High heels in motion
I'm trying to transfer my still image look to film, and this is an attempt to do so. One girl, two feet, too many shoes. Heartbreaking :-) Many thanks to Linn Lichtermann for contributing with gorgeous shoes and legs. It's an art alone just being able to walk in such high heels.
The footage contains some time-lapse sequences made with flashes instead of continuous light. It makes it possible to have different lighting setups for each frame, and fade between these lighting setups during playback, making the lights appear to change during time and camera movements. The opening sequence is one of those, and the other spinning-around-shoes scenes, like the ones where the light varies and kind of shimmers.
[same video but in YouTube HD, takes time loading]
It's been a learning experience, and there's some stuff in the capture and workflow I've adjusted for the next production, to make the strobed time-lapse sequences smoother; if you look closer, you can see some imperfections, but I know how to dial them away now. If there's interest, I'll have a how-to-video up soon to show how it's done, and what to think of to make it work well.
Most camera movements are smooth though, and this footage makes playback issues very apparent; if your computer/player skips just one single frame, it's evident right away, above all in the spinning-around scenes. The iPhone YouTube player is quite smooth over WiFi though.
Post grading is done in Photoshop and Lightroom, since I'm familiar with the programs as a photographer. I've used the Canon 5D mk II, mostly with EF 35/1.4 and TS/E 24/3.5 II. It's a bless to be able to correct perspective directly with tilt/shift during capture, since doing so in post will sacrifice resolution; there's no room for down-scaling, as opposed to still photography.
The soundtrack is stitched up and rearranged a little, to fit the footage. If you like Dinah Washington, her music is available in iTunes.
Cheers folks! /Peter
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40 comments:
Amazing work. Great use of the new features and blended technologies.
Love the rotating shoe in the air.
Great to hear you've enjoyed it!
The rotating shoes in air uses a big white softbox-looking background as the only light source; a Lastolite HiLite.
Very slick Peter!
I love the way you've closed it. Very smooth & quite sophisticated. :)
Thanks Alex!
I aimed at making a reference back to the start in the closing sequence. And a chance to recycle a rotating shoe clip :-)
Fishing lines made it quite easy to suspend the shoe against a white backdrop, without too much work to get it floating around without the strings being visible.
Peter - Great work here. I love the smooth motion of your camera work. Looking forward to seeing more of how you do that. A great concept too.
Nice words, I appreciate it. I'll try to finish the how-to flick this week. Cheers /Peter
Really beatyful work!
Can you just explain how you did the rotating shoes with the fishing lines
:-)
It's quite simple;
Just a shoe hanging in a fishing line, that will never come in front of the shoe itself during rotation. Wind it up using the line, so it rotates by the line itself, slowly. Film it at an angle, so the rotation looks off axis. Then rotate the whole scene in post production around the line-of-sight, and you have instant off-axis two-way-rotation in air :-)
Thank's Peter, that's quite engenious!
Did you use the glidetrack for the movement on the shoe?
I would love to see your rotation rig that you built, not really clear on how that works... BTW you are a very tallented photographer/videographer!
Many thanks!
Jup, it's the Glidetrack. It's a really useful and not very expensive kit: if I had to choose between a fluid head and the track, I'd choose the Glidetrack. Actually, there's not a single head pan in any of my videos so far. Will try it though :-)
Rotating rig is coming!
Cool!
have been looking at the glidetrack for some time now and I'm about to order one. Just got my 7D.
Looking forward to see the rotate rig!
Your blog is bookmarked.
Ah, you'll enjoy the 7D and the Glidetrack, I'm sure. Happy shooting/filming.
You said that you use Photoshop in post, could you explain the workflow?
Do you take a frame, photoshop it and apply it to an image sequence or how do you use it?
In Photoshop Extended you can import a QuickTime movie, like the one coming from your 7D, and use most of Photoshops tools on it. Some filter requires you to first convert the layer into a smart object. After your corrections, that can also be modulated over time, you can export different movie files. Note: just saving does not make a movie; it saves the corrections to the movie file. Quite convenient and space efficient actually.
Very interesting! I haven't explored the extended version as I use Final cut and after effects for my editing, I really have to try that technique.
