Postby ivan-d » Sat Jan 04, 2014 10:01 am
I find footage shot by someone else (aka my GF, and vice versa) as I'm passing by a lot more appealing. It looks less generic as your entire body, face, and facial expressions can be seen, and it's obvious what tricks you perform (if any; simply kicking up spray into the camera and grinning ear to ear can be just as fun to watch). The only drawback is that the videos will be episodic in nature, since the GoPro has no optical zoom, so anyone beyond, say, 4-5 meters will become too small to see in detail.
Also, I highly recommend shooting at 60, or even 120, fps and then twixtoring the clip (not all the time, of course). You'd be surprised how seemingly ordinary footage can suddenly be watched over and over again.
A 3rd person's perspective also means that the video can be shot from whatever angle you can think of, e.g. facing the sun, facing away from the sun, pointing the camera slightly up from the horizon, etc. Just need a good stick handle for the GoPro and a steady shooter (this takes a little bit of practice and is important to avoid shaky video).
Unfortunately, I haven't Youtube'd any of my videos yet, but if you're interested in seeing the results I can send you an example some other way.