Superfletch

The city of Mount Vernon, MO is considering to NOT grant new leases to, two skydiving companies on the Mount Vernon Missouri airport. Due to litigation that one dropzone has against the city for a 1.25 Million dollar lawsuit, the city feels that it is in it's best interest to not grant anymore commercial leases and suspend all commercial operations at the cities airport. WE DO NOT AGREE! Not knowing much about our sport or the economic ramifications of having skydiving in their city they would rather sweep it all under the rug and just be done with it. Regardless of how they came to this decision or who may be at fault for bringing it on, I'm asking that anyone interested in skydiving anywhere please take a moment and drop a line to the city and let them know that it would be a shame to remove skydiving from their city, for whatever the reason. If you have ever skydived at Freefall Express Skydiving or visited their Hillbilly Boogie, or if you have ever skydived at Skydive Missouri or simply if you would like to have the opportunity in the future, I implore you to take a moment out of your day and drop an email to: sneely@mtvernon-cityhall.org and ask that she please forward your concerns on to ALL of the city council members and the mayor. It will only take a moment and could help save these two dropzones. Bryan Wolford, the DZO of freefall Express has written a letter calling out to all skydivers or even simply those interested in it. There is a link on the Freefall Express Facebook Group page that can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/bryanlyn-wolford/please-read-and-forward-to-all-skydivers/2129711759081 so you can read his call out directly. Please take a moment... Thank you for your time. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Just thought I'd share this deal I ran across because I know some of you are interested in this lens... good luck. Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF Lens For Canon $399 Shipped Abe's of Maine has the lens for $479, but when added to your cart price drops to $414 as it automatically adds coupon codes NKDS15 and ABES50. Then enter LOYALTY15 to save another $15, brings the total to $399 with free shipping (+ tax in NJ). http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=SG1020EXDCAFC&l=AFFILIATE&kbid=lw9MynSeamY-YEWAEVEmNWssUlrAbHJgfQ Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

It's not just an otter... it's a jump plane. I've jumped that otter many, many times. :D Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I just watched Season 3 Episode 1 and it opens with Neil & Mozzi trying to escape in the Freefall Express Red Twin Otter. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I've had both. I love the Century. The Raynox shot great video when it didn't fog up but all through the summer months here in MO I constantly battled fogging. I'm glad I made the switch. The Century has NEVER fogged up on me. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

The vid was made on a mac using iMovie. The comic effect is one of the preset themes. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Well... would you look at that. The young man is growing up. Don't grow up too fast. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I'd almost be willing to bet those plug-ins for iMovie are for iMovie 6. I don't think the NEW iMovie has support for plug-ins. I could be wrong though. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I'm with you there... IT'S INSANE that they're not taking advantage. I could ALMOST see it if they had to *add* something but if it's there already... seems like a no brainer. Apple really pisses me off sometimes. This may be true but Vegas isn't available for mac so it really doesn't matter. They are new though... for Final Cut. I sure hope so. Time will tell. Hell, they may have just destroyed a *good* editing program, sort of like the iMovie UPGRADE. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

WoW! How can it be 3 years already. There was a time I thought I'd never be happy again after losing you. I'm happy now, I hope you're happy for me. I believe you would be. Tori is a beautiful young woman now. She's starting to take on your stubbornness. She has your smile and seems to have your zest for life. I'm sure you are SO proud as well you should be. She makes us all proud every day. I think about you often... Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I doubt FCPX will be anything like iMovie except perhaps the look of the windows. iMovie is a very simple program where FCP is very complex. I can't wait to try it out. I just hope they make it easier to add transitions between clips and such. As it stands you have to add handles before and after your clips to allow for the transition to overlap the video. Programs such as iMovie do this automatically where FCP made you do it manually giving you total control. Where the control is nice, it really added to the time to edit which made it unusable in a tandem edit scenario, for me. It would be nice if it was useable for tandem videos but I really don't care. iMovie makes a great tandem video and that's good enough for me. However, for larger projects it will be nice to use an updated version of Final Cut. It's an exciting time for Mac video editing to be sure... only time will tell if all the excitement is warranted. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