This whole DSLR thing is quite new to me, I've been working as an editor and photographer for about 15 years using everything from 16mm to RED.
Now I'm trying to migrate to a DSLR workflow and I got to say that your work is VERY inspiring! Since you obviously are very good at PS your film work looks stunning.
I would love to know more about your workflows.
Keep it up!
I'd love to try out the RED. You have a lot of experience, I'm very flattered you find my work inspiring.
I'm still trying to figure out my workflow, right now I'm using a proxy 540p AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) workflow for trying out quick draft edits and grading, and when it feels right, I'm swapping the proxies for rendered clips from the native 5D files with the same Photoshop adjustments to Avid 1080p DNxHD 10-bit 4:2:2 files.
It's a free codec, the best I've tried. I don't own ProRes though, everyone seems to use it. AIC is really crappy, especially in the highlights, but plays smooth on my system as proxies.
Cheers /P
: )
Well, I've been working for quite a while now but since the technical development has been enormous the recent years I feel like I'm rediscovering the whole field every day, which is very interesting.
I have never worked on the Avid system myself but I have friends that has. Luckily in Final cut there is this Eos movie plugin that Canon released and it's working like a charm. You just hook your card reader in and do a log and transfer and Final Cut transcodes it to ProRes 422 which by the way I find to be a great codec that I've been working with for a while on other projects too.
The RED is a delight to do post in, it's like comparing to work with a jpg and a RAW file in still photography.
The workflow has been a bit sketchy, especially in the beginning but it's definetly worth the hazzle. A bit on the expensive side though...
I did a little test bringing a clip into Photoshop and I really like that workflow for grading short clips!
Thank's for sharing your tricks and skills Peter!
Ah, working on raw files would be sweet; as you said, now it's like working on JPGs. Really important to make good settings in-camera.
A hint; if you save a PSD or TIF in Photoshop when editing a QuickTime file, you can render out that PSD or TIF in AE. Nice if you want to batch them, and got lots of cores.
Well, let's hope that we get raw in the next Canon version! I use a flat setting in my 7D and by doing that I can do a little more in post.
Thank's for the tip! Do you mean saving every frame as a tif or psd, or how? Didn't know that you could do that in an easy manner.
Could you please explain what you mean?
Quite some conversation this :-)
I also use a flat setting, just the natural with contrast all the way down. Works!
If you save a .PSD from Photoshop, after opening a Quicktime movie file and having done adjustments to it, you can drag that .PSD into an AE project, and just play it and/or render it as usual in AE. So no need to save every frame, just a simple normal Photoshop .PSD save from the Quicktime, and then drag it into AE.
I guess using AE directly will be faster if you've got the skills and know the program well, like I guess you do.
Cheers /P
Wow! That was a very nice and handy trick! Just tried it and that is a really great batch workflow, definetly going to implement that.
Super thank's!
I've been working with AE for about 7-8 years so I know my way around the software.
Once again, thank's for sharing! I hope I can return the favour somehow in the future.
Looking forward to see the rotating rig!
Gonna do some tests with the PS/AE workflow when I get the time (two little kids takes most of it...)
Keep up the good work. I'll be checking out your blog on a daily basis!
Allright, take care of the kids and have fun with the 7D!
Thank you sir!
Hey Peter!
How's it comming with the pics of the rotating thingie? I'm soooo curious!
Sorry, I've just been busy with lots of work lately – I actually used all five of the tent-pole light stands on two photo shoots this week (like taking pictures of Saabs new CEO). Made it possible to have two ready lighting setups in two different rooms, and fast switching between sets (those CEOs don't like to wait).
I'll try to get the last bits ready this weekend!
Cheers dude /Peter
That's awesome!
I really enjoy whatching your commercial work, just exelent!
At last I got my glidetrack and z-finder so now I'm looking for a good enough monitor.
Take care
Ah, seems you're stacking up on good equipment! I haven't tried an external monitor yet, sometimes I use a MacBook Air via USB and Canon Utilities, but there's a lot of lag and really low frame-rates. Usable with static subjects and tripod though, when determining follow focus points. When you find a good monitor, I'm interested in hearing about it!
