Sunday Morning Short: Glass Beach

This Sunday Morning Short was filmed at Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, CA.  While visiting Glass Beach, my wife noticed some of the trash that was left on certain parts of the beach.  As she started collecting the trash she mentioned the California Coastal Cleanup Day which is happening next Saturday, September 19th.  So this Sunday Morning Short is to showcase the beauty of the California Beaches and remind everyone to signup for a local cleanup day to help maintain this statewide natural resource.

If you have ever used a California Beach or Waterway (I would guess that most Californians have), I urge you to sign up for the Cleanup Day next Saturday and join your fellow Californians in helping to keep this State treasure looking it’s best.  And next time you’re at the beach or waterway please remember to keep our beaches beautiful by Packing It In & Packing It Out.

Next Saturday my wife and I will be at Bay Point Regional Shoreline in Contra Costa County for the Cleanup Day.  If you’re attending at that location, let me know.

The filming of this SMS was a last minute decision while we were visiting Glass Beach on Labor Day.  Last minute meaning that I had left my tripod in the car and had to improvise in the field to stabilize the camera as best I could with a 70-200mm L lens mounted on it.  While I did the best job I could, I realize that there was still a bit of shake in the camera.

This is also the first SMS in which I used Apple’s Final Cut Express in post production of the movie.  I had recorded a total of 17 separate video segments that were then edited down to this SMS.  After the post production of the first SMS, I realized that Apple’s iMovie wasn’t going to cut it for my needs.  I knew what I wanted to do with the overall short, but couldn’t achieve many of those things with iMovie.  Unfortunately, I underestimated the learning curve of Final Cut Express. Understanding the video processing lingo, the different export options for the video, and the rendering time all took longer than expected.  Hence this Sunday Morning Short turned into a Sunday Evening Short.  This particular short is not at the level of quality that I want, but my goal was to get this posted today to help spread the word about the Coastal Cleanup Day.  I’ll try to do a review of Final Cut Express at some point in the near future.

Update: I was reminded by one of my readers (my older sister…still correcting me after all these years!  😉 ) that I never explained why Glass Beach is called Glass Beach.  While you can read the more complete history on the Fort Bragg local attractions website, the short answer is that amongst all the stones along the beach at Glass Beach are small pieces of glass that have been broken up and worn smooth by the constant wave action along the beach.  I have a photo that I will try to post in the next few days.

2 Replies to “Sunday Morning Short: Glass Beach”

  1. Very powerful scene Greg. Makes me want to go up there.

    [Reply]

    latoga Reply:

    @Richard Wong, Good reaction…that means I’m doing something right with the video; the goal was to help portray the sense of the place that I experienced in a way that a single (or set) of photos couldn’t.

    (Ok, my actually goal was to use that fancy “record” button on my camera, help drive up Apple’s share price by purchase more software, and spend even more time on the computer! 😉 )

    [Reply]

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