November 2004

November 2004
AVI (DivX 5.0)
352x288 20.4 MB
MP4 (QuickTime)
320x240 20.4 MB

November 2004

The weather in November was, on the whole, quite awful. But there was one fantastic day with clear blue skies and decent winds. It was one of only a few days in November when I actually flew a kite, but it's quality not quantity that counts. On this particular day I had a wonderful time and shot some great footage, including lots of Airbursts and other complex wrapped crazy susan combinations.

Introduction

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It's the one nice (near perfect!) day in November and I'm out in Stoke Park with my much beloved grey and orange Gemini. It's starting to look rather tatty by now, having been flown to oblivion and back over the past few months, but the great natural lighting hides the blemishes well.

Despite the shoddy looks, it still flies like a dream and I really locked into it on this particular day, pulling off a string of complex combinations, with the wrapped 540 crazy susan, aka "Airburst", featuring heavily. Hopefully it demonstrates how you can take a basic trick combination like this, and extend it in all sorts of different ways: by adding extra wraps or extra spins, by combining it with other tricks (e.g. backspins, flic-flacs, etc) to make more complex combinations, and so on.

The other trick worth mentioning is a few years old, but it's one that I've recently started to deconstruct and integrate into other complex combos. The basic move is the transition to and from a spin trick (e.g. backspin, flat spin, etc.) into and out of the flare/fade combination that constitutes the flic-flac. When repeated, this forms a mutex combination (e.g. flat spin mutex, backspin mutex, etc), but what if you do it just once? Well, given that it's a mutex without the repetition, I'm going to call it a "mute". So one part of a backspin mutex (i.e. from fade, backspin back around to fade then flare out and pop back up into a fade), is a "backspin mute" or "muted backspin", and one part of a flat spin mutex (i.e. pop up into fade, then flare back out to flat spin) is a "flat spin mute", "muted flat spin", or perhaps even "mute spin". There are examples of both in this month's video, and also a muted barrel roll. This is very similar to the muted backspin, the difference being that the nose tends to stay pointing towards you in a barrel roll with the kite rotating around the axis of the spines. In a backspin, the kite tends to spin flat, with the nose rotating away from you as it turns. Whatever you call them, the basic transitions between spin and flip tricks are worth identifying and mastering. They give you the freedom to smoothly combine different tricks into seamless combinations.

The music is another original composition of mine. It is entitled "Keep Sending the Message" for no other reason than the fact that it's loosely based around the same melodic theme as previous works (heard in the August and September movies by those brave enough to listen with the volume turned up). This one sounds like the bastard love child of Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher" and "Soul Limbo" by Booker T and the MGs (i.e. the cricket music), but it's not even half as good as either of them :-). It's a lazy, laid back number, dragged down to a dirge by the walking bass line, but spiced up with a cutting beat and oh-so-funky wah-wah clav. On top of that, it's piled thick with three layers of organ: one creamy, one cheesy, and one frosted ice cold. Hmmm... sounds good enough to eat!

