Originally Posted by Beachmonk22
On that subject, I found this piece a couple of months ago. It is written by one of the guys who used to film footage from the old Coccozella website. Obviously he filmed a while ago so some methods might be a bit outdated, such as the radio cassette player method which, if anything, would arouse suspicion now.
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Ilovethebeach, Rafian, Candid King, Jackass Videos, Sandfly's Videos, Uncle Chester's Videos and all the other hidden cam videos of nudists at the beach were all very real and unstaged. I know this because I am one of them with a series of nude beach videos I sold for years.
Let me expound upon this...
Over the years I produced many high-quality videos (well, high quality for their time) of nudist beaches in California including Blacks, Rincon, San Onofrie, Summerland and More Mesa, the first two being in the San Diego area and the latter three being near Santa Barbara. I also filmed at Pirate's Cove near San Luis Obispo. They were marketed on a site no longer around called Coccozellas, and went as "Brad's California Dreamin'", videos 1 through 9. Each was about 1-hour long.
As mentioned, it is difficult to get good quality video these days. The cameras are intentionally compact and smaller with smaller lens, often shaky, the resolution is poor for distant objects and much cameras use a very small lens thus making objects more than 15 feet away seeming to be much further away than reality.
Several factors made the older video cameras much better.
First, they had larger lens with larger apertures allowing in more image per pixel. They also had *optical* zoom ability, which was similar to how a telescope zooms in, and mine had x40 capability. "Digital zoom" was/is a joke because it basically took whatever the maximum optical image it could get then expanded it digitally, which is the same thing you can do later after filming using a video editor like Adobe Premiere. My ability to zoom in on the subject was only limited by the distortion caused by the heat waves coming off the sand. And if the subject was within 100 feet, I could get a great closeup without the heat waves affecting the video.
Second, once you have identified a subject, the video camera could not be moved. That creates the problem of making sure the subject was in the middle of the frame, and, making it hard to zoom in and out. This is where technology came in. Some of the video cameras were sold to wildlife photographers and included a phone app. The app would communicate with the video camera and would allow one to change settings, turn on/off the recording as well as zoom in and out. As I laid out (nude of course to blend in), I would be laying on my stomach looking down at my iPhone as though I were texting.
The next challenge was concealing the camera. In the Ilovethebeach videos, I'm certain he used a rolled-up towel around the vid cam. The thing to remember is that if your camera lens was zooming, it could be further back from the opening of the rolled up towel making it difficult to see. I'm sure he had similar monitoring tech such that he didn't have to touch the camera. I used a hollowed-out am/fm cassette player about the size of a large lunch box with the end dial actually being a lens filter.
Lastly, the hardest part - and this is where most video photographers are caught - was making sure the camera was properly pointing in the right direction. Inexperienced video photographers are too aggressive with manipulating their cameras and it becomes obvious. In fact, over the years I was caught a number of times, but I had a trick up my sleeve. I had a second am/fm video cassette player that was unaltered. So when someone confronted me (always a guy that appointed himself the beach police to protect the damsels) I'd pull out the real one and say "You mean this?!" and let them look at it. If he apologized, that would be it. I was pretty buff in those days and if he acted like a jerk, I'd stand up and let him know in no uncertain terms I was about to clock him...he'd *always* walk off with his tail between his legs.
It took me years, and I can't say I ever really mastered the skill, although Cocozella was dumb-founded and asked me "How do you do that? It's like you have you video camera on a tripod".
The key is to blend in, not be overly eager and take one's time realizing you'll miss some great shots but be undiscovered. And do what the best hunters do...they don't stalk their prey, they instead wait for when the prey comes close to them as it keeps the subject unaware. Lastly, it's important to think like a magician - keep audience focused upon a distraction (ergo, texting, reading a book, etc.) In fact, there were more than a couple of times I'd engage in conversation with a naked woman as I secretly videotaped her.
Of course, this is very controversial, and some argue that I was invading someone's privacy. But my view (at the time) was that if someone went to an extremely public beach with dozens/hundreds of people and they stripped naked while walking up and down the beach, they were, by most definitions, exhibitionists that eschewed away privacy in exchange for the eroticism of being seen naked by so many...and my mission was to help them in that goal by exposing them to even more than they expected.
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