No, I'm not throwing in the towel on France. In fact, things are rolling rather smoothly on the otherwise-maddening-bureaucracy side. And despite less ethnic food, shorter opening hours, and overpriced cocktails, I still like Paris better than New York.
But hot damn, I want to be on Air France's inaugural Airbus A380 flight between Paris and New York. Firstly because it'll give me some serious travel geek cred. Secondly, because New York and I still have some unfinished business. (Three days simply wasn't enough.)
Sure, tickets went on sale for the first "official" A380 flights a while back, and many people who already had flights on AF001 and AF002 between CDG and JFK were surprised to have been bumped to the new supermegajumbo. But I wanna be on the maiden voyage. They give you cool shit on these things. And yes, I know that they are auctioning seats for this particular flight, but I'm too poor for that.
That said, I still want to take my wife on a brief trip to New York, and it's still going to happen.
How? Because you are going to watch the video below over, and over, and over again.
Why? Because you're generally a nice person, and you can't wait to hear about what it's like to fly the A380.
No really, how and why would watching this video do anything? Because Air France is holding a "lipdub" (lipsync) video contest, and three winners get on that coveted flight.
So without any further ado...
If you wanna be really awesome, click on the video above to go to the YouTube page and give me a 5-star rating. And if you wanna join me on this flight (if I win) leave a comment. In French. (Those are the rules.) Because according to said rules, people who leave the most "fun" comments will win a New York/Paris ticket. Not bad, huh?
Stuff people are asking
Beyond wanting to know how watching a video will get me on a flight to New York, people have been asking a ton of questions. Here are the answers.
THE SONG
No, I am not singing, nor playing any instruments. The song itself was commissioned by Air France and is performed by French artist PV Nova. I selected the "electro" style. "Rock" and "Hip Hop" were also options, but I wanted to stay true to my geeky genre of choice.
The lyrics are pretty simple but optimistic. If there's enough demand, I'll provide a translation. In the meantime, here's the original PDF of the words.
THE CONTEST
The video will be judged by a jury, but another factor is how many views it gets on YouTube. So please, view view view view!
Also, I've been alerted that I've broken the rule about how the video is supposed to be one continuous shot, and not edited. This seems not to have bothered them, as they accepted it and put it up on their YouTube channel along with many others, so I guess I'm not DQed.
THE LOCATIONS
This was shot in Paris, New York, and on an Air France plane over the Atlantic. I found out about the contest just before my Atlanta/New York trip, during which I had to shoot a ton of video anyway. So I grabbed some footage in New York (some with the help of my friend Julien), a tiny bit of cell phone video on the plane back to Paris, and the rest was shot in Paris over the couple of weeks after my return. Poor Alannah had to bear most of the burden of holding the dinky camera steady while I shouted out director orders, much of the time in freezing conditions.
GEAR
I hadn't previously tried out the HD camera I got for work, so I took some test shots at the airport when - Eureka! - I realized I could start making a video for this contest. While a little of that footage is from said Sony HD camcorder, the majority is made on the Sony Webbie, a cheap, toy-like HD camera I picked up in the States. The on-plane shots were taken with my iPhone, since I was in a window seat and couldn't easily go get either HD cameras out of the overhead.
The video was mostly edited in Final Cut, taking up probably 12-14 hours of my evenings and a weekend, primarily while sick, not including all the rendering time between edits. Don't I deserve to win?
ANY MORE VIDEOS IN THE FUTURE?
Ever since the rousing success of my YouTube videos from Japan, I've been amassing a collection of video footage of all sorts of stuff. Not in a creepy way like that neighbor kid in American Beauty but like most people take photos. I continue to take tons of still photos, but video has really caught my attention - especially with how cheap and accessible HD is.
That said, in two years, I've edited together maybe 3 personal videos, none longer than two minutes. And it's hellaciously time consuming. I'm not sure if the results are worth it.
