A different angle

It's amazing sometimes how the way something is filmed changes your perception of it, and I don't just mean visually. Recently, I was working with Philip de Roo on creating a short promo clip. The idea was to shoot Philip from two different angles (and don't worry, this is not going to be a technical story about camera angles). One camera, a Canon XH-A1 was positioned straight in front of Philip, and another one, a Canon 5d MkII, was off to the side.

So far so good, but somehow after about half an hour we both felt we weren't really getting anywhere and decided to call it a day. Nonetheless we had a quick look at what we had captured, just in case there were any useful bits after all. The footage from the XH-A1 looked pretty boring, it just lacked something. The images captured by the 5d MkII told a completely different story however. Below you can see some screen captures of the two side by side. Unfortunately I can't show you the actual footage - Philip will kill me - so images will have to do.

Many wonderful qualities have been attributed to the 5d MkII and you have to admit that this camera, in combination with the angle, make Philip look a lot more interesting here. However, the most remarkable thing about this exercise was that, when watching this footage, what Philip said was making a lot more sense. Before, it looked like he was struggling with his words, not very convincing. Now it sounded like there were actually some very usable segments. Yet, it was the exact same thing, just filmed differently. I was surprised to see how much the visual aspect influenced how one perceives what is being said.

Comments

[Philip de Roo]

Where did you find this Armand???
I will kill you when you will send more… ;-)

Your site looks GREAT!

Cheers!
Philip