I recently attended a lecture by Saturday Night Live’s second unit cinematographer Alex Buono as he discussed the current digital “revolution” with the latest D-SLR’s hitting the market. It’s pretty exciting to me that I can afford to use the same camera as an Oscar nominated filmmaker, and it’s not because I’m rich – it’s because these cameras are so affordable.

I’m not going to discuss the cameras because you can go to hundreds of other blogs where they talk and test ad nauseam about the benefits and limitations of them, but I wanted to write about something I wasn’t aware of – the implementation of smart phone apps and Google maps to help with time-lapse photography and the gear used to make “motion” time-lapses.

The best time-lapses are ones that are shot during the “golden” hour. That is, when the sun rises and sets. But if you don’t know where the sun is going to exactly rise or set, then it’s a struggle to get the best footage. That’s where the app sun seeker comes in. Simply turn on the app, choose the day you’re going to shoot, find the spot you want to shoot and locate the sun on that day. It pinpoints precisely where the sun is going to be and what direction it’s going in. If you don’t have access to the app, Google maps is capable of the same thing.

The best time-lapses being created right now are by Tom Lowe. You can check them out on his website Timescapses. They are remarkable for many reasons, but the main reason is that they move. It’s hard enough to get a quality time-lapse on a tripod, but his are actually on a dolly! I’ve been researching for a cheap solution to create the same effects but hadn’t come up with anything better then an egg timer and a piece of tin foil. However, Alex pointed me in the right direction.

Someone with the moniker MILapse has created a great affordable system for motion controlled time-lapse dolly system. You can check out two videos MILapse created to show you how his dolly track works below.

Another cool thing would be to combine the motion of the dolly track to a motion controlled head that was capable of panning and tilting and now you’re talking absolute magic. I found a list of acceptable heads that work with the dolly track on dynamic perception’s webpage here. Here is one example on Amazon.

Dynamic Perception Timelapse Dolly Stage Zero Tour (part 1) from MILapse on Vimeo.

Dynamic Perception MX2 Dolly Controller Tour (part 2) from MILapse on Vimeo.

Here is an example of when you’ve got the dolly and motion head working together:

Timescapes: “Death is the Road to Awe” from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

I recently recorded a second Halloween party for a friend. Those that know me know that I don’t like doing live events but for the right price or a friend I don’t mind so much. It’s not that I’m miserable doing them, but the margin of error is so slim that if you miss it you’re screwed and I don’t like failing. Imagine filming a wedding and missing her say “I do” because of a dead battery or imagine filming the entire event on a defective card (which I’ve done before, but it was on a set so it wasn’t dire). That’s a lot of pressure and there are those out there that are good at it. I am not. Anyways, this shoot wasn’t as important as a wedding but there’s a little bit of stress associated with it because people other than me expect results.

When I got the footage home from the party, I was less than thrilled. Because the room we were shooting in had brown walls and not having filters for my lights everything was orange. I knew it while I was shooting it, but I couldn’t fix it. I just white balanced and hoped to fix in post. Thankfully, because of a kind donation from Hellphone, I recently received Magic Bullet Looks and Magic Bullet Mojo and got my first opportunity to use this brilliantly made software. I was going to show a little before and after color correction, but maybe some other time.

A couple of years ago, I discovered this amazing photography technique called tilt-shift. While looking for cool websites, I ran into a website by world-renowned photographer Vincent Laforet who was doing tilt-shift with sporting events and giving them a new unusual look. With tilt-shift, it makes things shot at a distance look like miniatures. I was fascinated by how it gave ordinary boring photos a completely new dimension.

After doing a little online research, I ran into some videos, made by Keith Loutit, using the same tilt-shift effect and was blown away. I thought they were some of the coolest short videos I’d ever seen. So, of couse, I had to copy him. While my effort isn’t as good as his, I came close. I need to speed up my frame rate for the time-lapse and I’ll get there. I imagine he’s got an intervalometer just firing away at the fastest rate his camera will give him.

Here is my first attempt at a tilt-shift video:

For better quality, visit my Vimeo site.

Well, it was that time of the year again. The time of the year when people throw rhyme and reason out the window and succumb to chaos. The annual 48 Hour Film Festival had descended upon Greensboro this weekend and for the fourth year in a row, I was involved in it. Unlike the previous years, I decided to go ambitious and do something I had yet to do — direct a large cast and crew. Now fourteen people hardly seems like a large crew, but when you’re previous number is three, it can be a bit daunting.

This was a year of firsts for me: first time with a large crew, first time not directing my own script, first time not editing my own footage, first time feeling the pressure and becoming a little unraveled on a set. I wish I could say it was the first time I ever got a rash but unfortunately……

The air was hot that day, my friends, like coffee from a McDonald’s drive through. We shot seven hours in a factory warehouse with no air conditioning and no ventilation. I don’t know what dumb director thought that was a good idea, but it was not. Not only was it hot, but it was dirty. It seemed like every time I did anything I was covered in soot. Not a good thing when everyone is dressed in business attire. I’m actually happy the prop was a bandanna – I had something to mop my sweaty forehead. I was planning on being done with that set by noon, but nothing seemed to go as planned (which is par for the course during this festival), so we didn’t wrap that set until 3:00 pm. I’m actually surprised the cast and crew didn’t mutiny. I would have.

Thank goodness the second location had air conditioning. It was like going from hell to heaven. It seemed to uplift everyone’s spirits and got us moving along much faster. We were wrapped up at that set within three hours and I had plenty of time to get to my friend’s Gilligan’s Island theme party and drink myself to amnesia.

I stumbled out of bed on Sunday at around 10:00 am and checked my phone to see if I hadn’t missed the need for re-shoots call. I, to my amazement, had not. I headed down to High Point University to see how the editing was going and things weren’t going so well. Our four minute film was going to be short — by two minutes. But Brad (the editor), came up with a very creative solution that I think improved what we had and we were able to come in on time — by one second. I let Brad go to work while I headed down to Hooters to have lunch and enjoy the….wings.

I came back to High Point University at 5:00 to have a look at the footage, fill out the wrap up form (too many damn freaking forms!), and write out the credits. Things seemed to be going fine, but the film still wasn’t finished with a lot left to do. I started to get nervous. And then at around 6:30 things went from bad to worse. Final Cut Pro was only rendering half of the SD version. It appeared to render fine, but only two minutes was rendered out. We double checked the out point on the time-line and rendered again — same thing! So we were forced to render out to HD first and then to SD at 6:45 and I was at least a half hour away from the drop off point in Greensboro. This time if the render didn’t work it wasn’t going to be in on time. I promised Brad that if he could have that done and on a flash drive by 7:10, I could be at the drop off by 7:30. Brad told me to get in my car and have the engine ready. Tick tock, tick tock.

I waited in my car for what seemed like an eternity. Brad jumped out the door, down the steps and handed me the flash drive at 7:08. Breaking every driving law imaginable, I shot towards Greensboro like a cannon. My engine screamed and I said, “shut up and let me drive.” Through red lights, slow drivers and oncoming traffic, I made my way towards Greensboro with only one thing on my mind: I’m glad this weekend is done. I parked my car and ran down the street in my achingly painful flip-flops towards the Broach’s entrance. Hurdling pedestrians, I jumped through the door at……..7:28! Wow, room to spare. I guess I didn’t need to run that last red light.

Well, it’s another year in the books. To quote Peterman: “congratulations on a job…done.” I want to thank my cast and crew for being troopers and helping me along the way. I couldn’t have done it without them. I had a great time and looking forward to doing it again next year — for some odd reason.