The weekend had too much good weather, so I spent it outside instead of editing. But maybe this coming one...
Until then, here's the parts for time-lapse:
Sturdy tripod, flippable column
Pole Manfrotto 272
Tube clamp Manfrotto 271
Geared head Manfrotto 410 (or better)
Fasten 271 clamp to 410 plate; drill, screws!
Small ball head
Counter-weight
For film, just switch 410 to a sturdy fluid head. Drill and lock plates here too. A cheap Manfrotto 501 HDV works for me.
Cheers!
Super great!
Of course you should take advantage of the nice weather!
Me, myself and I has been deep into producing a commercial with green screen and 3D. Shot with the Red One.
tilted camera and full figure. Lots of pixels...
I was thinking of the "small HD" that you can pre order only but I think I will settle with a Lilleputt or similar just to get a bigger screen.
Take care!
Hope your project is smooth rolling. I'll have to try green screen some day.
Could you elaborate on the Small HD and Lilleputt; guess they are HDMI monitors? I don't have much of a clue about these things :-)
I'm experimenting with temporal noise reduction in AE, to see what it can do with compression artefacts from the 5D mk II. Long rendering times though.
Keep up the work dude
Hmmm... what artefacts do you get from the 5D?
The small HD monitor seems quite nice and a resonable price IMO.
Check it out here:
http://smallhd.com/
Here is a link for the Lilliput:
http://www.carcomputer.co.uk/shop/monitors/hdmi-monitors/7-inch-monitors/lilliput-669gl-70np-c-t-7-touch-screen-monitor-with-hdmi
Well, about artefacts; I usually don't see much of them in original footage, it's when I start grading the clips more heavily that compression artefacts start to show, much like JPG artefacts look like, and shows if the files are worked heavily. So, to be able to grade more, I do some noise reduction to smooth the artefacts before grading; mostly in the bokeh/defocus parts, where it tends to show the most.
Thanks for the tips about the monitors!
You're most welcome!
I have also noticed some small not so good looking downsides of the files from the 7D. I´ve been thinking of buying a Nano flash to get "uncompressed" 422 from the HDMI. It's a bit heavy on the wallet but I think it's really the only way to use Canon as a film camera in a professional manner.
Take care.
Hi!
Interesting conversation. For some time I'm fascinated with your work Peter. You are, as a photographer, in my top five (with Alexia Sinclair, Erwin Olaf and Ted tadder) Well, I'm movie editor and amateur photographer from Sarajevo, Bosnia, and we are in postproduction of feature film shoot on 5D mark II. Don't want to spend the words on how amazing is this camera. We used Zeiss primes with Canon mount and Zacuto camera rig. Great combination.
About atifacts, in native Mpeg4 from camera I also see artifacts, but when converted in ProRes artifacts are gone. The best way is to convert to ProRes with one small program called MPEG Streamclip. It's free and you can find it on: www.squared5.com
For monitoring I'm using Marshall V-LCD70XP-HDMI, great monitor with features such as False Color and Peaking. For now, that's it.
Cheers!
Anonymous & Mido,
I'll look into the ProRes in the future, maybe there's some integrated cleaning-up of artefacts being done; I've heard that Cineform is doing that too each time encoding takes place.
Much thanks for the comments about my photosgraphy.
Cheers guys /P
Wow!
Coulc you consider doing a "behind the scenes" for this movie? Its really good.
Good to hear you liked it!
I've got a sort-of-behind-the-scenes almost done, but too much commercial work to find time to finish it. I'll get to it eventually, hopefully, maybe, sometimes
Hey Peter!
seems you got a handfull with work, good for you!
How's that rotating "behind the scenes" comming along? ;)
Ah,
I got a little of a bad conscience about this:-/ Lots of work, true. I'll just need to add some talk to it, but haven't got around to it due to all commercial work. Tomorrow there'll be a formation fly-by of 18 Gripen hunter jets over Stockholm, so I'll give it a look through the lens.
Hope everything is working alright. Cheers! /Peter
No worries!
Looking forward to the JAS pics.
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