Posts related to various topics on this blog.
#heycool – remember the NES Powerglove your friend had back in the 80’s? Check out how this stop-motion animator hacked it to create an important tool for his craft that significantly streamlined his workflow.
It’s a shame so few of us enjoy our work. We loathe the routine because we’ve been entrained to see work in terms of hours on a clock, days into weeks into years… What if we could redefine those routines to give us the flexibility to be present for the people that matter? Whatever you think about the adverse affects of technology on our relationships, there’s something attractive about being able to spend meaningful amounts of time with one’s kids while also being able to accomplish professional responsibilities when necessary.
HP wanted a commercial that took a lighthearted, comical approach to showing off their new tablets equipped with wifi. We delivered. See a Dad who dictates NO ELECTRONICS, but finds himself sneaking wifi breaks when needed. Hats off to our wonderful talent who played like a family would and allowed us to capture a very real to life peek at a Dad with his kids on a trip into the woods.
Produced by: Ryan Gibeau, Ethan Blum
Directed by: Ryan Gibeau
Actors: Josh Wolinsky (Dad), Sydney Newman (Daughter), Demetri Maugeri (son), Kimberley Hellem (co-worker)
Edited by: Travis Bleen, Kelly McDermid
***
Ryan Gibeau is a NYC based filmmaker and a native of New Hampshire. You can follow learn more by visiting Rock*It Films.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the 2016 NH Primary Season is ramping up so expect to see an increased presence of politicians, pundits, issue-driven organizations, international media, and even political tourists (because that’s an actual thing here). I for one am fairly jaded by campaign rhetoric and the blowbags we call our elected officials. Read more
It seems to me like there has been an explosion of timelapse examples lately… many of them truly awe inspiring. Even your flipping iPhone has timelapse features built right into it now. My personal favorites are the examples featuring the wonder of the night sky. So when I saw this post featured on Planet 5D my jaw dropped. Edited by filmmaker Guillaume JUIN, this example incorporates images taken from the International Space Station (ISS), courtesy of NASA.
From the Vimeo description:
What does astronaut see from up there? From the red soil of africa, the blue water of oceans, to the green lights of the poles and yellow light of human activity, discover, throught this journey to space, something astoundingly beautiful and strange at the same time.
I wanted to do something different from what has been done before with those shots. Something more dynamic and fast. After all, ISS travel through space at 28.000km/h! There are also more recent footage that have never been used (at least I think…) in other edits.
All the credit goes to the crew members of ISS expeditions 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, shot from 2011 to 2014.
The international Space Station weigh 377 tons, orbits the earth at around 350km from the surface, and does one spin around the earth in 1h30, at 28.000k/h! At 1’11 we can see a little refueling shuttle desintegrating back to earth. At 1’20, it’s a little telecom satellitte that is launch in orbit. The little green and purple lights you can see at 1’57 are respectively fishing boats and oil platforms offshore with the big city of Bangkok nearby.
All the footage (around 80GB of pictures) was processed throught after effects/premiere, denoised for some shots, removal of dead pixels for some shots, deflickering, and simple color grading (didnt want to change the already incredible look! just curves, saturation, and some blue crushing). Don’t hesitate to comment and ask questions about the video!
Video courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center
eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos
Editing: Guillaume JUIN
guillaumejuin.fr
Music: Astronaut – Vincent Tone
An ad from Bentley has me puzzeled on the one hand, and positively exhilerated on the other. First off, this video exemplifies the importance of stabilization in professional production. But what’s perhaps more intriguing is discovering that it was shot entirely on an iPhone 5s and edited on an iPad Air. I know… Puzzling but equally fascinating.
To be clear, even though this example demonstrates wonderfully the potential of the iOS workflow, the techniques employed by the production crew were highly advanced. In either case, I hope you enjoy.
The NH Film Festival — NHFF — is by far my favorite time of year. It brings so many truly fascinating and talented people to the city from all over the world.
This year, after running the Social Video Competition, I took over the NHFF Vine and Instagram accounts and posted as many short micro-videos from the weekend as I could turn around. Working along with the competition winners, we created a bunch of Vines and Instavids. Check out some of the best examples below.
[vine type=postcard]OqFx0Dij9OB[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]OqUnJuW5li2[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]OqQMhnImiMB[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]OqQ56hwXrai[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]Oq29xapEVUv[/vine]
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[vine type=postcard]OqldgYquJTA[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]Obm30IhWrUe[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]ObKPebgZ2hD[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]ObKE0DHhKWh[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]ObAYdTxPHIe[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]ObqzWn0zUr3[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]ObqMxOXrm3g[/vine]
[vine type=postcard]ObJMIhMqp71[/vine]
I’m a fan of Stephen Colbert, so for me this glimpse behind the curtain is absolutely fascinating. Truly. In this interview, David Plotz speaks with Colbert, who is remarkably candid in his description of the process it takes to create the show every day.
https://soundcloud.com/slateradio/working-stephen-colbert
Here’s a cool demonstration of crowd dynamics in CGi. It’s pretty cool, actually… so check it out, especially if your into this type of thing.
Do you shoot video with an iPhone? Sure you do. And I’m sure you’ve been disappointed with the shake of your hands in at least half of your videos. Well just as technology is totally blowing our minds with everything from artificial intelligence to autonomous vehicles, there’s an app that fixes that shake.
Instagram recently released Hyperlapse, a free app touting incredibly smooth timelapsed video capture. What was perhaps less covered was the fact that you can slow down the video you capture from 6x (default) to 1x for some seriously impressive iphone camera stabilization effects.
Here’s how it works… The app captures video at full 1080 resolution, and then crops that down to 720 while adjusting the frame’s orientation with data collected from the device’s accelerometer. You see, most stabilization filters apply interpretive reference points after the fact, which often yields some undesirable effects. Using the orientation data, the app knows exactly where your hand is and how it’s moving, resulting in near perfect stabilization.
Seriously, test it out. If stabilization matters to you, it will become your new go-to.
**As a bonus to the above video, check out this behind-the-scenes with commentary from the video team at The Verge.
You may not be a fan of the Lav mic, but if you’re a filmmaker or you work with audio, there will almost certainly come a time when you’ll need to keep a lavalier microphone hidden from the camera. This presents several problems: clothing noise, cable noise, chest-hair noise… You get the idea.
In this video, Izzy Hyman offers up some great tips for doing just that… You might even learn a new trick that will come in handy on a set.
Still have questions? Leave a comment.