What are some creative (low budget) ways to geographically orient your audience?
 

I’m making a documentary of a first river descent, which was shot up in the Sierra Nevada of California. I need to orient my audience geographically with some sort of map animation or creative (low budget) video approach that can highlight the route the expedition team traveled. I have virtually no budget for this thing (or put another way, I’ve run out of money) , so I was hoping someone could suggest a cheap and creative way to do this…I have some ideas, but the resources here are amazing. Thanks for any advice!


Cheers!
Andrew Stone
Last Minute Productions

Gear: Sony Z-1, Premiere Pro 1.5.1

You could probably do it in Google Earth for free (screen capture the animantion) but of course you need check on the copyright issue with Google first.

This is just a guess, but all the NASA images are copyright free... that is they belong to 'the people' so you get to use them for free. (That's right, all that wonderful space footage too.)

Guessing that Google gets it's satellite images from NASA, then you're good to go. If they get them from another space agency... it's a different animal.

I researched Google recently for a similar idea. You do need to get permission from them and let them know what it is to be used for. Simple things like you are proposing would probably be free and easy to get permission for, but you must leave the copyright info on the screen.

Commercial stuff requires fees, and they have different packages and add ons for companies.

Check out this page from Google. http://earth.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=1141


Mike

Government surveyed maps might be licensable for low or no cost. (One time I did a shot and I walked into a mining office and told them that I needed to a shoot a map and the woman just handed me one. But this was different as you would never actually see the map; it was a prop).

That's one of the differences in legalities between us here in Canada and our compadres down in the States. Here materials produced by the government are copyright by the Crown and are no different from any privately-owned copyright materials in requiring licensing, payment of royalties, etc. But in the States if it's produced by the government with taxpayer money it's in the public domain and can be freely used by anyone without payment or permission.

Does this apply OUTSIDE the USA? What I mean is: are US government produced materials public domain in the UK too, for example?

Thanks for the info everyone! I tried Google Earth, but the sat resolution in the area of interest is spotty. If I had shot this in the grand Canyon, however, i'd be set!

Cheers!

Andrew

If the area you need happens to be inside a National Park, check with the NPS. They were fantastic when I dealt with them on a Documentary...all the artwork in the brochures was work they commissioned so I could use it without fear of copyright violation, and they even sent me unfolded copies in a shipping tube so I didn't have creases. I could never have afforded the artwork myself. ;)

The United States Government cannot own copyright (since its publicly funded) but that does not mean that there is not copyright material included in their publications. You need to check with the specific agency. I am not sure how it would work for a producer outside the US, you would probably have to check, I think it would be governed by the Berne Convention.

creativity though....
 

Well.. my thought is that while all those suggestions are feasible, cost effective, and would probably be pretty eyecatching in the final product, they're not necessarily 'creative'... what about making a model out of plasticine or clay, topping it with little fake trees and running some blue fluid through it, and then guiding your rivercraft through on a string or something... lego??? denno... just seems that if its creative things your after, you may have to create something ;)

Edit: another thought, a hand drawn map with a hand drawn rivercraft.... then you can animate those two layers, zooming in onto the map and tracking the craft down the route while leaving a little tracer route behind... i guess it all boils down to whats gonna feel right in the context of the rest of the piece.

-raza

just paste a text tag line at the bottom third with the location name and state/country. That's cheap and effective, although not all that creative.

the good thing about google earth is you can set a track and approach to the desired place from whereever you like

shoot the Map
 

Andrew, I used one of those very big Nasa Picture Books with high res pictures for teaching. I simply framed the picture, moved from left to right over the picture with a slight zoom. It looks like a high altitude shot.

Rand







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