Breakdown

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00.00 Opening credits
00.09 Kite on left screen takes off, rocks into a triple backflip wrap, starts turning and unwraps while completing the rotation, landing back down on the tips.
00.11 Kite on right starts belly down, pops up into a fade, three and a half backspins, backflip to wrapped 540 crazy susan (airburst), unwrap to fade, half backspin and fly out.
00.21 Kite in top left screen starts in a tailbone on the ground (like a fade but with the lines running over trailing edge and back under the kite), pops up to a fade, half backspin, backflip to double lazy susan and down to tips. Axel take-off and fly out.
00.24 Kite on right takes off and rocks into backflip wrap, then unwraps again down to the tips.
00.30 Kite enters from right, fractured axel to fade, flips under to belly wrap, pops up and unwraps to fade, single backspin to flare and back up to fade (muted backspin), 540 backspin the other way and down to a tip. Take off, fly up and out.
00.34 Kite on right lifts up to a tip stand, ollies up into a fade (fractured ollie) then flares out to a flat spin (muted flat spin), then flies out to left.
00.34 Kite on top flies up, fractured axel to fade, flic-flac, rolls out and flies out to right.
00.40 Kite enters from right, fractured axel to fade, two and a half backspins, backflip to a double lazy susan down to the ground.
00.47 Kite enters from left popping up into a fade, three backspins one way, two the other, then a 180 shove-it down to tips.
00.54 Kite enters from right, flies up, flic-flacs down, with a 180 backspin and drop to tips at the bottom.
01.02 Second kite flies ground pass to left edge, flares out and flat spins back (flashback).
01.06 Kite takes off, flies up into a double wrapped airburst (backflip to double wrap, 540 crazy susan, unwrap to fade). Then a single flic-flac, half backspin and backflip to another double airburst the other way around, again unwrapping to a single flic-flac. Roll out at the bottom, fly up and out. This, my friends, is a double-wrapped airburst mutex!
01.31 Enter from top right, stall and gentle axel, side slide out to left.
01.36 Kite enters from left in a fade conveyor then flares out to the flat spin (muted flat spin). Coming out of the 540 flat spin, axel back the other way, and axel again fracturing it up into a fade, pop barrel roll and flare out (muted barrel roll), fly out to right.
01.40 Enter from top right, carve over and corkscrew down. Looking closely at the video, this is probably more accurately described as a mobius, given that the kite has almost flipped over onto its back by the second pop. The two are very similar and also closely related to the comet (which I'm now thinking is more like a hard mobius than a hard corkscrew...) Anyway, we end up hovering in the virtual lake added to Stoke Park by computer magic (much easier than flooding the park!), then double axel and fly out to the right.
01.49 Kite flies down from top right to snap landing, axel take-off and fly out.
01.51 Kite enters from top with bottom wing jabbed out for a lazy susan down to the tips (a mini-meteorite!). Takes off, flies up and out.
01.54 Kite enters from right, axels over to landing, axel take-off and fly out to right.
01.57 Enter top right, fly down to left and 540 flat spin. Axel revert back the other way, with a second fractured axel to fade, half barrel and backflip to 360 crazy susan down to the tips. Take off, fly up and out.
01.58 Enter top left, fly down, axel over to landing, axel take-off and fly out to right.
02.04 Power dive from top, flare out above ground, pop back to a fade, half barrel and backflip to an airburst.
02.04 Enter from right, stall, gentle axel down to a tip, coin toss to the other tip, take off and coin slot on the way out.
02.10 Kite enters from right, carves up and over into a spin, axels out, rolling around with another very subtle fractured axel to a nosebone, then backflip and lazy down to the tips. Axel take-off, fly up and out.
02.18 Kite enters from right, flies over to left, flashback towards centre, axel revert, second axel fractured to fade, half barrel roll and backflip to double wrap as frame slides up out of view.
02.25 Another corkscrew/mobius/slow comet down the left, ending in a fade, half backspin, backflip to lazy down to a tip. Double fractured axel take-off to fade, 540 backspin, backflip to 540 crazy susan, pop up back to a fade, 900 backspin, backflip to wrapped 360 crazy susan, unwrap down to the tips (airdrop).
02.44 Kite drops in down right side, flies across to left, cascade down, puddle at the bottom, fountain up then flic flac.
02.45 On right screen, kite starts in a fade, 540 backspin, backflip to airburst, unwrap back to fade and backspin the other way, backflip and acid drop to tips. Fractured axel take off to fade, half barrel roll and backflip to a triple wrapped airburst. Unwrap to backspins and backflip to a double wrap.
03.12 Fly down to left, flare out and over to tailbone, 360 tailspin, pop up to fade, backspins, backflip and 360 lazy to tips.
03.17 Kite on left flies down, flare out to belly down landing. Pops up to fade, then half a rung of a Jacob's Ladder (half barrel roll, backflip, half lazy, pop up to fade), then the second half going the other way with an extra spin: a 540 crazy susan popping up to a 540 backspin.
03.26 Double axel corkscrew down left side, fractured up to a fade, single flic-flac, half barrel, backflip to wrap, half lazy and unwrap to a tip. Axel off the tip and fly out to left.
03.34 Fly down left side, 540 flat spin, axel revert, then again (a minor fountain), fractured up into a fade, backspin, mute, backspin the other way, backflip to wrap, then unwrap down to tips.
03.44 Power dive on left, flare out to tailbone and 540 wap-do-wap (definately what I would call a wap based on how flat the kite spins, in contrast to the more barrel-roll like motion of what I think of as a tailspin, like that at 03.12). The nose nods up from the backbone for a brief wrap, then unwrap down to the ground.
03.49 Repeat of the double-wrapped airburst mutex from 01.06 with the sunset overlay.
04.07 Closing credits.