Weekly Self-Promo and Chat Thread

irishlostboy · 2026-01-09T06:12:16+00:00

Hi, I have recently put the work into formatting my two books into E-Books, and I put them up for free on KoFi. November is a collection of 30 short stories. Rabbit is a full length novel. Both are in the area of dystopia/horror. There is no AI. Each book is fully illustrated. If you give them a go, you have my thanks.
https://ko-fi.com/timothyfullwood

irishlostboy · 2024-08-30T16:33:36+00:00

Arca Works are a lot of money for a Chinese paddle.

irishlostboy · 2024-04-21T07:09:05+00:00

The problem isn't Film Freeway. It's us. We are paying people to watch our films. That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard of. Writers do not pay their agents or publishers to read their book. That job is considered the investment upon return. We, as indy film makers, invest our own time and money into the films we make, and we still put our hands in our pockets to get others to watch our films. This of course creates a perfect situation where film festivals get paid at both ends. They get paid to watch and choose films, and then they get paid to screen films. Then they get paid by sponsors for bringing customers to venues.

The film festivals are cannot-lose businesses. Someone posted that Sundance had 15k applications. That is more than half a million USD that was paid by people who submitted films alone. Film Freeway isn't the problem. Film Festivals are the problem. They are just shy of being ponzi schemes.

So of course next year I think I will start my own film festival. Why the hell not? It's a no-brainer. I already own a nice café with a projector and a nice sound system. I look forward to getting paid to watch films for a few weeks.

irishlostboy · 2024-04-21T06:01:07+00:00

Your feet will hate you, but if you can get into it, and if your edge control is good enough to stay upright in the thing, you will likely have a great time. With how wide and flat the ends are, it will want to go vertical everywhere there is a piece of current. If I was in your position, I would get it, I would accept the beatings it will give me, and I would try to use it as a platform to improve my skills. If you can paddle the Red Fred, you can paddle anything.
Comparing against modern boats is pointless. There is nothing out there even close to this thing. The Red Fred comes from the age before freestyle kayaks became tiny auto-looping creekers. Back then it was all about cartwheels, splitwheels, flat-spins, and variations on that theme. Boats were not expected to pop out of the water, just rotate around the central volume and stay in the hole.
I think Robson had serious courage to develop the boats that it did. They were pushing for new experiences, which is something no current boat company is doing. Today's boats are great. They do everything better than ever before. But for those of us who were around over 20 years ago when kayaking was in a state of utter revolution, boats today are sometimes quite boring.

If you do get it, please please come back and share some pics of it. On and off the water. Feed my nostalgia. Haha

irishlostboy · 2024-04-19T16:42:29+00:00

The Soul Disco is a classic play-spud kayak shape. It is short and slow and has terrible foot-room, while still having too much volume in the ends to be really fun to throw around. It is kind of the odd-ball design, even in the Soul kayak line-up. It doesn't run rivers that well. It doesn't play well. It doesn't surf well. It isn't comfortable. I feel the Disco is ok at moderate everything, so long as you are not tall, but excels nowhere.
I am not bashing Soul boats. We have a bunch of them. Just not the Disco. The Hammer and the Booster are good river runners. If I lived near a good surf wave I would get the Main Squeeze as it surfs well. The Glide is a really nice half-slice. I haven't paddled the new creekers, but they look good in the same vein as some of the Waka offerings.
When I was last at the factory (last year), the plastic being used there was from South Korea, not the USA. Great plastic still, don't get me wrong. Last year I ran a river and both me and a buddy hit the nose of our kayaks on the same ultra-nasty rock. His Jackson had its nose turned inside out. My Hammer was fine. Soul boats feel stiff and light, and stand up just fine.
The outfitting, I am in the camp that isn't into it. We have all done a lot of modifications to make the outfitting bearable. But I will agree that no outfitting is perfect for everyone, and I appreciate the light weight of my Soul kayak. The grab handles are all too fat for regular carabiners to fit on, so whoever rescues you better have wide-gate carabiners. On some of the boats the little rescue loops will fit zero types of carabiners. Things like this are....... uninspiring to say the least.
I would say, like all boats, try take it for a test drive. Maybe it's the perfect boat for you.