If you think otherwise, then please, click the ever-loving shit out of this video, rate it high, leave your comments, and help me win this thing. Then I'll know it's time to make more videos.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Not-So-Haute Cuisine: Burger in a Box
Not long ago, my friend Arnold reviewed a not-so-excellent German-made canned cheeseburger on his excellent food blog, Inuyaki. I told him about its French counterpart - a microwaveable boxed cheeseburger - and promised him that, once I found the gumption to eat a microwaveable boxed cheeseburger, I'd review it.
In the weekend's utter boredom I found the time and motivation to engage this culinary aberration.
You would think that in a country known for its multitude of open-air markets, near-nationalistic zealotry for food, and strict agricultural and food processing laws that a microwaveable cheeseburger-in-a-box would be illegal, or at the very least, unpopular.
Au contraire, mon frère, I discovered it's somewhat of a pop culture phenomenon:
Video courtesy of boardsmag.com
The burger's made by Charal, a company that apparently specializes in packaged meat products, not unlike Hormel in the US. If you go to the supermarket, there's almost always a Charal section in the reefer case, filled with vacuum-packed ground beef, steaks, pre-marinated meats, etc. It's about the furthest thing from going to a proper boucherie to get meat, but even food-snobby France can't resist modern convenience anymore.
Not opting for the whole family-pack of microwaveable cheeseburgers, I opted to pick up the single package, cleverly made to look like a fast food carton. It promises cheeseburger goodness in just 40 seconds in the microwave.
I read the instructions carefully, knowing this would likely be the only time I try something like this, and as such, I must do it right. The little "BAP!" exclamation next to the illustration of the microwave made me curious. "What does that mean?"
The directions call for 40 seconds in a 1000W microwave, but being that the tiny little Bosch in my tiny little kitchen only does 800W max, I adjusted the time up a bit. Not that this matters, because the timing mechanism isn't exactly a timepiece of Swiss-made accuracy.
After about 10 seconds, I learned what the "BAP!" was. It was a small explosion in the microwave.
I fully expected a blown-up mess of cheese and grey meat upon opening the package. Instead, I found a perfectly shaped burger with a perfectly shaped bun, sandwiched between two little metallic reflectors, which I assume help generate "proper," less microwavey heat.
The burger actually came out looking really good. At least, compared to a typical berguére from MacDo or Quick. The meat almost looked real, the cheese wasn't a gloppy mess, and there were actual slices of pickles!
I plated it and served it up with a fine bottle of 2008 Coca Cola, the kind with real sugar (as opposed to the awful vintages with high fructose corn syrup).
The verdict?
Not bad for something prepared in less time than it takes for me to pay for it.
But not particularly good, either. In fact, it tastes exactly like a White Castle burger. Which, if you're named Harold or Kumar or Billybob, I'm sure would suit you just fine. Personally, I like my burgers to taste more like actual beef and cheese. The bun is surprisingly decent, though, and the fact that I didn't feel like I was eating a microwave meal is a big bonus.
Would I do it again? Hell no. For the same price, I can go to the butcher and pick up a confit de canard thigh/leg, throw it in a skillet for a few minutes, and have a much better snack. But I have to admit, the sheer novelty was kinda cool.
In the weekend's utter boredom I found the time and motivation to engage this culinary aberration.
You would think that in a country known for its multitude of open-air markets, near-nationalistic zealotry for food, and strict agricultural and food processing laws that a microwaveable cheeseburger-in-a-box would be illegal, or at the very least, unpopular.
Au contraire, mon frère, I discovered it's somewhat of a pop culture phenomenon:
Video courtesy of boardsmag.com
The burger's made by Charal, a company that apparently specializes in packaged meat products, not unlike Hormel in the US. If you go to the supermarket, there's almost always a Charal section in the reefer case, filled with vacuum-packed ground beef, steaks, pre-marinated meats, etc. It's about the furthest thing from going to a proper boucherie to get meat, but even food-snobby France can't resist modern convenience anymore.
Not opting for the whole family-pack of microwaveable cheeseburgers, I opted to pick up the single package, cleverly made to look like a fast food carton. It promises cheeseburger goodness in just 40 seconds in the microwave.
I read the instructions carefully, knowing this would likely be the only time I try something like this, and as such, I must do it right. The little "BAP!" exclamation next to the illustration of the microwave made me curious. "What does that mean?"
