ONE HUNDRED OF THEM
Roughly one year ago, I spent most of my days working on a project for Canon. Make 100 photos move. I did not anticipate the scale of it, as 100 photos seems fairly normal. Add a motion aspect and it became quite the project.
Sure, you can use a program that is widely advertised out there, but in my experience you won’t get a perfect result. Working with several vendors I have seen files completely done in photoshop, which also to me, is not optimal for your final output. You are very limited in both composite and deliverables. I use After Effects for all my composites as it retain the highest quality pipeline from capture to delivery.
TIMELAPSE
Creating light streaks is best done using photos with a slow shutter. I found an overpass by the 405 on Sunset Blvd in LA and setup my tripod. I had a timer where I shot a series of 200+ photos. In the final composite I only used 5–10 as the motion did not need more to convey the concept.
TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN
Productions can be elaborate, but they can also be nimble. I went down to Venice Beach and rented a bike foe $10 and after 10min I had my shot. The composite became a bit tricky as the wheels had to be isolated from the water.
DOUBLE EXPOSURE
Finding the best object for a double exposure. We ended up using hands shot against the sky with water as the moving part. Water is, if you have tried, tricky to loop perfectly. A good cinemagraph is just that. A seamless and endless loop of one part moving while the rest is still.
HIGH AS A KITE
If you have ever tried to fly a kite, try doing it while shooting it. We ended up running around in Battery Park getting the kite airborne. Once we got it airborne, we also had to figure out how to capture it in motion. What played tricks on me here was cloud formation. My final rendering contains no clouds, as clouds kept interfering with the motion of the tail. The end piece is a composite of a few different pieces in order to get the perfect motion.
JOSHUA TREE
The wind farm was not intended to become a cinemagraph. I had been shooting in the desert, Joshua Tree, for 12h and on the drive back during the sunrise I saw this incredible field. Drove in and looked around. This was my only, to date, cinemagraph in which I shot handheld. Not using a tripod is never a good idea when trying to freeze motion. The blades also cross the clouds which introduce another element of complication.
PUMP MORE OIL
After being booted out from the oil field several times, I found a spot which was outside the premisses and used a 70–200mm lens in order to frame the action as intended. The concept involved a slow shutter which meant I had to composite a photo with the video.
THE DRIP
The drip was another challenge that became apparent during the post process. We never thought about how the drip would be reintroduced after it came into frame. Luckily I let the camera run for a few more extra frames and voila, we have a seamless loop of a drip that keeps coming.
THE RINGS OF SANTA MONICA
If you have been to Santa Monica you most likely have seen the rings. You may also have never seen the beach empty. Not having the possibility to have signed releases for everyone on the beach, the post process included removing every human in the initial shot.
GLOWING YO-YO
One of the more simple cinemagraphs. The Yo-yo just had to be introduced in frame once and the loop was born from there.
BAYWATCH
Looping a flag is more tricky than one may initially think. Again, I had to remove some people on the beach, but since we were towards the end of the day, most people had already left the scene.
STUDIO BUBBLES
Making water bubble seems simple. You grab some bubble water. Well, it did not show up well in the shot, so we had to experiment on a solution that showed up. The looping part was a mix of multiple layers and takes.
FREEZE THE MOMENT
Another example of where patience saved me. The tiki torch did not do well in daylight, so I had to shoot the main plate during sunset and composite the torch shot into the frame.
MOVING MANHATTAN
On a rooftop in TriBeCa we found our perfect location for this shot. I used a tilt shift lens in order to blur foreground and background. I shot multiple long exposure shots and the particular street I choose had little to no traffic which seemed strange for being manhattan.
THE IMPOSSIBLE MALIBU VIEW
After climbing a mountain in Malibu, who knew there were mountains, I setup my camera and tripod but could not find a place for the map that made sense. I had to composite the final shot from two plates.
LAST MINUTE WINE
To save a lost shot I setup a glass of wine filled with water by a nearby pool. Again, there were no tripod present as I wasn’t prepared for this to actually work. The client loved it and the day was saved.
FOOTNOTES: Camera: Canon 1DC // Lens: 24–70mm, 70–200mm, 24mm TS, 100mm