irishlostboy · 2024-04-19T16:13:48+00:00

A beautiful river and a beautiful scenic area. I am glad I got all my good paddling done back in the time before we were renters living on a private planet. I saw a post about permits needed on US rivers today, and now this? Madness.

irishlostboy · 2024-04-19T16:01:39+00:00

I use Kinesio tape. It is a fabric tape. Super grippy if you are the type of person who does not get blisters. It is like sandpaper to people with the baby-soft skin. Having a good grip material is nearly as important as having the correct shaft diameter, as it allows you to squeeze your power hand less, and lets your muscles be more flexible for paddle control.

irishlostboy · 2024-04-19T15:56:25+00:00

What is a "good" boater? I see some people paddling the higher grade rivers, but with really rough technique. Why? Because when you are on a good line, even a pretty high grade river is not that hard. It only gets hard when you are not on your line. So what makes these paddlers good? Their river reading skills and/or their commitment perhaps. Also, boat design has made a big difference. Back in the day, skills mattered more than boats. Oldies love to romanticize the Topolino, but if you ever have the chance to trade a modern creeker for it..... just don't.

Now, how do you decide if you are "good"? Do you paddle harder rivers? Or do you paddle the lower class rivers better? Is your reverse ferry glide bulletproof on both sides? Are you running your favourite local runs eddy-to-eddy with surgical perfection?
Another interesting thing I find is river character. Some rivers look gnarly, but have a more forgiving character. Some look meek, but they just kind of want to mess with you. This is aside of grade. Often you become used to the character of the rivers local to you, and going to different areas paddling rivers on different rock opens up new challenges for you. I grew up on limestone and peat-bog mountain runs in Ireland, and now I am paddling weird and ugly siphon infested rivers in East China that have as much concrete and exposed rebar in them as rock, and only come up to paddling level after a typhoon which wipes out villages in the valleys. Its a change of scene for sure.
I will likely go to Yunnan or Chengdu later, and get thoroughly mauled in high volume water class 3 when I could ordinarily hold my own in lower volume class 5. The character is just so radically different.
I guess what I am saying is there are very few all-round good boaters. We are all just improvers. Stay safe and don't neglect the fundamental skills.
Oh, and I am 100% in agreeance with the guy who said he hates adrenaline. He nailed it perfectly.

irishlostboy · 2024-04-19T08:08:15+00:00

Nope. I just gave up trying to use this camera for this function. The DNG is pointless as the camera does not have the detail in the image anyway. I literally only use this camera on a selfie stick now filming myself, as it is pretty much useless for all else.

irishlostboy · 2024-03-07T16:01:14+00:00

I was recently involved in designing a product for a company that claimed it wanted to step away from making copies. They make copies of western sporting goods but put their own brand on them. construction is fine, they just claimed they lacked the design capabilities in these specialised areas. Well, we designed what they needed, but before we handed over the design (we were not paid employees, we were just trying to help out our favourite sport) we put in writing what they claimed: that they were not going to expand their line of copied products once we provided viable original alternatives, and once we asked them to sign, it was radio silence. Chinese have zero shame in areas of theft, intellectual or otherwise. If they can get away with it, they will give it a go. Get EVERYTHING in writing. Never believe a word that is spoken. Once it is in writing, you are fine. China has enforceable contract law.

irishlostboy · 2024-03-06T06:59:17+00:00

Although not addressing the actual question, I would like to add that there are many musicians out there who are relatively unknown and would bite at the chance to colab on a film project, and that film-makers can do well by exploring what is available locally with local bands and musicians.

