DSE

I somewhat expected that it's automatic (muscle memory?) for Americans, this is a disappointing scene to see. Even if his mind was elsewhere...it's disappointing. Gawain, I agree. Artistic license is one thing (that I totally believe in) but the national anthem is a song that belongs to the people of this country and shouldn't be too loosely interpreted. I don't mind instrumental versions, but the garbage that ranges from Roseanne Barr to Aaron Neville. I wonder if Obama's apologists will suggest it's too overt, like wearing a flag pin?

Have you pulled your cutaway handle yet (for a reserve repack or other reason)? If not, a slow pull while looking at the connecting system might help you answer your question. How far is too far? Not pulling far enough could pose a problem.

There is a place in Provo, Utah that does a variety of 3D scan products. One of them is that for 195.00, they scan your head, mill the bust, and coat it with a brass/bronze-like substance that is fairly hard. When they give it to you 3 days later, it looks like a bronze bust, but weighs basically nothing. If you have to prep the head with resin for fiberglass/CF, it seems like there isn't any cost savings, and only a couple days of time saved by having a head milled. And, I'm not certain that many of the foams or wax they use for the bust/print would be amenable to being covered in resin?

A 3d head scan and milled print costs around 125.00. Detail can be cleaned up prior to the print/milling. Milling can be done on foam, a paper-like product whose name escapes me, wax, and a few other plastic products. Hair must be netted down or contained, because the scanner will see every hair as a detail point that can seriously eat up CPU time. One benefit is speed. Make a scan, have the head/mold done in about 30 minutes or less, and it'll be a perfect likeness, including eyes, nose, mouth...basically it's a perfect copy of your face/head. There are printers all over the world, or you can email an .stl file to someone to print for you.

Use the motion tool (fixed to each track) if I remember correctly, and it can also be done with the effects/Basic 3D tool. (going from memory here, don't have PPro on my macbook)

Scotch tape works in the absence of splicing tape. Never heard of using super glue, I'd think the glue could scratch the heads, but maybe not? Search for splicing

Bear in mind that you can't really go past 8.5Mbps and maintain compatibility with many DVD players and duplicated media. Keep your bitrates no higher than 8.5Mbps, which is plenty for most any kind of vid you watch. Most Hollywood DVDs are encoded at approx 6Mbps, but of course there are other differences, such as quality of source, etc.

With your experience, you should be fine. I believe that most anyone that has at least an "A" and receives a solid briefing should be fine. You just need to be aware that the winds blow nearly all the time. Don't expect to be jumping after around 3:00 or so. Skydive Hawaii/Pacific Skydivers share the same strip of grass, one using the farther end than the other. They're not small, I'd estimate 100 yds wide, 300 yards long or so. But there are very tall trees to the north that create rotors from the tradewinds, there are powerlines everywhere along the road, and the primary out is about half a mile away at a polo field (don't land there during a match). The skydive operations (both DZ's) have administration, packing, etc on the south side of the landing area, so they're hazards too. Beautiful place to jump, great people at Skydive Hawaii. You just wanna not find yourself too far west (towards runway) of the landing spot on most days. This pic is of my 50th jump under a big boat 190. The person taking the pic is at the fenceline on the south part of the landing area. You can see the north fence, trees, and powerlines. The west side of the landing area is the runway (planes are not flying that far west of it when I've been there) and the east side has a fence and powerlines, it's the airport access road.

yup...between Jan's post, your post, and a coupla PM's, kinda figured that I'm misinformed (by one of the people on your list). If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. It's comical to randomly search thru the "Stunt Junkies" threads to read how many cheer these sorts of stunts, but this one isn't acceptable. Regardless of what his quals are or are not, he could have done this with 10K skydives under his belt, and there would be cheering and jeering. If the stunt is positively received by his fans, you can bet he'll be planning some other parachute-related stunt, regardless of what the skydiving community thinks of it. There will always be that one guy that sees the Irons brothers, Robby Knievel, Bob Burnquist (who took AFF with Travis and Kenny "The Cowboy" Bartram), Matt Hoffman, Dew Sports Tour, or JackAss 1/2, and want to perform those same stunts. Then there are those that see it for what it is; a stunt. Their interest in the sport that spawned the stunt may be piqued. I don't think that's a bad thing.

