As visualists we tend to spend most of our time working with digital processes. So it’s good to step back occasionally and remember that computers don’t need to do all of the work:
1154 stills taken over 2-3 weeks. The lighting and setting is kept remarkably consistent, although I’m guessing someone with a little more production knowledge (or spare time) would have removed the tripod-bump in post.
While we’re on the subject of animated pieces of paper: Switchfoot’s “Awakening” has been treated to a similar workflow (frames printed and photographed) with a very different result.
StudioDaily has an interview with Brandon Dickerson, on the workflow required to put this piece together.
Ways of adding a second layer of animation to a video:
1. Composite them digitally. Use lots of tricks, like match moves, to line everything up.
2. Print each individual frame onto paper (4,133 in this case), tack them up to stuff, and video the results into a time-lapse video.
Max Tyrie chose the latter for the Modest Mouse video contest. This is probably beyond the wildest dreams of what Modest Mouse’s promoters hoped for. Viva viral. It’s funny that, as digital technology progresses, people are discovering new, more “analog” means of producing visuals.
Via the excellent Wooster Collective:
Shit We’re Diggin’: Max Tyrie’s Hand Made Modest Mouse Video
Exciting things are afoot. As hinted, I’ll be Visualisting my way around the country soon. Touring Australia = Large chunks of time sitting on a bus, so when that hits I expect to be a veritable fountain of CDMotion content (including some of that hot new NAMM gear, stay tuned), but until then it looks like things are going to be a little… cramped? I don’t expect to have much time to devote to devote to the extensive, handcrafted editorialising we’re all used to.
Which is a problem, as I have loads of awesome stuff to tell you about, and it just can’t wait two months. So my plan is to do a series of Pocket Reviews, getting all of the salient points (which are quite easy to write) without the filler (which takes time to get right).
First up: My Russian Spy Lens - the Zenitar 16mm Fish Eye - arrived today.
US$150 including shipping from East Wave BestOptics. I’m using it on my Pentax *ist DS. The Digital SLR Focal Length Multiplier is 1.5, so it’s probably closer to a 24mm lens on this camera, but still gives a beautifully wide view angle, and plenty of lens distortion.
I haven’t seen the World of Warcraft South Park yet, but I did manage to catch the recent stopmotion/claymation episode of My Name is Earl before I left Australia.
DV.com has an interview with the production leads for the segment, containing plenty of background, logistical information on how a special episode like this takes place, as well as some After Effects workflow tips, and information on flicker removal techniques for time-lapse or stop-motion photography:
Matlosz handed 1920 x 1080, 24p digital still image sequences off to Buck, who took them into After Effects.
Buck: I use a plug-in from The Foundry’s TinderBox collection called Deflicker. It has six or seven different ways to remove flicker from the stills. You can perform multiple passes with each different setting. One of the hardest things to do is keep the frame-by-frame lighting consistent.
Matlosz: Digital cameras aren’t designed to be frame accurate with luminance, chrominance, gamma, anything. Those things don’t stay consistent frame by frame. They just don’t match. That’s the one issue you have shooting digital time-lapse or digital stop-motion.
Buck: What really kills the stills is any kind of camera moves and rack focuses, so the Deflicker filter was a lifesaver. But there are times when even Deflicker falls short. Times when a light is bumped or a bulb goes out and needs to be replaced. For those kinds of problems, we adjust the levels manually to ensure frame-to-frame consistency.
I’ve dealt with some of these issues before, but even with everything locked off on a manual lens there is often some flicker remaining. Deflicker seems like the obvious answer.
Forget waiting until tomorrow to see photos of a party on lastnightsparty.com: now, see snapshots of partygoers projected around a space in real-time. That’s the idea behind Party People Photos, an interactive installation at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota. Co-creator Justin Heideman writes to point us to coverage of the installation:
The idea for the project grew out of the theme of the ads for the party, “Party Peopleâ€Â, which uses images of people from the expansion opening party back in 2005. We like the opening photos, but we want more of them and we want everyone to be able to experience the party. We did a test run of the installation on monday and it went quite good. Word got out among some of the staff and we captured quite a few photos. Funny, sassy, weird… Exactly what we’re hoping for.
Justin has posted extensive details on how the installation was made, and CDMotion regulars will be particularly pleased to know he’s revealed how they managed to capture still images automatically, live on the spot, using the Mac. After examining FrameThief and iStopMotion, Justin settled on a Linux utility called gphoto, which has also been ported to Mac OS X. This is obviously really exciting for us, given our ongoing interest in stop action, timelapse exposure, and interactive installations; this particular application is only one example of the many possibilities this opens up.
Here’s the full setup:
Yep, it’s a veritable geek-fest of Mac and *nix toys. Be sure to read through for copious technical details, particularly on making the automated camera capture work. I’m already imagining totally different applications for this. From blogs.walkerart.org:
Announcing Party People Photos with full setup details, shots of the QC and Jitter patches
Still images triggered by a computer via gphoto
h.264 QT movie of the results
Updated: For a view of the setup and hundreds of photos taken by the automated system at the event, see the flickr pool. And yes, people love to be photographed:
Australian tech blogging ubernerd Dan has published his slightly extended take on the Megapixel Myth.
The crux: Paying more money for a camera with more pixels may give you less image quality.
So what’s the take-home message?
Well, if you’re shopping for an ordinary digicam, bear in mind that money spent on higher resolution may actually be buying you less than nothing. A lower resolution camera can actually be a better product in every respect.
Of course, the camera companies just can’t sell lower res cameras any more. Even entry level models are averaging 5MP as I write this - real resolution hasn’t, of course, improved much since the 2MP days.
If you want a decent range of lower resolution, lower priced cameras, you therefore need to consider buying old stock, or second hand. This leads to the same problems you face when buying any used gadget - apart from the obvious wear and tear issues, you’re likely to find that lithium ion batteries for gadgets a few years old may be dead as stones, and replacements that aren’t also dead may be hard to find.
There’s some great advice in the article, and coupled with the general public’s general cluelessness on this issue, it’s not surprising to find ebay flooded with extremely cheap very servicable cameras, accompanied by descriptions along the lines of “I am selling my digital camera so that I can upgrade to another which has more megapixels“.
I’m seeing plenty of great cameras going for $30 or under, including shipping. Does that look like sub-$1000 time-slice rig to anyone else?
A visualist with a digital camera is stop-motion video just waiting to happen. Since gaining access to a Pentax *IST DS digital SLR I’ve hacked together a functioning cable release which produced reasonable results. This was a very inelegant setup, though simple, and I feel it may put undue stress on the shutter mechanism. So I’ve been looking around for something which would allow variable-interval timelapse shooting, but not cost as much as a professional timer switch, or intervalometer.
Et Volia!
Australian electronics-nerd supplier extrordinaire Jaycar Electronics has the Countdown Timer project for AU$12.95 (+$2 for the beautifully photocopied instructions). It’s not a precise timer - the digital version costs much more - but it is adjustable from ~15 seconds - 5 minutes.
I’m no solder-ninja. The last circuit I put together was a crystal radio, and it didn’t work. This looked reasonably straightforward though, and I have the benefit of an excellent assortment of electronics equipment lent to me by a friend who didn’t know any better.
1