15 Jumps makes him still a student and if there is an instructor out there allowing students to wear cameras I believe this would fall under "gross negligence". just my .02¢ Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

AMEN! Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Welcome back to the video side of things... Don't forget to post some of your video and stills after you get some... :D Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Just ask yourself... Would you pay $100 for THIS video? That is what you're asking the customer to do SIGHT UNSEEN. In most cases, this customer has never seen your work or anything. They are trusting you to do a good job and give them a quality product. Personally, I try to do my very best on each and everyone and hopefully, doing better than the last time out. Your flying needs to be top notch to "get" the shot. Your editing skills also need to be good for a presentable final product. I've seen good flyers ruin a good video by throwing together edits where the music skips and stutters or they accidentally hit pause in the middle of a video for a few seconds or whatever and then they just finalized anyway. Also, it should flow... you need to be able to visually tell a story as well. Remember... you are writing, filming and producing a video about this person's experience. The video is going to be about 10 minutes long and you are expecting them to pay $100 for it. IT BETTER BE GOOD! If you are unwilling to put your best effort into all of these areas... then you have no business being a Tandem Videographer... in my opinion. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Yeah... I second that... the ring sight is more precise, however with a wide angle lens you don't need, dead nuts precise the cross sight is good enough... Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Any USB card reader will work really... I myself have a SanDisk Imagemate All-In-One Card Reader. It works great and will also read a number of different cards as well. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I picked up a brand new CX100 for $135 the other day... yup... you heard me right... I'm sure it was a fluke... but I'm not discounting it... Hahahaha... I'm stoked. Of course it's just a backup and goes in the closet, but at least I didn't have to pay a fortune for a backup. :P Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Chuting Star also caries them ready made... http://www.chutingstar.com/newgear_en/conceptus-tongue-switch-digital-plug.html Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

That is WHY the drive parks... so the disk won't be damaged by being jostled around and such, and in the case of altitude... the thinner air crashing the head into the platter. I think you're safe. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I edit all my own stuff. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do as nice a job. I wouldn't do it for under $10 a vide either. I did pay someone at couch freaks to edit for me one year ($10 a vid) but after watching what they were churning out I swore I'd never let someone else do it again. I have shot video at a dropzone where the dzo did the edits and I just gave him the raw video. I never did see the end result but the dzo was a video guy too so I think he probably did a good job. I just never checked. (It was only for a day.) Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I LOVE my velo. I have 2 96's. I use them for all my jumps. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

The whole point of mac is... it's simple. More time working, less time setting up and figuring out why shit isn't working. With a mac, you also have a choice. It ALWAYS depends on what kind of product you're trying to produce. DZ's typically don't make tons of money and need cheap. You can get some pc's very cheap... no macs are cheap. For tandems, macs probably aren't the best choice, at least right now. I use a mac for tandems, but there are many out there doing it on pc's much faster. However, I'd pit my final product up against ANYONE'S. To get the kind of speed they're getting on PC's, there's some skimping. It takes me a few more minutes for each tandem video, but I think the customer deserves it and at my little cessna dz, I have the time. As far as a mac running as a PC taking too long... most macs are as fast or faster than comparable pc's. What it comes down to for me is this... I can only afford "one" computer. I work at the DZ on the weekends. 5 days a week I'm NOT editing tandem videos and on those days I prefer to work in a mac environment. When I'm at the DZ, the simplicity of my mac caries over and instead of putting out tandem videos in < 10 min. I'm doing them in about 20 min. Yes it takes me twice as long from start to finish but the product I hand out is very polished and flashy. Much more so than anyone else's that I have seen. If I wanted, I suppose I could do tandem vids in Vegas on my mac via boot camp but then I would have those added expenses of Sony software and windows. Plus I would have to learn all over to fine tune a work flow for those 6 minute videos... it wouldn't happen over night. For now I'm content with doing it the way I'm doing it. The way I already KNOW how to do it. Very rarely am I so busy that I can't hand my student their video 20 minutes after they jump. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Every recent mac IS a pc. It's just a matter of installing windows on them. The beautiful part is you can have both with a mac... no hassle. .mov is just the container that the video file is in. Depending on what program you are going to use... is how you would import the footage. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Nice article Spot... Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer