We did an engagement shoot yesterday and I decided to tag along and test out the new Steadicam Flyer and A1 that we got this year. I ended up putting together a sort of behind the scenes sort of video about the E-shot if you want to check it out. As we did this on our own, I had a lot more flexibility in the editin and what not so the style is a little different. There are some pretty awesome photos in there too. I absolutely love the last photo that the clip ends with.

Here is a link to the flash video:

http://stillmotionblog.com/?p=51

Patrick
www.still-motion.ca

absolutely brilliant..

the colour matching between stills and the video and saturation levels really show a eye for detail.. it FELT right..

one thing.. u might already know this, but with ur slowmotion shots, try a faster shutter, or maybe interpolate the slowmotion and render the slowmotion out in steps (such as 5% incremements uncompressed using interpolation.. this way youre creating many more reference frames for the slowmotion to come out smoother.

apart from that, AWESOME!!!

Thanks for the very enthusiastic reply Peter. I appreciate the tips too, although the full rez version looks pretty good- even the slow-mo shots. I imported the HD as using AIC and it allowed me to do a lot more post in real-time. I was actully worried about HD and slo-mo but after seeing some of this stuff at 25% in our meeting room on an HD display it looks pretty good. I'm always looking for tips to get it looking better though so I'll try out your suggestion.

Patrick

That was awesome! Well done!

Peter, I'd never heard that tip on shutter speeds. I'll have to remember to use higher shutter speeds from now on when I'm shooting something I know I want to slo-mo.

As far as incrementing the slo-mo render, are you sure that makes a difference. I work in Final Cut Pro, and I haven't tried that technique. Do you have to change the clip speed to 95%, render, change to 90%, render, change to 85%, render . . . etc., or can you just change to 95%, change to 90%, change to 85% . . all the way to say 50% and THEN render?

this is off topic to this post, but if yoru doing it in increments.. lets say 5%, youre dropping to 95% right..
Now though, render out (uncompressed), and reimport use 95% again, and the final result will be 90%...

do another pass, itll bring it to 85%

what this does is allow the application to work with more frames on the outset...

it really depends on ur program, as i know Vegas does this without having to thnk too much and u dont need all these passes.. Premier pukes at progressive slow mo, edius is OK, Liquid is good.. but not as good as Vegas...

put it this way, the more frames you give your app to process, teh more accurate the slowmotion will be when it comes to interpolated frame drawing.

but when shooting in frame or progressive, you NEED these frames so the interpolation engine can draw the new "in between" frames... without the stutter..

as for shutter speeds.. putit this way..

if u shoot at 1/50th then slow down to 50%, your not only emulating the frame rate, but your also emulating the shutter.. (ie 1/25th)
If however you shoot at a higher shutter (1/120th or 1/250), not only will the image be sharper but when its slowed down (ie 1/60th or 1/120), your still left with a shutter speed which alows for sharpness, BUT is slow enough to offer an effective slowmotion..

now that ive told u my secrets, i have to kill you all...

if anyone has some storage, i can send a webclip giving a better idea... the footage looks like its actually cranked..

You could just post it on YouTube. Thanks for the details. Sorry to pull this off-topic at all.

WOW! That was amaizing! Thanks for sharing! Absolutely one of the most creative and esthetically pleasing engagement shots I have ever seen!! (Love the music too...what piece was it?)

Thanks Dawn,

It is great when you can go to a location such as a broken down barn. We will be doing our first bridal elegance video next month and I am thinking of using the same location.

The song was Michelle Tumes - Lovely, it has a great feel to it for this sort of thing.

Patrick

Thanks Dawn,

It is great when you can go to a location such as a broken down barn. We will be doing our first bridal elegance video next month and I am thinking of using the same location.

The song was Michelle Tumes - Lovely, it has a great feel to it for this sort of thing.