The directions call for 40 seconds in a 1000W microwave, but being that the tiny little Bosch in my tiny little kitchen only does 800W max, I adjusted the time up a bit. Not that this matters, because the timing mechanism isn't exactly a timepiece of Swiss-made accuracy.
After about 10 seconds, I learned what the "BAP!" was. It was a small explosion in the microwave.
I fully expected a blown-up mess of cheese and grey meat upon opening the package. Instead, I found a perfectly shaped burger with a perfectly shaped bun, sandwiched between two little metallic reflectors, which I assume help generate "proper," less microwavey heat.
The burger actually came out looking really good. At least, compared to a typical berguére from MacDo or Quick. The meat almost looked real, the cheese wasn't a gloppy mess, and there were actual slices of pickles!
I plated it and served it up with a fine bottle of 2008 Coca Cola, the kind with real sugar (as opposed to the awful vintages with high fructose corn syrup).
The verdict?
Not bad for something prepared in less time than it takes for me to pay for it.
But not particularly good, either. In fact, it tastes exactly like a White Castle burger. Which, if you're named Harold or Kumar or Billybob, I'm sure would suit you just fine. Personally, I like my burgers to taste more like actual beef and cheese. The bun is surprisingly decent, though, and the fact that I didn't feel like I was eating a microwave meal is a big bonus.
Would I do it again? Hell no. For the same price, I can go to the butcher and pick up a confit de canard thigh/leg, throw it in a skillet for a few minutes, and have a much better snack. But I have to admit, the sheer novelty was kinda cool.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
This'll Be the Last Time (I think I said that last time...)
This is my last big, touristy, holy-shit-I-can't-find-a-bathroom of an event for this season. In fact, I hope not to have to set foot on the Champs-Élysées again for the rest of the year.
Fat chance, considering I live right by it, but a guy can always dream, right?
After another week of overwork and apartment-hunting, we figured we'd be good little newcomers-to-France and get up really early this morning, pack ourselves a picnic, stake out a spot on the Champs-Élysées, and wait at least five hours to catch a glimpse of Carlos Sastre and others triumphantly blow by on their bicycles, wrapping up the 2008 Tour de France. I read that the crowds would be three or four times bigger than on Bastille Day. That the weather would be hotter and more humid. That the tourists are estimated to be an order of magnitude more obnoxious. (Something about an Aussie rider doing really well... I kid!)
So as we went to bed last night, Alannah asked, "Is your alarm set?"
"Fuck it," I declared. "Let's just wake up when we wake up and play it by ear. We'll go with the flow. And if we don't catch the Tour, there's always next year."
I think Alannah silently thanked god for finally knocking some sense into me. I don't want to tell her that I was just exhausted.
It was just past noon when I finally woke up.
"Heh. Guess we won't be hanging out with the early birds on the Champs," I said. "Want a cocktail?"
And thus started my day-drinking.
I flipped on the TV. "You know," I said, tipping back my drink. "They say if you're actually interested in the race, it's better to watch it on TV - where you can see."
My brain surrendered to the thought of just sitting around and drinking all day. I made another drink.
Eventually, perhaps after I got a buzz going, we decided it'd be worthwhile to venture down to try and catch the Tour in person. After all, it's just down the street. And if there's one thing I love about big events with lots of tourists, it's that I can roll in a t-shirt, shorts and sneakers - without being judged as a tourist who goes to big events.
The other cool things about these things is that - unlike the supposedly liberated San Francisco - drinking in public is totally legal in Paris. So we stopped to pick up beers.
The thing that blows about these things is that you just sit around and wait. And all the booze in the world doesn't make it any quicker. Despite the fact that we arrived many hours after everyone else (yet still managed to get a sweet spot, not far from the turn-around at the Arc de Triomphe) we still had to wait, and wait, and wait for any sort of action.
You knew something was about to happen when the crowd would start to get increasingly louder from the east end of the Avenue, with motorcycles and support cars zipping by. And then, as the excitement of the announcer's voice crescendoes over the loudspeakers, so does the crowd. If you're hearing impaired, you can tell this moment from everyone going apeshit to train their cameras on the approaching peleton.
