Category Archives: Video & Filming

Film Obsession – Art of Flight Snowboarding Movie

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Art of flight movieMy new obsession and I can’t stop watching it, talking about it and sharing it with friends. The new Art of Flight movie from Brain Farm is just a total senses overload, some of the most incredible snowboarding footage I’ve ever seen. Featuring incredible footage shot on the CineFlex HD, RED, Panasonic AJ-HPX3700, and Phantom HD Gol, the incredible Cineflex stabilising gimbal hanging underneath the Red Bull makes for some super incredible imagery. Awesome slow mo and great use of polygon effects, you won’t be dissapointed watching it. Highly recommended- just download it from iTunes and see for yourself!

Here’s the trailer on Vimeo:

Incredible Highlining & Base Jumping Video – Beautiful Filming.

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sebmontazAn amazing video I have enjoyed in the last few days enough to share, a wonderful example of amazing footage shot high up in the world, beautiful colours and great choices of lenses… and obviously amazing content – those guys are just properly mental. If you’re scared of heights you may need something to grip onto…! Thanks to Ben for sending the link my way. Enjoy. View full screen and in full HD (scaling off)

New video for The Exotic Garden shot on the Canon 5DMK2

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Will and I made a new video to show off some of the recent changes in his Exotic Garden in Norwich, this is still only the 5th small video i’ve ever made, so I understand it’s not the best, I’m a photographer, not a videographer – but I do like the challenge of learning new things, especially as it’ll help a little bit to promote the garden for Will…

Fimed on the Canon 5DMK2, with both the Canon 24-70 2.8 L and the 16-35mm 2.8 L, p/p on Final Cut pro. Used a Rode videomic for sound.

Some of the equipment I used for this:

Beautiful video: Becoming (2009) by Wandering Eye

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I came across this beautiful video on Vimeo earlier today, stunningly shot, composed and creatively directed, shot on the RED One camera by a group called Wandering Eye. Incredible use of a jib arm to get the smooth movement over the water at the beginning of the video, excellent use of shallow depth of field and stunning colouring. The woman’s movement is just seamless, twinned with use of wide angle lenses and slow camera movement alongside her creates a incredible short movie in my opinion. This video is the second in the series.

“Nature’s assassin emerges from an ancient forest to confront Man and his relentless expansion in one final battle. This is the second part in a tetralogy about our relationship with nature and the return of the goddess…” from Wandering Eye on Vimeo.

“The movement was created with an EZ FX Jib Arm with a remote head (Camera Turret PT24) on a simple doorway dolly with 12 feet of tracks. The camera was upside down so that we could get as low as possible to the water and our crane grip, dolly grip, remote head operator(DP), and focus puller(1stAC) rehearsed the shot for a few hours before our performer, Jessica Keeling, got in that freezing water and held still for that long approach. We almost didn’t get the shot, but that night, when we all saw the first three shots of the day and of the movie – the whole crew was sharing a house on the Niagara escarpment – we knew that we were doing something special and everything changed… the whole group came together for a 7 day shoot that pushed our creative boundaries into what was for us unknown territory. There’s a lot more about the making of here… www.becomingthefilm.com

Video: International pillow fight day in LA, filmed on the 5DMK2

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Beautiful short video filmed on the Canon 5DMK2 by Will Goodan of thr international pillow fight day in central LA, some great shallow depth of field from the wide angle 24mm f1.4 Canon lens. I’m yet to try out my super wide lens whist filming.. can’t wait. Looks like great fun.. but an asthmatics nightmare!

Pillowhead from Will Goodan on Vimeo.

“As part of international Pillow Fight Day – Los Angeles, some friends and I biked to downtown to see what’s up. The energy levels were through the roof. I had no intention of making a video, but the atmosphere sort of was asking to be properly documented. I took my camera straight into the core of the arena. Music By: Sylvia – Pillow Talk” Will Goodan

Great music video, compelling watching. Love it. (Cinnamon Chasers – Shot on Canon 5D)

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I stumbled across this music video whilst looking at videos shot with the Canon 5DMK2, a compelling watch that keeps you constantly on the edge of your seat. It just ‘works’ really well. Enjoy.
Cinnamon Chasers – Luv Deluxe (Music Video) by Saman Keshavarz



Cinnamon Chasers – Luv Deluxe (Music Video) from Saman Keshavarz on Vimeo.

SXSW 2010 WINNER! Best Music Video

http://www.sxsw.com/node/4649

Luv Deluxe by Cinnamon Chasers
Album: A Million Miles From Home
Director: Saman Keshavarz ( http://www.myspace.com/saman_keshavarz )
Producer: Francis Pollara
Associate Producer: Nate Eggert
Cinematographer: Justin Gurnari
Editor: Nate Tam
Actress: Darcy Ripley ( http://pasmaldarcy.blogspot.com )
© Modus Records / Koch Entertainment 2009

www.cinnamonchasers.com
samankeshavarz.blogspot.com

**Shot entirely on the Canon 5D Mark II w/ a custom face mounted rig — Canon Lenses used: 14mm (f2.8) & 24mm (f1.4)**

Video: New adventures with Video | Canon 5DMK2

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This week has been a steep learning curve, finally had some time to jump straight into 1080p HD video with my Canon 5DMK2 and other kit. Wow, a lot to learn, and then started up Final Cut Pro…. things then got a whole lot more complicated within seconds..

I took the logical step of spending a while researching how to actually get the video from the camera and into Final Cut Pro, through another program – MPEG Streamclip it seems, anyway, I’ll save the tech talk for dedicated post rather than to just confuse matters even more here. Eventually getting to grips with the total basics of FCP and import/export etc, I got a couple of quick test videos up on my Vimeo account (Like youtube, but a much better quality and experience) so I could start documenting my progress as I learn. I felt it was important to get it all in one place so I can see (hopefully) how I progress over the next few months, years..