It's installed with the last two versions of FCP to my knowledge.

You might also look in: Root/Library/QuickTime/AppleHDVCodec.component. You running the latest QT?

You're asking about 4 pin and 6 pin in the same post as USB cable; are you confusing Firewire/iLink/1394 with USB? Firewire can be 4 or 6 pin, USB has one size connector and two sizes of receivers, neither of which are 4/6 pin. any firewire cable will work, provided it's 4 pin on the camera side, and whatever size your laptop or desktop offers. Macs are 6 pin at the laptop and desktop, PC laptops are often 4 pin and sometimes 6 pin at the computer, and most PC desktops are 6 pin. USB is for web video or still image Xfer, not for DV video. HTH?

Could you demonstrate the minimums for "skydiving without a parachute?" I've searched the SIM top to bottom, can't find a recommendation for "recommended minimum for skydiving without a parachute" and/or other stunts. I'm wagering Travis has put a lot more planning, preparation, coaching, and $$ behind this stunt for EXPN than any jump(s) typically undertaken by skydivers. Having seen the team he brought in for a simple stunt at the Larry Miller Raceway last month, it may be that the rig-less jump was anti-climatic compared to the training. If you're talking about his skydive with a friend under tandem, sure...he probably shouldn't have been there at 250 skydives. Having seen him fly, I was OK with it, the DZO and DZM were OK with it, and the TI was OK with it. On the other hand, he probably hasn't buzzed a tandem while wearing a wingsuit and 100 skydives, nor landed on someone else' open canopy. He didn't become famous and talented by being frivolous and unsafe.

Give us a break~! Jumping without a rig does not "set a poor example for skydivers." It sets an example for stuntmen, and that's about the only example it sets. There are probably at least 100 chuteless jumps over the past 3 decades; have they caused a significant rise in the number of people jumping without rigs? Do Greg Gasson's stunts cause people to burn their mains? Hang from their harness? Have Jay Stokes' record-setting numbers caused a wave of "I wanna jump 700 times in 24 hours" events? Do we see hundreds of jumpers leaping or hooking the edge of the Grand Canyon like the PD team did? How many wingsuits-chasing-ultra-small-canopies do we see every week? Are BASE jumpers rushing out to copy Scott Smith's slingshot stunt? Can you honestly say that in every aspect of your skydiving career, you've strictly adhered to the rules of the road at every opportunity? Never once jumped with someone bending/breaking rules, thus vicariously supporting their actions?

Great summation, Andy. re: steep learning curve...I feel like with anything, some are more prone to adapt and be adept than others, therefore, the curve is more or less steep depending on the individual. The information is the same no matter what, but the absorption will be different.

I don't know if it comes with iMovie or not, I thought it did, but perhaps you need the Pro version of Quicktime. It's only 30.00 if you need it.

Do you have the HDV codec installed? You need the "AppleHDVCodec.component" file installed in your systems libraryQuicktime folder.

I'll try and explain again. To my knowledge, Travis didn't begin planning this jump 5 years ago and only did 250 jumps between then and now. I *beleive* he has round 100 jumps in the past year. I don't see that currency matters at all for this jump. I bet a monkey could have been trained to do it within a few jumps. He's a stuntman. A good one. A guy with a great sense of balance, timing, and physical ability. He also happens to be incredibly intelligent. He has no desire to die that I'm aware of, but rather a desire to live, live large, and get attention doing so. He's a monster on a trampoline, rally car, big trucks, kiteboard, skiis, paraglider, mountain climbing, and motorcycles. Unlike some in our community, he's unpretentious and friendly as hell. He's a willing teacher. He'd be the first to tell you he can't freefly or whatever else. He jumped from an aircraft, had to be stable, and wait for someone he trusted to rodeo him and clip his climbing harness to their webbing. From then on, he was a tandem. I fail to see how currency or lack of it, contributed to this skydive in any way. He jumped with a tandem the week before and had a successful dock (twice) with the student, so he obviously has some skills, whether he has 365 skydives in a year or not. Google Travis' name. He's incredibly successful, no matter what he's doing. And has been so since he was about 8 years old (he was world freestyle champion at age 14). He's a professional athlete that pushes the envelope, and does so with as much (if not more) consideration and training than some of the people revered within our community. Some folks just -HAFTA- piss on success when it's not theirs.

