08 April 2011 | Posted in inspiration, video, web I came across this short film/commercial by Norwegian director Howie Arnstad for eco clothing label FIN Feline. It was filmed on the Phantom HD Gold camera, which can record a 1000 frames per second in full HD resolution. It makes ordinary things look somewhat surreal, especially with the color grading and the slightly underexposed look.
01 April 2011 | Posted in inspiration, marketing, storytelling, user experience, video, web ;)
Mercedes-Benz recently released a couple of interactive films on their website, featuring their SLK and C-Class Coupe models. Although they are sometime struggling to bridge the gap between creating engaging entertainment and communicating information about the cars, I have to say the films are cinematically quite beautiful. The C-Class Coupe film is modelled after Hollywood-style action thrillers, whereas the SLK film is a road movie featuring... you, the viewer, stuck in the desert, when a beautiful and mysterious stranger pulls up in her fancy SLK.
From a user experience point of view I'm always on a fence with interactive movies. It has to do with storytelling. A good story needs a storyteller, who skillfully guides you through the twists and turns of the narrative. Introducing user input always makes me feel I might not be getting the best experience, the best version of the story. The point-of-view style cinematography in the SLK movie on the other hand is interesting and does kind of draw you into the action, making the interaction aspect feel more natural.
25 March 2011 | Posted in experimental, video ;)
Sometimes you want lots of control, to be able to tweak, post-process and color correct every single image or shot until it's exactly how it needs to be. Sometimes it's nice to keep things raw. And I don't mean shooting RAW files. Au contraire, I've been experimenting with shooting video using the Canon 5D mark II's picture styles, allowing you to bake a certain look into your shot.
Whereas you would normally shoot using relatively "flat" low contrast settings, I dialed in a harsh, high contrast black and white look. This severely limits the possibilities in post production, but that's the whole point. There's some creative satisfaction to be had from just creating things in-camera and working with what you have.
;)
Playing with RED test footage in REDcineX
I've been playing around with some RED test footage lately. RED has recently released their new Epic camera into the wild, and I'm curious to learn more about this type of imaging technology. To give you an idea of what this camera is capable of:
5K resolution - The epic features a massive 14 megapixels of resolution (5120 x 2700 pixels). Do we really need that many megapixels? Depends on who you ask. I've often found that, in order to get a nice, crisp high definition look, you need to start off with a higher resolution than what your output is going to be. It also leaves some room for cropping in post.
Shooting RAW - Imagine being able to color grade your footage with the same ease as editing a RAW photo in Aperture or Lightroom. In fact, each frame of video footage on the Epic is in effect a RAW photo. All this power comes at a price of course, in the form of huge file sizes.
Flexible frame rates - Up to 120 frames per second, for epic (pardon the pun) slow motion shots.
High dynamic range - The Epic has a built-in HDR more, in which a second, shorter exposure is made for each frame, increasing the available dynamic range.
Modular - The Epic is not so much a camera, it's a modular system. At it's core is the "brain" as RED calls it, in essence a box with a sensor in it. You can attach all sorts of storage, power, monitoring and other modules on the back and lenses on the front of the brain. This makes it extremely flexible and versatile.
29 September 2010 | Posted in photography, projects, video A while ago I shot some impressions of the Toyota Auris, together with Marc Cornelissen, who has been featured on this blog before. The Auris is a new hybrid model that Toyota is introducing right now, combining a traditional car engine with an electric engine, which makes it extremely fuel efficient.
We decided to film at the "Maasvlakte", an artificial extension of the Rotterdam harbour. Here you'll find traditional heavy industry and coal-burning power plants right next to windmills, representing a move towards renewable energy sources. We thought it would be a nice metaphor for the gap that the Auris is trying to brigde.
Hope you enjoy the end result. The spoken parts are actually in Dutch, but if you don't speak Dutch, hopefully the images speak for themselves.
16 May 2010 | Posted in news, projects, storytelling, video Recently I finished this trailer for Marc Cornelissen, dutch polar explorer and sustainability pioneer. The project was quite involved and presented a lot of interesting challenges. I'm in the process of writing a long blog post about how it all came together. In the mean time however, enjoy the end result. This one is in dutch since we're still working on the english version, but I think you'll get the picture anyway.
Knowledge is the only resource that increases when shared, and it's becoming more common recently for photographers and cinematographers to share background stories about their productions with the rest of the world. In that spirit I wrote a little piece about the production of "The Edge of Africa" for DigitalCinemaFoundry.com. The tagline of the site is "Learn. Capture. Share." and it's is a great inspirational and educational resource, not just for professional filmmakers, but also for others who want to find about the ideas and execution behind video productions.
It’s been a long time in the making, but I finally finished my latest short film titled The Edge of Africa. It was filmed in South Africa back in July 2009. You may have already seen some of the footage from that same trip in A short hike in Gansbaai.
The Edge of Africa took a bit longer to come together, and was recorded at Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa. It's where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. The local ocean currents and temperamental weather have caused many ships to end up in pieces on the rocks. I tried to capture the moody and rugged atmosphere of the place by using a dramatic, contrasty black and white look.
Everything was filmed on a Canon 5d Mk2 with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. Color grading was mostly done in Magic Bullet Looks. The music is Only Now by Red Friday. It’s available on iTunes here.
Below are a couple of stills from a little video project I've been working on. And no, it's not a BMW commercial. Although I would love to do something like that if they decided to hire me. Click "read more" for more images.
22 February 2010 | Posted in inspiration, video Below are two videos I recently saw on Vimeo, that at first glance have nothing in common. The first one is an abstract, computer generated composition of colorful lines, set to a minimalist piece of music.
Creator ku-schneider makes use of a couple of interesting techniques to make the whole thing come to life. For example, virtual camera shake is used to make it look as if the video was shot on a hand-held camera. This makes the extremely abstract patterns all of a sudden appear more real, because our eyes have become used to to shaky camera footage of real life situations. Shallow depth of field (not everything is in focus at the same time) is used to enhance that effect.