My friend Will Giles from the Exotic Garden, an exotic plant gardening genius was the ideal test subject for my first ‘testing’ videos.. he’s the king of non stop verbal spouting, as you can probably see! Hopefully we’ll get to a stage where we can make some short ‘how to’ videos around his garden documenting what he does best.

I also bought a new external mic for the camera, a RODE Videomic (See here).. which I’m still learning how to use, so please bear with me!

So here is the outcome of day one, video one.. slight colour grading and styling in FCP, all shot on the Canon 5DMK2, Canon 24-70L lens, RODE Videomic, MpegStreamclip,FCPro.

The Exotic Garden of Will Giles from Chris Ridley on Vimeo.

First test HD 1080p footage from the Canon 5D MK2

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Started testing the Canon 5Dmk2 1080p HD video capability today & getting to grips with the camera, Final Cut Pro, MpegStreamer and everything else that goes along with it. I’m not claiming to know anything about video production, filming etc just yet.. but hopefully over the next year or so inbetween doing normal stills photography, my spare time will be learning about video… assuming I have the time that is.

So, this is just a little taster, for me anyway – as it’s the first bit of footage I’ve got online. I’ll try and remember as many tech settings as I can.. but bear with me, it’s all very early days.

I feel like the time I was first learning about ISO, aperture and shutter speed, at the time it felt like information overload. Well it’s happened again, but quite a few years later – it’s all pretty exciting really! Yes it’s not a great video, but it’s not meant to be – just a test!

Canon 5Dmk2, Firmware update for 25P and manual control. HD 1080p. 24-70L at 70mm. 25P, 1/50th at either f/2.8 or f5/.6 – ISO 100. Converted in MpegStreamer, then into Final Cut Pro. Edited in Final Cut Pro, added some colouring, contrast and vignetting.

Amazing stop motion animation from Patrick Boivin

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Stumbled across some awesome stop frame animation today from Canadian Patrick Boivin, and as usual with film I’m quite slow on the uptake with this – as this ad has been around for few months already.
Nevertheless, it’s an amazing bit of work, it’s stop motion animation – and after watching the ‘how he did it’ clips on youtube, you can really start to see quite how much time and effort he has spent not just individually frame by frame filming, but also the huge amount of time spent working in front of greenscreens, using wires and clips to hold the ‘off the shelf’ toys, designing the ‘sets’, creating some of the music, and post processing and editing the entire videos… etc etc. A very talented and dedicated guy, and just look at the final results – stunning.

“Since I didn’t go to film school, nobody told me I wasn’t supposed to do everything.”

“Patrick Boivin (born 1975) is a film-maker from Montreal, Quebec, Canada best known for stop motion short films. In addition to directing, he is often involved in the lighting, editing, animation, special effects and even music in his films.”

Links: Patrick Boivin on YouTube

Inspired: Photographer Vincent Laforet – from stills to video.

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Vincent Laforet, the creative genius that as a by product of his creativity has probably sold more Canon 5D mark2′s than all the Canon sales reps put together. (Canon 5Dmk2 – one of the first generation digital SLR cameras with full 1080p HD capability, a technological landmark and turning point for the convergence of videographers and photographers)

Old news, yes, I know – Reverie has been around for some time, but it is only at this point in my creative travels that it really has dawned on me quite how much this has been affecting my creative thinking since published.

Vincent, a stills photography professional (Bio here) seemed to be one of the first creatives on the scene when the Canon 5Dmk2 was launched back in winter 2008, an expert photographer by profession with some knowledge of filming, but by no means an expert with filming. A tribute to stills photographers worldwide, he picked up the new 5D, applied his incredible depth of knowledge from stills capture, together with a team of guys and some great kit – to produce one of the first, polished, shining examples of HD video from the Canon 5Dmk2. This film was certainly one of the driving factors for me to start using the 5Dmk2 for more than just stills.

The video, ‘Reverie’ became an overnight success, crashing servers and video hosting sites all over the world, and this clip single handedly must have sold hundreds, if not thousands of cameras off the back of it. Since releasing Reverie, he has gone on to produce a number of other short videos, my favourite being chapter one of ‘The Cabbie‘.

Take a look at his first film highlighted below, ‘Reverie – by Vincent Laforet‘

Time to get up to speed with HD video… finally.

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For the last couple of years my interest has been steadily been increasing for HD video and now it is reaching the critical point in my brain where I want (need) to invest some serious amount of time researching and coming up to speed with it all – I feel rather in the dark. Having always been a photography kind of person I’ve always stayed fairly clear of video, seeing it as the scary dark side… I know it’s totally different technology, and a totally different way of thinking, but I think that hopefully some of my technical and creative knowledge should prove some help in the transition. I’ve had access to some decent kit over the years, but never properly given it much time and attention…but this must change!

We had the Canon HV20 for a while, great little lightweight HD video camera we bought for some aerial filming testing a couple of years ago, and some of the video that was coming out of the HV20 was incredible, the video I have embedded below was one the of the first clips I saw of the HV20. This clip thoroughly sealed the deal for me and we bought the camera the same week. I love the style and the colouring especially – it was done on very low budget, but the quality is amazing. Inspirational stuff.
I have since moved up from the Canon HV20 to using the 1080p HD of my new Canon 5D mark 2 DSLR – a steep learning curve, and still on the bottom slopes…but one day eh?..

Anyway, take a look at “Rainy Day by Batteryfire.com”, filmed totally on the HV20. Enjoy.