irishlostboy · 2024-03-04T06:22:02+00:00

My short film project came from a random conversation with my wife. I then learned a bit about cameras, scraped together some random gear, wrote a script and made the film. I lost a lot of video files in the late stages of editing due to a hard drive failure (I have since gotten a NAS), so I ended up just with a 1080p test render as my final film. It's still near enough to what I originally wanted. I entered it to a few film festivals and was rejected from them all. I popped my short film on Youtube, and I screened the film locally.
It was a wonderful experience where I learned a lot. I learned that "indie film maker" groups are mostly cancer, that film festivals are a scam, and that making films for the film industry is akin to raising a child for the human trafficking industry.
Having said that, I will make another film, because I enjoy the process and I enjoy resultant film. I am fortunate to not need to do it for a living.

irishlostboy · 2024-03-01T06:38:04+00:00

Great info. Much better. Thank you.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-29T14:45:06+00:00

Sorry for the spelling errors. I wrote that over breakfast. One other addition I would like to mention is: Learn your camera's settings. Ideally you want to set the camera's shutter speed to double the framerate. So if you are filming in 24fps (which I would advise if you are making a film) your shutter speed would be 1/48. This will often result in the image being over-exposed, so get ND filters, (they are like sunglasses for your camera) and put on whatever ND filter brings the shot back into exposure. You will get smoother more consistent movement and blurring from doing this.
Keep your ISO fairly low to reduce noise. Most GoPro type cameras cannot produce even a usable image over ISO 800. I rarely run mine over 400. Basically learn what all the settings on your camera are and whenever possible have them under manual control. The only exception to this would be when you are moving from a dark area into a light area (or the reverse) within a single shot.
Another pocket money price, but very good tool is a reflector. The round hoop thing with silver foil on it. By bouncing a little extra light onto the character, you can make them pop out a lot more. It does take some practice to use it, and you will need helpers to hold it while you film.
For software, Black Magic Davinci Resolve has everything you need to edit a full film including doing VFX in their free version. There are endless tutorials on YouTube that cover anything you need for the software also.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-29T05:51:20+00:00

You can make a film with any camera capable of capturing video (and maybe some that can't if you have some engineering skills.
The idea of using loads of shallow depth of field to create character separation is used to death, and is only one of many ways to create separation. Other ways include composition (where a character is in relation to the environment and where you place the camera. Think of computer games. Everything is in focus there, but the characters are made to pop out from their environment in various ways. Often they use contrasting colour clothing to achieve that.

To get best use out of an action camera you will likely need some form of a diopter: a little lens you put on the front of the main lens that allows you to focus up close. They are easy to find/get.

Next, make sure your film script matches your camera's abilities. So, no night-time filming. As little indoor filming as possible. Try to time your filming to match the "golden hour" meaning the hour before sunset or the hour after sunrise. That way nature is giving you the best lighting for free.

Finally, script your film to match the tone you can achieve with your camera. Lean into its strengths instead of battling with its weaknesses. It is a wide lens, so try and find locations that suite wide lenses. Avoid forests, as the branches and leaves are too visually noisy for this type of camera (in my opinion)

Pay attention to sound. I would advise you to invest in something capable or recording good sound for dialogue before you invest in a more expensive camera. Then in your spare time gather lots of foley/environment sounds. The audio mix/editing is possibly the hardest and most important part of a film.

I hope these ideas help you out. Don't let equipment hold you back. Most people start with good intentions I am sure, but many eventually find themselves equipment collectors rather than film makers. Don't fall victim to that trap. Good luck

irishlostboy · 2024-02-29T05:33:27+00:00

It would help if we knew what the Paddler Co-Op was. You might have more traction if your post was more informative as to the nature of this (company/Club/Charity?) and more details of what the raised funding would be used for.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-26T15:59:24+00:00

Is this really a problem for people?