This is because the only way to actually see anything is to grab it as a photo/video and watch it later when you can zoom in, freeze-frame, retouch or whatnot. Actually trying to witness anything live will require you to focus in like a laser for the 15 or so seconds of glory as the cyclists rush by at around 53km/h.
In fact, without a good SLR with a fast shutter, you won't even be able to make the cyclists out as anything but a blur.
Even at a good 1/320th of a second, these little bastards move too fast. It took me a few laps (which seem like an eternity of waiting in between) before I could fire off an acceptable shot.
The other problem is that - say you grab a good shot - trying to spot the yellow jersey is like playing Where's Waldo? Yellow is the official color of the tour, so everyone wearing a 10€ yellow shirt/cap/souvenir rain poncho in the background makes it tough to pick out the leader.
So it wasn't until well after the peleton had gone by that I reviewed my pictures and said, "Oh, hey! I managed to get Carlos Sastre!" Honestly, I didn't know who or what I was shooting.
The polka-dot jersey (worn the best climber of the field) is slightly easier to spot, if only because it's even more obnoxious than the yellow jersey.
Eventually, I gave up on trying to figure out which rider was which, which team they rode on, which country they rode for - and appreciated the big blur of color that would mind-bogglingly whiz by every so often. And wouldn't you know it, it was after I'd just given up to go with the flow that I spotted Sastre as he rode by in front of us.
Sated, we got out of the crowd a few laps before the end, hoofing it down to the Concorde end of the Champs-Élysées in time for the award ceremony. Thankfully, they put up a giant video screen for you to watch it, since the tiny stage is damn near impossible to see. Whether that's because the stage is barely higher than street-level, or because I was writhing around doing the pee-pee dance after a half day of drinking and standing around is yet to be determined.
The ceremony itself is rather understated. As the winners are handed a bouquet, they're flanked by two extremely hot girls. Besides the fact that you get to see these amazing specimens of the female form, you can also marvel in the extremely French way that their dresses are coordinated with the cyclists' jerseys. Leader's yellow jersey? Yellow sundresses. Climber's red polka dot jersey? White A-line dresses with a polka dot sash. Speedster's green jersey? Guess...
In the end, it was seeing those pretty girls in the coordinated dresses that got me smiling. There was a certain understated kitschiness to it (if such a thing can exist, the French are on top of it), going along with the understated announcing, and the understated speech by the winner - the Spaniard Carlos Sastre - who spoke softly and gently after a grueling 22 days that concluded with a sprint up and down the Champs-Élysées. There was no pumping techno music, no heads of corporations handing out giant novelty-size checks (although corporate sponsorship is the one thing that fuels the Tour more than performance-enhancing drugs), nor any sort of over-the-top craziness you'd normally expect at the conclusion of a major sporting event.
Maybe it's because it's cycling, but the crowd was - for the most part - polite and civilized. Drunk as hell, perhaps, but well behaved. Even the Aussies. And surprisingly, for as much beer as was being consumed, there was no pissing on the sidewalks. (Though I believe I slowly wet myself drop by drop over the course of the day. It was so humid, I can't tell.) Overall, it was the most surprisingly pleasant mass sporting event I've ever attended.
We've started to take these things for granted.
Late last night and then this morning, we blew off the race, figuring we could just walk down the street if we want to watch it, and that it happens every year. Then we go, we think, "Yeah, this is pretty cool," and then the bipolarity kicks in.
"Holy shit! We just saw the ending of the Tour de France!"
Then we think, "Yeah, but I could've done without the big crowds, not being able to pee, or the potential heat stroke." And we walk home and get an ice cream bar on the way, capping off another languid Sunday, thinking "Ok, I guess that was better than staying at home."
And this is representative, I think, of living in Paris. Alannah and I often go for late night walks after dinner. You walk along and think, "Oh, hey, it's that damn Arc de Triomphe again," or "Honey, do you want to cross the Pont des Arts or Pont Neuf tonight?" or "Maybe it'd be nice to walk near the Louvre." And once in a while, it just hits both of us. "I don't care how touristy it is - it's still beautiful!" or "It's so weird living by all these awesome monuments!" or "I just went to go buy bread... by the f***ing [FILL IN MONUMENT NAME]!"
