust it entirely. So i grabbed my duct tape :) I secured the mount on all angles so that i had twice the protection.

After the camera was mounted i lifted the plane up by both of the wings to see how balanced it was and where i would need to trim it so it flew straight. I got it all trimmed up to where i thought i was good. I gathered my family and we went out to my backyard and i had my dad throw it, it took off nice and easy, nothing was crazy. It flew like normal, even a little better. Sometimes weight on the foam planes is a good thing. I recorded the whole flight with the gopro and it turned out awesome. the footage was upside down because i mounted it that way. But i put the file onto my computer and flipped it over and it was great. You can temorarily flip it with quicktime i believe.

My landing was a little rough but i didn't have a pad to land on so i used the thick grass and it worked out. I was nervous because i had a lot of people watching and i didn't want to hit anyone ha ha.

Best Proposal Ever! (2 cops and a jag)

Google

its such a crazy complicated service but in the end, it usually works out and i love it, i wish i could just understand things more. I have been so confused with setting up one of their services, i cant figure it out.. it keeps resetting and i think it might be because i used the wrong url when i signed up.

my new video! BEST PROPOSAL EVER!

Ever wondered what it takes to make a crazy proposal? Here i will explain on how we did it!

Not everybody is friends with local highway patrolmen like us, but i think everybody has some type of cool connection to something and you should make use of it like we did.

Keaton came to us with this crazy idea of how he wanted to propose to Kaitlyn, it was a long detailed email with instructions and placement. We got together and decided to meet at the Highway Patrolman's house (lets call him HP from now on). Once we arrived to his house, Keaton began to explain this crazy idea on how he wanted to set up a big scene and scare her and then come back and propose to her. I was wondering why in the world he would do such a thing but he then proceeded to explain that Kaitlyn knows he is going to propose but he had asked her if she wanted a memorable proposal or a romantic proposal, and she chose memorable.. i don't think she understood.

After exchanging ideas with each other, we walked out to the HP car and looked around to see where we could mount some cameras. Plans later changed and we ended up not needing to film inside his car.

After we had it all planned out, Keaton went out and bought 2 GoPro HD HEROS.
We then covered one of the cameras in all black tap so we could hide it inside of the Jaguar car they would be driving. We put the tiny camera right above the rear view mirror and in the dark you couldn't see it at all. Keaton took her out to diner and went on a drive and then proceeded back to his house (so we could use the dedicated location where us 3 camera guys could film). he stopped at the gas station about a mile away and asked her to go get drinks while he got some gas, as she was inside, he turned on the gopro and sent a text saying he was close. We had a tracking app installed on his phone so we could see his location. as he left the gas station and hit  the road, he intentionally floors the car after passing a cop. and get pulled over right at our location where 3 of us were stationed to film over the fence. We filmed the entire thing from the outside view using a Kodak camera and 2 Flips. My flip camera died so i used my iPhone 4 for one of the shots. We had mounted the other gopro on the HP's hood but the memory card got full before he left the parking lot so we ended up using his dash cam footage which i think worked out a lot better.

Once he proposed, we had Keaton's brother (one of the filmers) to come out and take their picture for a surprise and she had no idea we were all hiding 10 feet away! We all then came out and congratulated them and eventually his parents showed up and some friends driving by wondering what was going on.

It was well planned and i think it turned out great. It will be fun for them to show to their kids later on.

I spent about 5 hours editing it all, it was hard putting 5 different camera views together and getting the audio all synced up. We did have a pocket recorder in the car but it ended up taking too much effort to get the audio off in time. So i had to choose the best audio of all the cameras for each little scene. It could have been better but this thing was planned and done within 1 week.

Friday!

Its finally a friday and i love it!

blogger!

i love having a blogger! well, its only been a few months and its kind of confusing to get used to but i like it. it has great opportunities. and anything for google is good! :)