Posts in Video

Lusine went on after my set in Seattle last Saturday and he had some amazing visuals going on during the show (his set was incredible by the way). I went upstairs to check out the source of the amazing imagery and found the guy you see above, Scott Sunn AKA Tracer Visuals, literally DJ’ing a pair of 8mm reel to reel projectors. He was winding the reels and alternately covering the lenses with his hands to produce effects and transitions. It was pretty amazing to behold; I’ve never even heard of this concept much less seen it in action. I was lucky enough to be able to talk to Scott after the set and what I learned about his method and sources was even more incredible than watching him work. Apparently he had access to a job site where a school district building was being demolished. The building being demo’ed housed a library of vintage reel-to-reel educational films and he was able to take away six truckloads of film, his truck bottoming out on a couple of the runs. I can’t even begin to imagine how exciting this would be. I think it would rank up there with finding a couple suitcases full of money buried in the woods. He now uses these films in his VJ sets and the results are amazing.

I was too busy enjoying the set to get many good shots of the action, but you can see a few rather blurry stills above and a video from another show below. The top image is, of course, the man himself at work. For the photography geeks out there, it’s a multiple exposure set with a fill flash and slow shutter speed to capture some motion after the initial exposure. I snagged it with the D80 which ended up performing rather well that night given the low light conditions present at the venue. Might have to rethink that upgrade…

You can find more info on Tracer Visuals at his site or his Myspace page. He apparently also worked on the Radiohead tour. Below is a video of Scott VJ’ing a Lusine show back in April of this year. Forrest, I’d have to imagine your head has nearly exploded at this point. Time to hit the swap meet.

"Mindblowing Full HD" was how Gizmodo yesterday described the newly announced Canon 5D Mark II’s video capabilities. Vincent Laforet, who calls the 5D "the best camera ever", was one of the first to take the new camera for a spin and the results are undeniably striking. The stills you see above are from video he shot using the $2700 body and $25,000 in lenses (a list of the lenses he used are at the Gizmodo post). The video, while still not official available, has leaked onto YouTube giving us at least a glimpse of the quality we can expect from the final (view video below).

Gizmodo had this to say about Laforet’s experience creating the video:

"That and a $2700 DSLR body. A testament to its ease of use is that Laforet is a photographer; he has no professional film experience and had never used the 5D Mark II before, yet was able to storyboard, cast, shoot and edit the clip in just two days, with less than 12 hours notice. In particular he noted that dumping the MPEG-4 video takes way less time than it would with an actual HD camera. The only issue that would stop a person from shooting a TV pilot solely with this camera is sound matching, he says. If that’s covered, you’re gold."

I think that’s the most compelling aspect of the 5D: it’s accessibility. Such a powerful tool which yields such amazing results will empower scores of artists looking to break into motion work. I realize that at $2700 the 5D  sits at a price threshold a little beyond the grasp of a lot of us, but high-end video of this caliber has never come this cheap and when you take into account the fact that the 5D also more than covers your DSLR needs the whole package starts to look like a sound investment for photographer and videographer alike.

I don’t know about you guys, but the argument for 5D supremacy is becoming more and more convincing as Canon slowly reveals what it’s capable of. I am still holding out for a head-to-head versus the D700 which, although lacking in video capability, is apparently a low light performer. Whatever the case may be, such a versatile tool as the 5D would make a welcome addition to any graphic designer’s kit. 

How about you guys, have you started saving up?

These videos were all taken with the amazing Casio Exilim EX-F1 camera which features a variable high speed shooting mode for some serious slow-mo action at up to 1200 FPS. While the name Casio doesn’t exactly bring to mind quality output, you can’t argue with that kind of power for under $1000. Being able to get footage like this would open doors to a whole world of possibilities for aspiring film makers.

There are some more user generated video examples here and here. Casio has some official video examples at their page for the EX-F1, but some of the links are broken. This reminds me of the Canon HV20, a dedicated HD video camera which also has a high speed shooting mode but outputs much higher quality video.

Thanks Kirk for the heads up on this one.

I just got home from Terrabyte after a nice drive today; LA > Sacto > SF, needless to say I am exhausted so I’ll keep it short. Terrabyte was amazing as usual; thanks to everyone who came out and made it a success and thanks to the Arboretum and Kyle and Ryan from Subtractive for making it all happen. I also want to apologize for the delay getting started, as some of you noted, we had some technical difficulties starting out, but things smoothed out once things got rolling. I was pretty busy most of the time so didn’t get many good photos this time around, some of the few I got are below. Bijan has also posted some photos from the show here.

Steve workin’ it at the booth.
 
ISO50 Booth


Dusty Brown!

Zac Brown! (Guitars, Dusty Brown)

Somewhere in the middle of the central California valley.

I found some early videos from the show on YouTube, below is a shot of some of the visuals. I didn’t realize this girl (video below) had been dancing in the visuals until after the show was over, pretty cool to see this now. There is also a video of the new single being played; the audio is really bad and you can’t see much, but it’s a small taste at least: link. There are a couple more from the same person up here as well.

Design that nature creates. One of my favorite TED speakers. i love his ideas, passion and direction, i’m not the biggest fan of the design, it’s a bit too curvy and futuristic like some bigger budget Karim Rashid piece.

An interesting CG clip from Discovery’s Miracle Earth depicting our destruction via giant asteroid set to Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky. The song is apt for many reasons, not the least of which being that the vocalist sounds like she is actually being burned alive and/or crushed by a giant asteroid. But I’m a sucker for that 70’s bass sound so I can’t hate. It’s actually a pretty sad video to watch, and the final sentence of the titles is rather ominous. Although 6 events in 4.55 billion years isn’t really much to worry about considering the cosmic blink of an eye humanity has occupied in the universal timeline. Also, I am pretty sure you don’t really notice/care when you’re instantly vaporized, you just turn to vapor, and so does your Macbook Pro.

If you haven’t noticed by now i’m a huge fan of Benoit Pioulard, he is a Portland based folk musician. He has his next album coming out on Kranky October 14th which will include this brand new single “Brown Bess” for free for us to share. As for other talents he has a few things flying under the radar a very simple but effective website pioulard.com where if you catch him at the right time of year you can buy limited handmade versions of his albums and look thru his polariod pictures.

Benoit Pioulard – Brown Bess (Temper: October 2008)

Benoit Pioulard – Needle & Thread (Precis: 2006)

Benoit Pioulard – Kids Are Getting Younger (Enge: 2005)

Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Seedling (Benoît Pioulard version)

Benoit Pioulard – Volcanoes (promo video)

Benoît Pioulard – Promotional Dispatch Three (Volcanoes)

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

Paul Mawhinney is the owner of the world’s largest vinyl record collection, if you’re a music fan of some sort i can’t see how this short documentary won’t touching you in some way.

Director Brian Levi Bowman has released a new short film entitled Meridian which features the Tycho track Daydream. I think it came out beautifully, those particle effects are amazing. They simply licensed the track for this so I had no input on the project; in a situation like this it’s always interesting as a musician to see what directors will do with your work. The finished product rarely reflects the meaning you originally had for the song, but it’s always nice to see a different take on things.

There are a few viewing options below, I recommend the Quicktime if you got it, the quality is much higher.

> View Meridian Quicktime
> Download Meridian Quicktime Hi-Res
> View Meridian in Streaming Flash

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