So yes, watching the finale of the Tour de France in person was great. But at the same time, I really have no desire to put up with the masses of people, the tourist-oriented shops and kiosks, the overpriced everything, or the general lunacy of being one amongst several hundred thousand people packed into one street. And that's just the Champs-Élysées on a normal day.
Unfortunately, I'll probably have to do this every time we have visitors in late July. For those of you thinking about it, I've conveniently distilled a typical six-hour day of watching (or rather, waiting to watch) the Tour de France into six minutes.
Enjoy...
Fat chance, considering I live right by it, but a guy can always dream, right?
After another week of overwork and apartment-hunting, we figured we'd be good little newcomers-to-France and get up really early this morning, pack ourselves a picnic, stake out a spot on the Champs-Élysées, and wait at least five hours to catch a glimpse of Carlos Sastre and others triumphantly blow by on their bicycles, wrapping up the 2008 Tour de France. I read that the crowds would be three or four times bigger than on Bastille Day. That the weather would be hotter and more humid. That the tourists are estimated to be an order of magnitude more obnoxious. (Something about an Aussie rider doing really well... I kid!)
So as we went to bed last night, Alannah asked, "Is your alarm set?"
"Fuck it," I declared. "Let's just wake up when we wake up and play it by ear. We'll go with the flow. And if we don't catch the Tour, there's always next year."
I think Alannah silently thanked god for finally knocking some sense into me. I don't want to tell her that I was just exhausted.
It was just past noon when I finally woke up.
"Heh. Guess we won't be hanging out with the early birds on the Champs," I said. "Want a cocktail?"
And thus started my day-drinking.
I flipped on the TV. "You know," I said, tipping back my drink. "They say if you're actually interested in the race, it's better to watch it on TV - where you can see."
My brain surrendered to the thought of just sitting around and drinking all day. I made another drink.
Eventually, perhaps after I got a buzz going, we decided it'd be worthwhile to venture down to try and catch the Tour in person. After all, it's just down the street. And if there's one thing I love about big events with lots of tourists, it's that I can roll in a t-shirt, shorts and sneakers - without being judged as a tourist who goes to big events.
The other cool things about these things is that - unlike the supposedly liberated San Francisco - drinking in public is totally legal in Paris. So we stopped to pick up beers.
The thing that blows about these things is that you just sit around and wait. And all the booze in the world doesn't make it any quicker. Despite the fact that we arrived many hours after everyone else (yet still managed to get a sweet spot, not far from the turn-around at the Arc de Triomphe) we still had to wait, and wait, and wait for any sort of action.
You knew something was about to happen when the crowd would start to get increasingly louder from the east end of the Avenue, with motorcycles and support cars zipping by. And then, as the excitement of the announcer's voice crescendoes over the loudspeakers, so does the crowd. If you're hearing impaired, you can tell this moment from everyone going apeshit to train their cameras on the approaching peleton.
This is because the only way to actually see anything is to grab it as a photo/video and watch it later when you can zoom in, freeze-frame, retouch or whatnot. Actually trying to witness anything live will require you to focus in like a laser for the 15 or so seconds of glory as the cyclists rush by at around 53km/h.
In fact, without a good SLR with a fast shutter, you won't even be able to make the cyclists out as anything but a blur.
Even at a good 1/320th of a second, these little bastards move too fast. It took me a few laps (which seem like an eternity of waiting in between) before I could fire off an acceptable shot.
The other problem is that - say you grab a good shot - trying to spot the yellow jersey is like playing Where's Waldo? Yellow is the official color of the tour, so everyone wearing a 10€ yellow shirt/cap/souvenir rain poncho in the background makes it tough to pick out the leader.
So it wasn't until well after the peleton had gone by that I reviewed my pictures and said, "Oh, hey! I managed to get Carlos Sastre!" Honestly, I didn't know who or what I was shooting.
The polka-dot jersey (worn the best climber of the field) is slightly easier to spot, if only because it's even more obnoxious than the yellow jersey.