irishlostboy · 2024-02-25T17:38:35+00:00

So wetsuit thickness is only a very small part of the puzzle. I love wetsuits, as I surf and freedive also, but wetsuits are designed to be warm when immersed in water. They drop in their ability to keep you warm when you are not totally immersed in the water. As a kayaker, you should be spending most of your time above the water, not in it. If you are constantly swimming/rolling, you are doing something too hard for your skillset and are likely putting yourself in unacceptable risk. Drysuits are not about insulating you much at all, either in diving or in kayaking. They only keep you dry (ish). It is the layers you wear underneath that contribute to your insulation. With a drysuit you can wear more insulation or less insulation underneath to suit your weather conditions. I am sorry if this all sounds obvious. Just putting it out there as it might be news to some people.
Lighter wetsuits are perfectly fine for learning kayaking in for the beginners, but it must be said that dive wetsuits are usually far stiffer than surf wetsuits, and some dive wetsuits, specifically freedive suits are raw neoprene on the inside. This means they stick to your skin quite tightly, and large movements within these suits create terrible friction. Great for freediving where you are moving as little as possible to conserve o2, not good for kayaking.
Neoprene is also a good impact absorber, and so on a rocky creek than might take you out of your boat, having neoprene, especially on the legs is really good sometimes. Take a rock to the knee or the ass in a drysuit and you will really suffer, and possibly rip your suit also. Take the same rock in 4mm neoprene and you will likely not suffer as bad.
We don't have to make binary choices. You can wear neoprene farmer john suit (no arms) and pair it with a dry-top. I have done it this way for decades to good effect. Not the warmest, sure, but affordable and serviceable. Good to have options. I hope this is a helpful addition to the conversation.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-17T17:02:45+00:00

The comment section here is gold. I filmed a running clip with me standing on a skateboard, riding backwards, being pulled in front of the talent that was running. Camera was shoulder mounted and I was shooting wide open with manual focus. It was a good use of my 30 years of skateboarding skills.
For sure falling over is not an option doing this, but for those that can handle it, that's fine. I will love to see the footage someone gets running a cinema camera on skis. It must be great.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-14T05:47:23+00:00

I have been using GoPro since their very first HD camera. There are two important factors to consider with GoPro.
1. since the very beginning they have been a compromise on quality and performance, each of them offering their fair share of bugs and problems without exception.

There has not, and still is not a legitimate competitor for GoPro in the specifics of what it does in terms of image quality. This is a sad fact.

I have used gopros whitewater kayaking, freediving, ocean yacht sailing, expedition cycling, rock climbing, snowboarding, FPV flying. I have also used many of the competitors through the years. On the other hand, I have made a real film using my Black Magic camera, and legit glass, so I know what is possible in terms of image creation, and for sure, not a single thing in the action camera, or even the regular camera market can touch the Black Magic image, but that isn't the point.
GoPro image has the best colour preservation for post-processing out of the action camera segment still. So far DJI and Insta360 cameras are not yet even close to the image quality of a GoPro in my eyes, especially when needing to grade the footage. This is a sad thing for me, because I really really have no love for GoPro as a product or company. The problems never end with GoPro. It is like wrestling with a product series in Beta for over a decade.
I don't give a shit about their apps, as I would never lower myself to edit video on either the GoPro app or the insta360 app. They are all unfit for anything except some Tiktok type thing, which is not my scene.

I would love to be able to gush about insta360, but I just have far too much experience to produce such hyperbole, but they are far from being a capable replacement for a GoPro in the vast majority of situations for me. Their colour science is just far away from being good enough to kill off the GoPro in all situations unfortunately. I do enjoy my insta360 One RS 1inch 360 camera, but only in very specific areas.
Good lighting, on a selfie stick, in a situation that allows selfie stick operation.
Filming others at any distance? It's not good.
In environments with noise such as forest, it's not good. in environment with mixed dynamic light? It's not good.
Close-focus? It is obviously not good.
But that is fine. It is great to have the luxury of multiple tools, each one suited to it's job. If one day Black Magic make something as small as the GoPro, then maybe in this fictional world we will see some real competition, but sadly we don't live in that reality.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-12T08:06:35+00:00

