Tilt-shift music video: "Fire," by Codebreaker
Here's a lovely tilt-shift music video for the band Codebreaker, featuring vocalist Kathy Diamond. The piece was shot, directed, and edited by Erik West, who says, "None of the snow in this piece is simulated. I went out and show on the snowiest days of winter. The last scenes in the video were shot during a blizzard. This was shot on a Canon Powershot SD630 Point & Shoot. Additional footage was shot on a Sony EX1 by Jeff Thomas. Posted using Final Cut, Photoshop, Motion and Color." (via Aaron Wahle via Matt Kirsch)
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Woah wait, that's awesome, but are the tilt-shift effects from a lens baby or done in Final Cut?
Either way, I love it. And I'm going to steal the technique to shoot a video in Oakland.
@ Alowishus - I don't believe there's a way to affix a lensbaby to a point-and-shoot like that. I would assume the effect is added afterward.
Those Powershots are dope little cameras. They take surprisingly good video. I've been thinking of shooting a music video with mine. This is good inspiration right here...
Awesome! I saw this done with Robot High School too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL87tiCpOpw
I always imagined God as having tilt-shift eyes.
Wow. I don't know that I've encountered this before. It makes it look unreal. As in dollhouse stop-motion unreal.
This is some kind of amazing.
Very effective.
I dig the concept, but I wish it was real tilt shift instead of selective lens blurs.
Is there a tilt shift lens that would fit on a cinema camera? All I see time lapse. I would dig some normal time video.
That is amazing. It just looks fantastic.
Great job. The airport scenes especially were Koyaanisqatsiesque, and the Bobcat.
Where was that shot, anyway?
@#7
Not sure, but the 5Dmk2 can shoot 1080p video through a tilt-shift lens. In fact, I think there was a time-lapse tilt-shift sequence posted on BB not too long ago of a monster truck rally that was pretty interesting.
@Alowishus et al. a lens baby can be affixed to a video camera like the EX1 mentioned in the OP, but ya, not on a point and shoot.
As far as I can tell, the tilt-shift is added in post-production. In real tilt-shift all objects at a given distance from the lens would be in the same plane of focus. For example, lamposts etc would be in focus from top to bottom or out of focus from top to bottom. I realise some of these shots are looking down and so the lamposts or buildings might not be perpendicular to the film plane, but I don't think the angle is enough to create such a sharp line on some of the vertical elements.
In any case, the effect works, and it's a cool video. VERY impressive that you can't tell the powershot footage from the $7000 camera footage, at least not in the small embedded size.
Part of what makes it so effective is, dangit I don't know the correct terms, taking out frames to give it a subtle jerking that evokes stop-motion.
Now I will go hug my two Powershots.
Dangit, now I have to blow the wad I was saving for Jamaica to buy that lensbaby.
It is poor etiquette here to point out typos? (show/shot)
Reminds me of that old Pizza Pit commercial of the model cars driving through a snowy Madison. The "snow" of course being simulated by a steady sprinkling of pizza dough.
(rummages around in the Internet's junk drawer)
Found it!
Xeni, this is fresh. Thank you.
@SUBROSA: Hey cool, thanks. Also you can get a Letus SLR lens adapter for almost any camcorder, but they're about $1200. Then you could use the Lensbaby or any other SLR lens. Yummy. Of course, it would be easier and maybe even cheaper to just get the 5D MKII and some good glass. Or rent one. My brother-in-law has a MKII and there are some issues with video. No autofocus, a strange hiss when using external mics while using the live view. But overall the quality is to die for. Like a RED, but better.
@SUBROSA #10:
I agree that it looks like post tilt-shift rather than a real tilt-shift lens, but not for the reason you say. What you describe about "all objects at a given distance from the lens would be in the same plane of focus" wouldn't be the case. The whole point of a tilt-shift lens is that the plane of focus is tilted. What you're describing is how you can tell this isn't a tiny model that was shot with a macro lens.
DHS is going to want to talk to Mr. West, everyone involved in the making of this video, and everyone who watched this video. You're not allowed to film things. It's the terrorism. Stand by...
@ IPFREELY (Post #4)
You've always imagined God ;)
The edge of the blur looks too sharp to me... It's been done in post-production, but it is still very good.
:)
Seems that the best video ever for boing boingers would be a tiltshift David riding a Unicorn to the dentist while Rick Astley is playing ...
I totally love the tiltshift effect (and the photoshop equivalent) but in this particluar video i wonder 'why' .. just because we can ?
It almost has the look of the new film Coraline. Almost like all the cars/people were shot in stop-motion.
Holy crap, Milwaukee made Boing Boing! This video seems mostly shot around town. (Codebreaker is a local group).
Freakin' Cool.
I think that the airport sections work better. If you recall the robot high school monster truck trailer had a general blue effect all around that softened the realistic edges. Some of the detail in the city shots is a little -too- fine to be simply models.
If that was the goal with this piece, a more gentle, overall blur to take off those fine features might have done more for the illusion. The tilt-shifted snow on the other hand is pretty impressive looking.
beautiful.
Thank you, that was beautiful.
I've been experimenting with this effect but I haven't found a good (free) program to add the tilt shift effect to a batch of photos automatically. A very short time lapse video requires hundreds of individual shots and applying the effect to them individually is not practical. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks so much for posting this! This is so amazing. It is hypnotizing to watch, and the song is great.