Eventually, I gave up on trying to figure out which rider was which, which team they rode on, which country they rode for - and appreciated the big blur of color that would mind-bogglingly whiz by every so often. And wouldn't you know it, it was after I'd just given up to go with the flow that I spotted Sastre as he rode by in front of us.
Sated, we got out of the crowd a few laps before the end, hoofing it down to the Concorde end of the Champs-Élysées in time for the award ceremony. Thankfully, they put up a giant video screen for you to watch it, since the tiny stage is damn near impossible to see. Whether that's because the stage is barely higher than street-level, or because I was writhing around doing the pee-pee dance after a half day of drinking and standing around is yet to be determined.
The ceremony itself is rather understated. As the winners are handed a bouquet, they're flanked by two extremely hot girls. Besides the fact that you get to see these amazing specimens of the female form, you can also marvel in the extremely French way that their dresses are coordinated with the cyclists' jerseys. Leader's yellow jersey? Yellow sundresses. Climber's red polka dot jersey? White A-line dresses with a polka dot sash. Speedster's green jersey? Guess...
In the end, it was seeing those pretty girls in the coordinated dresses that got me smiling. There was a certain understated kitschiness to it (if such a thing can exist, the French are on top of it), going along with the understated announcing, and the understated speech by the winner - the Spaniard Carlos Sastre - who spoke softly and gently after a grueling 22 days that concluded with a sprint up and down the Champs-Élysées. There was no pumping techno music, no heads of corporations handing out giant novelty-size checks (although corporate sponsorship is the one thing that fuels the Tour more than performance-enhancing drugs), nor any sort of over-the-top craziness you'd normally expect at the conclusion of a major sporting event.
Maybe it's because it's cycling, but the crowd was - for the most part - polite and civilized. Drunk as hell, perhaps, but well behaved. Even the Aussies. And surprisingly, for as much beer as was being consumed, there was no pissing on the sidewalks. (Though I believe I slowly wet myself drop by drop over the course of the day. It was so humid, I can't tell.) Overall, it was the most surprisingly pleasant mass sporting event I've ever attended.
We've started to take these things for granted.
Late last night and then this morning, we blew off the race, figuring we could just walk down the street if we want to watch it, and that it happens every year. Then we go, we think, "Yeah, this is pretty cool," and then the bipolarity kicks in.
"Holy shit! We just saw the ending of the Tour de France!"
Then we think, "Yeah, but I could've done without the big crowds, not being able to pee, or the potential heat stroke." And we walk home and get an ice cream bar on the way, capping off another languid Sunday, thinking "Ok, I guess that was better than staying at home."
And this is representative, I think, of living in Paris. Alannah and I often go for late night walks after dinner. You walk along and think, "Oh, hey, it's that damn Arc de Triomphe again," or "Honey, do you want to cross the Pont des Arts or Pont Neuf tonight?" or "Maybe it'd be nice to walk near the Louvre." And once in a while, it just hits both of us. "I don't care how touristy it is - it's still beautiful!" or "It's so weird living by all these awesome monuments!" or "I just went to go buy bread... by the f***ing [FILL IN MONUMENT NAME]!"
So yes, watching the finale of the Tour de France in person was great. But at the same time, I really have no desire to put up with the masses of people, the tourist-oriented shops and kiosks, the overpriced everything, or the general lunacy of being one amongst several hundred thousand people packed into one street. And that's just the Champs-Élysées on a normal day.
Unfortunately, I'll probably have to do this every time we have visitors in late July. For those of you thinking about it, I've conveniently distilled a typical six-hour day of watching (or rather, waiting to watch) the Tour de France into six minutes.
Enjoy...
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Video Two-Fer
A couple of videos from our last supper... er.. breakfast in Shimoda this morning.
Although by the looks of it, it could very well be my last breakfast.
A more detailed look at part of brekky...
Although by the looks of it, it could very well be my last breakfast.
A more detailed look at part of brekky...
Monday, November 12, 2007
Kyoto Doo Wop
Ok, before my time on this terminal at Kinko's runs out, here's a nice little video clip of some street performance in Kyoto... Enjoy!
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