Classic bike videos

Sump's gone into the movie business. Borehamwood here we come...

We've gone into the movie business...

... in a very minor way. Not content to amuse ourselves with creating the numerous free classic bike pages seen here on Sump, we decided to try our hand at other media.

Unsurprisingly, our first efforts are a little amateur. That's partly because we are amateur, and partly because the UK Film Council and the various National Lottery committees all turned down our request for a £100,000 grant with which we were hoping to buy a couple of Panaflex cameras, a lighting rig, some sound recording equipment, and a canteen wagon.

Stingy, huh?

So we had to make do with the equipment we had at hand—which was a couple of ancient digital cameras that had been kicking around in a box in the garage along with some other basic junk.

Additionally, the video editing software we had was primitive in the extreme, and took some figuring out. And pretty much everything we knew about the movies was the view as seen from behind a box of popcorn.

But hey, we managed to knock up a few rushes (that's, er, movie speak, you understand), and we bought a roll of Sellotape to stitch it all together. And now the footage is on the web for all the world to see.

It looked good when we originally test-screened it (that's, er, more movie speak). But now that a couple of weeks have elapsed, we can see all the cracks and have spotted a dozen ways it could have been done better. Re-editing is an option. In fact, we already re-edited one of the videos. But then we decided to leave well alone. You live and learn, etc.

You move on.

Anyway, now we've got the movie making bug in a big way, and we're learning new tricks and techniques all the time—and we've got plenty of ideas in the bag that will come out sooner or later. Meanwhile, take a look at our videos and let us know what you think.

But hey, don't bitch about the music on the videos drowning out the engine noise. Here at Sump, we only want to hear our engines every once in a while, or when they're going wrong. The rest of the time, we prefer to hear the rock'n'roll and cool jazz that's pretty much always running through our heads.

So that's the pitch. Done and dusted. Hasta la vista, amigos. Try to keep your feet off the seats.