If you were asked to film the world’s fastest animal running in slow motion, what would you do? Director Hans Weise and cinematographer Greg Wilson teamed up with National Geographic to produce some stunning footage of a cheetah running at full speed. After meticulously building a 410 foot dolly to die for, the team propelled a few Canon 1D X cameras and a high speed Phantom along side the cheetah. I can’t wait to see the final footage but after watching the behind the scenes video I’m sure it’s going to be breathtaking.
UPDATE: Here is the final slow motion footage used for National Geographic:
Cheetahs on the Edge–Director’s Cut from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.
I’m sure most of you happened to see images created with the Slit Scan technique, but probably never got to see it being used in videos. Until now. Sit down and get ready to have your brain explode. This awesome video experiment was made by French filmmakers Adrien M / Claire B who filmed it with a Canon 7D at 60fps. Beautiful work.
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Pascal Dangin is the founder and chief of Box Studios, a retouching house based out of NYC. They’re known for retouching some of the world’s best photographs, some of which grace Vogue and Vanity Fair. He also works with Annie Leibovitz and Steven Meisel. Unofficially, he’s credited as being the world’s most sought after retoucher in the industry. He is also very mysterious and so is Box. Here, we get an in depth look at what goes on behind the scenes at Box. [more]
Good special effects are the ones you don’t really realize were “special.” They are the moments that give you that sense of awe without dragging you away from being caught in the moment. Fuel VFX specializes in creating special effects for a wide range of movies, some of which you’ve most likely seen this year. [more]
Most of our readers should be familiar with Brain Farm. Basically they have been taking cinematography to the next level when it comes to action sports; think of them as the planet earth of extreme footage. Chase Jarvis recently invited executive producer Chad Jackson and pro snowboarder Travis Rice over to his Seattle studio to talk about the release of The Art of Flight. Watch the inspiring interview in the full post [more]
Figurative artist Cayce Zavaglia started as a painter, but has since discovered new techniques to sate her creative appetite. As she calls it, her “renegade embroidery” comes from a portrait that she shoots of a person, and then she recreates that portrait using threaded wool in a way that creates the allusion of depth, volume, and form. This video from Garrett Zavaglia gives viewers an inside look into her process.
Typically I am not a fan of timelapses or stop motion videos. However, sometimes I come across one that is done so well that I am left with no choice but to admire the beauty and creativity of it. Christophe Thockler is one of those magical people that have momentarily turned me from a hater of timelapses, to a lover of them. Christophe’s 4 minute 33 second video “Degiheugi – Un Jour comme un Autre” consists of more than 35,000 photos, 120 timelapses and 160 hours of shoot time.
Amy Dresser has been an industry established retoucher for at least 10 years now. At Luminance 2012, she spoke about a range of topics including her relationship with other photographers to the basic principles of retouching. Granted that many of it is personal preference, there’s a lot of good information to take from her presentation. [more]
A couple of nights ago a close friend of mine, Jesse, gushed over Justin Bieber’s new music video, ‘Beauty and A Beat’. How it was entirely shot with the new Olympus TG-1 (a point-and-shoot camera) and how I should write a post about it for the site. So, taking his lead I went ahead and did some research on Justin’s new music video. [more]
The next chapter in Preston Kanak’s ‘The RAW Timelapse Tutorial‘ series is now available for free on Preston’s Vimeo page. In this chapter Preston goes over the importance of planning your timelapse (pre-production) in three different sections: Story, Scheduling and Scouting. This tutorial will help you plan your production accordingly to help your margin for error decrease, so that your shoot runs smoother. [more]
It’s that time of year again. Children dress up in ghoulish costumes, grab their jack-o-lantern baskets and extort candy from the neighbors. Although, in Norway Sandnes Media AS, an animation studio, had the children who participated in their latest children’s animation workshop do something a little bit different this Halloween. [more]
I’m always a fan of watching talented humans. Parkour is one of those activities which I’ll never be good at, but am amazed to watch. HeliPOV had the same idea and decided that parkour group 3RUN should be shown off to the rest of us. The HeliPOV team was kind enough to film the groups jumps and dives using their multicopter. Not only does this clip show off some fun acrobatics, but it also gives a sense of what kind of shots a multicopter can pull off.
Benjamin Kanarek is quickly becoming one of my favorite fashion photographers. He just released his editorial spread, “In My Castle,” for Harpers BAZAAR en Español covering Haute Couture, which only comes twice a year and is only shown in Paris. The photos are absolutely gorgeous. This is truly fashion photography at it’s finest!
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Some of the most interesting and exciting video footage often comes out of car commercials. The current ad for Cadillac’s new 2013 ATS features some pretty awesome footage of the luxury sports sedan speeding down the winding roads of Morocco’s Atlas Mountain. This stretch of road overlooking the Dades Gorge is one of the most dangerous roads in the world. So when director Jeff Zwart decided to test the ATS’s Brembo brakes and limited-slip differential, he not only put the drivers in danger but also put a ton of camera gear in harms way. Full behind the scenes video in the full post [more]
I’m starting to wonder when Ben Von Wong sleeps… Not only is he constantly producing great work, but he is also constantly producing amazing Behind The Scenes videos to accompany them. In his latest video Ben takes us behind the scenes on his shoot with the band SX in Belgium. Limited to being able to shoot in just an indoor pool, he had to overcome the challenge of making it appear as if the band was outdoors, in water, at sunset.
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