Which is why I wondered aloud if there is more to the story from the OP....

I don't deny that 5 tandems were a factor in my mental ability; however Hawaii is a tandem factory. I received no training other than "here's how you exit" and on the fifth skydive, I ended up with aninstructor that said "when the needle hits 6, reach for this handle and pull." I was not taught to do what most tandem students are taught (though I didn't know this at the time).Once I met Jon Stewart, discussions with him brought some sense into what I had been doing. FJC was very revealing to me, and taught by a good instructor. I'd also spent hours here on DZ.com reading and asking questions, had purchased a couple of books on the subject, and had immersed myself into the concept. The tunnel rat I watched last week had 0 tandems, and was off student status in two jumps. The tunnel can't prepare a student for exit overload, so our experiences are dichotomous. I was very mentally prepared for the exit/skydive, he wasn't. We both finished quickly, but he finished even faster. Ergo, a learning curve may be steep for some, and less steep for others.

Experiences vary. I couldn't do AFF due to tradewinds, but had the jones to jump. Did 5 tandems in Hawaii. AFF course was about 5 hours, and most of it sank it quick. First jump, was done with everything by 7k, was able to geek the video and pull on time. I didn't find it a "huge learning curve" at all. Some will, some won't. I thought I did well completing AFF in four skydives. Then I saw a tunnel rat complete AFF in two skydives. I've seen a few need 15+ to get off student status. We're all different. MikrowaveMikey might be one of those really fast learners. Welcome to the sport!

They weren't posted as "qualifications" but rather to say the guy does jump. He also has 100 plus regular B.A.S.E. jumps, holds virtually every motorcycle record there is, is a paraglider pilot, etc. He could be as experienced as anyone out there in the air, and some folks would find a reason to piss on him. His stunts are *very* well planned out, he has a stunt coordinator that works with him to plan how these things go. He may not be able to turn 20 points in a skydive, but he doesn't need to. Can you do a double backflip on a motorcycle? Do you need to be able to do so in order to ride one really fast on a track? IMO, the -only- way this is seen as negative is if he went against any FAA recommendations, and I'm fairly convinced he did not. Some see it as a negative for the sport, I don't. It shows skydiving in a positive light, IMO. (young guy, sports star, loved by adrenaline junkies, holds several world records, very articulate on camera, has good things to say about safety and skydiving/high-risk sports). People pissed all over "Point Break," "Dropzone," and similar movies too, yet these were all good for general skydiving. There will always be those who piss on their turf and get tweaked because someone else flew over it.

80mph on a process trailer? Holy COW! You've got a pair of brass ones! The trailer we regularly rent is about 7" off the ground, and sways like a pendulum once you get past about 50 effectively defeating its purpose. Very little experience with throat mics, othe than the Vanquish/Stryker (works OK for motoX) and the VocoMotion (for musicians on stage). neither is suitable for skydiving, IMO.

Take *everything* you read from camcorderinfo.com with a grain (or spoonful) of salt. The HC 3/5/7 all have XVYUV (also known as XV color) and offers a greater saturation range all by itself. It's mapped to a Munsell color chart, and offers quite a bit more latitude with no added saturation. This helps. The red difference I see in the shot suggests a manual white balance that was off, that's all. VERY easy to fix in Premiere or any other NLE application using the three-wheel corrector. Select the face with the middle wheel to set it to neutral.

Sorry to hear it, Brooke. jump numbers here? Zero. 2" of white stuff on the ground and more coming.