25 June 2012

Rapid film making

I've made an entry for a video competition run by Viking office supplies:



It was shot in about 30 minutes in our tiny office at the end of the day. Luckily my boss Gareth was willing to act in front of the camera, or it would have been just me!

Setting up the camera and leaving it to record takes a bit of practice, as can be seen in a few wonky shots. We didn't have time to re-shoot anything so a bit of clever editing hid the problems to some extent.

Jumping into a project and shooting it quick is incredibly liberating. Knowing that the project doesn't have to be your best work frees you to try things with little expectation. It's been the first time in a few months that I've just gone out and shot something; it was very satisfying and good skills practice. A while back I read a blog post explaining there's no speed limit to learning things, and it certainly applies here.

03 June 2012

Time-lapse: what is it?

When we think of a time-lapse clip, we think of seeing action at high speed. Plants growing, clouds passing overhead, buildings being constructed, vegetables rotting. What we are seeing is a disparity of time; the rate of playback of the action is different to the rate it was shot. Action that really takes hours or days or months is being seen in a few seconds or minutes, and it can be captivating in a way unlike live action footage.