Patrick

Thanks for sharing Patrick. Makes me want to go blow my budget and get a new toy to play with like a Steadicam. Trying to hold off until next year though. But there are so many cool shots you can get with it, and your videos (I peaked at your website) demonstrate them wonderfully! Again, you're work is an inspiration! If you do shoot at the same location, I would love to see the results! What a neat place for a shoot!

Thanks Dawn. Everything on our website was shot with either a Magiqcam (a cheap version of the Steadicam) or a glidecam. Now that we have the Flyer for this season, we should be able to do even more with the camera movement as it really opens the doors. I'll be sure to post the bridal elegance shoot if we end up going to the same location.

Patrick,

How long have you a used the steadicam equipment? Do you most your steadicam footage in slow motion?


PS.. The clips looked great.

Thanks

Jon

Hi Jon,

I started with a homemade glidecam maybe 3 years ago, moved to a glidecam 2000 6 months after that and then bought a Magiqcam probably 14 months or so ago. Just recently I sold the Magiqcam ad got the Steadicam Flyer- which is an amazing investment.

In general, I probably slow down maybe half the shots, but that really depends on the clip and the couple. Here is something on the complete opposite end without anything slowed down:

http://smcouples.com/hodgkinson/credits.mov

Patrick

Patrick, that was awesome. Beautiful pictures too! The steadicam work is absolutely top-notch...

Loving that song too, altho I recall it being in Jason's killer highlight reel too!

Very Nice, Patrick. I purchased a Indicam Pilot last year and used it about 4 times. I need to break it out and practice more.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Jon

Nice looking stuff Patrick, my two favorite shots are probably them 'in solice' laying on the straw field, and the shot of her eyes over his shoulder in the baseball cap.

I liked what you did.

Patrick that was great. Like Peter said, you did a great job of matching the coloration of the two mediums and it came out great. Nice work.

Ben

Nice looking stuff Patrick, my two favorite shots are probably them 'in solice' laying on the straw field, and the shot of her eyes over his shoulder in the baseball cap.


Thanks Steven. We are thinking of doing a poster sized print in metallic paper of either the one at the side of the barn where she is jumping oni his back and her hair is the air, or the one shortly thereafter where they are sitting in the field together with the very dark blue sky. My personal fav is by far the last one as it is very original, in my opinion, and has such an edge to it.

Thanks again.

Very Nice, Patrick. I purchased a Indicam Pilot last year and used it about 4 times. I need to break it out and practice more.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Jon

Hi Jon,

The Pilot is a great rig. It is similiar if not better than the Magiqcam I used for several years. I, like you, had the tendency to use it at first and then leave it at home. Once I got enough practice in and worked through the learning curve, it was a huge benefit throughout every production. We now do real-estate walk throughs with it, I use it on all our love stories as well as our larger wedding packages.

Patrick

Patrick that was great. Like Peter said, you did a great job of matching the coloration of the two mediums and it came out great. Nice work.

Ben

Thanks Ben. That is something that I set out to do from the beginning and is usually much tougher as the photos have such high contrast and good saturation, plus they are edited for a good 20-30 min each. Not only did I have a preset on the A1 designed to give me more color and high contrast, but I also had to boost the saturation in post and really play with the curves. I was surprised how much adjustment I could make and the shots still looked good, although some are definately more edgy to match the photos.

Thanks again. It is always great to hear comments along the lines of what you were hoping to acheive.

Patrick

Patrick:

Very nice. I watched it several times. Did you by chance use redeye wide lense on any of the shots?

Thanks,
John

Hi John,

I didn't get a chance to use my redeye for that shoot. Without a lens hood, you ned to be very careful of dust on the lens when your shooting outdoors. Everything was shot with the modded raynox fisheye (only the first few shots) and the rest was done with the 16x9 INC .7 wide angle. I got that only because I can add a lens hood. The cavision WA I had was basically useless when quality is a concern.

Patrick

Dang, that's good!

keep forgetting to add to this thread...very nice work, was taken back by how good the photos were too (esp. the angled one with the couple in the barn doors)...v.impressive, well done!

Thanks Richard. I really like how both the photos and video can add to each other when done right.