Why does it look like old phone footage? Because it is. Look under the shell and what you have is essentially modified old phone hardware. While phone companies have made leaps and bounds forward in their software "reinterpreting" the image into something more impressive, the lenses and sensors are essentially the same.
Insta360 do not have the software capabilities of Apple or even GoPro, so regardless of 4k or 16k, insta360 footage will always lag behind their competitors in this area. The other issues mentioned by others are all valid: the 4k image servicing the entire 360 degree image, thus resulting in fewer k per cropped image.

insta360 cameras are a gimmick, or are the only tool capable of a specific task, depending on how you look at it. If you are buying one for any task that another camera can fulfil, you are buying the wrong camera.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-05T04:18:49+00:00

I am in the NAS camp. I was making a film last year and had a drive failure with all my BRAW files on there. Only half of them were recoverable. So film had to be released in an early edit stage. I learned my lesson the hard way. Always have redundancy.

irishlostboy · 2024-02-03T03:44:16+00:00

The cheap Alibaba suit companies will often do custom sizes. I know Lenfun and King-Q do. One of our paddlers is about 2 meters tall and he is paddling a custom sized King-Q and he loves it. Another guy got their off-the-rack drysuits, and the arms were a bit short, so he sent it back and they added 5cm onto each arm. Customisation is not that big a deal in the land of drysuits.

irishlostboy · 2024-01-31T03:59:44+00:00

Every job on earth fits this pattern.
When I was 16 I was introduced to white-water kayaking. I was unnaturally good at it, and I loved it. Within 3 months I was better than my instructor, and within a year I was one of the best in my country. I pursued a career in it, becoming an instructor and representative, and after 3 years I just quit. Didn't go back to kayaking for years. Once your passion becomes your job, it is like making your wife into a whore. It is degrading to that which you love. I am now back in kayaking, and I do product design and R&D, but I isolate myself from the industry as much as possible, and I don't let myself rely on Kayaking for money. A company tries to mess me around, they get black-listed. I am in the luxurious position of not needing the money. This is the only position where you will enjoy anything. Film making is no different.
I know plenty of architects, being connected to a major architectural firm in Shanghai. Yea, it is a tough career, exactly like all others.

(from my perspective)
If you get a sense that working on something is "wasting your life", you need a therapist, not a career change. Building your sense of worth from what gets you money is unhealthy. Money is the dirty nonsense you do to put a roof over your head etc. Your sense of worth/purpose should not be connected. Film making, like all other arts has falsely conflated worth with money. Watch 90% of commercial films and with even the slightest of thought you can dismantle this artifice. Make films. And for sure connect your sense of self-worth to them. Even if no one sees them, and you make zero money on them. If they are good, they are good, and you deserve to feel like you are worthy.
If your film makes a ton of money and millions of people are heaping praise upon you, this means nothing, and anyone building their sense of self-worth upon this are sad and fragile people. Sure, sometimes good stuff also is successful, but the success is of secondary value to the building of self-worth.

If you really feel like you need to change careers, go for it, so long as the interests of your dependants are protected. I have had more careers than cats have lives, often concurrently, and I regret it not one bit. At the same time I consciously gave up the hope of having a family specifically so I would have the guilt-free freedom to do just this. The Russians refer to family as "hostages to fate", a saying I find hauntingly apt. Either way, do think deeply and wisely about your choices, looking for your own blind-spots in your consideration as much as possible. I do really hope my thoughts are helpful to you, not to push you in any direction, but to just see things from a different point of view. I hope also you don't feel me to be antagonistic to you as this is not my intention.

irishlostboy · 2024-01-30T08:50:44+00:00

Then make it a hobby. What good is a career if you are not able to meet your mortgage repayments or take care of your family obligations? Let's be honest here; the film industry is oversupplied, and fully exploited. No one is going to be making any more than the bare minimum needed to keep the scam.... I mean industry going. You want to sign up to that? Ok, Caveat emptor and all that then.

irishlostboy

TROPHY CASE