If you’ve ever taken a long time lapse only to discover your shutter settings were bad, you know how frustrating it can be. Instead of having a nice blurred sequence you end up with jumpy footage. Somewhat of a staccato. While it id obviously best to get that motion blur in camera, if you totally missed it here are three ways from Preston Kanak to fix jumpy footage.
Shooting Kim Coates: How To Balance Crew, Cast And Client Needs In A Corporate World
Earlier this summer, Cinescapes Collective was hired by Tourism Saskatoon to produce a video series featuring some of Saskatoon’s local and international talents as they talk about why they love Saskatoon so much. One of the people we featured in the series was Kim Coates, star of the show, “Son’s of Anarchy”. We felt his was the perfect advocate for the city. For the short film, we wanted to not only talk about why he loves Saskatoon but also find out about his journey as an actor. What we want to do with this post is give you insight into how the project went down and also talk about what we learned through the process of working with talent. Our three main topics include:
Coming into this project we were excited for the opportunity to work with Kim Coates. The diversity of his body of work intrigued us and really played a role in the direction we wanted to take the project.
Delivering Awesome Content On Time – How Preston Kanak Delivered an Awesome D810 Demo
With the announcement of the D810 Nikon needed great footage to demonstrate the capabilities of the camera. My friend Preston Kanak was one of the selected few who was asked to use the camera and deliver both footage shot with the camera, along with a compelling story and a behind the scenes look on using the camera. (The BTS is above, the actual movie right after the jump, both amazing cinematography)
As those endeavors usually go, Preston only had about 20 days to deliver a polished product. It is not a lot of you consider the magnitude of the production. Preston breaks up the project on his blog, and you can get a glimpse as to the magnitude of the production. What we were curious about is what steps were taken to deliver on time. Here are the awesome pointers he shared with DIYP.
Wonderful Movie Shows Video Capabilities of Nikon’s New D810
If you’ve been wondering what Nikon’s new camera, the D810, provides the in the video realm, you are gonna drool over this film from Preston Kanak. The movie called Every Moment Counts was shot entirely on the D810. The film is (wonderfully) graded so it does not really show the movie ‘out of camera’ but it definitely shows what the camera is capable of, in some challenging conditions. (Look for low light, contrasty scenes and fine details)
The movie, aside from displaying impressive Nikon stance is certainly a gem:
How to Prepare Gear for Massive Video Shoots Abroad
One of the biggest challenges with any creative production is gear management. At the start of my time as a creative, I don’t know how many times I have arrived at a location and realized a crucial part of my kit was missing. However, like most things, you only learn from your mistakes and what I have learned is that it is extremely important to create checklists and prep gear BEFORE heading out to shoot. Although it does take more time to do this, it will save you time and heartache from going out to get a shot and realizing you don’t have everything you need.
Now I must admit, my least favorite part about filmmaking is the gear prepping. It’s a fine balance between taking too much and taking not enough and this battle is unique for every job. This is especially critical when traveling. With this post, what I hope to do is talk about how to prep your kit when traveling abroad. I will use a recent project to Cuba as the case study.
*Note: I am by no means an expert but here is what I have learned up until this point.
MorphLapse – An 11 Seconds Hyperlapse Using Only 7 Still Frames
Armand Dijcks posted a pretty interesting method for doing Hyper Lapses over on the Preston Kanak blog. While usually we see hyper lapses made with hundreds of photos (roughly 24 per second) held by a tripod, this one is a bit different and manages to span full 11 seconds using only 7 frames.
Three Methods To Win The Holy Grail Of Time Lapse – Day to Night Time-Lapses
Shooting a time lapse is quite a challenge. Shooting a good time lapse with changing lighting conditions adds complexity. The challenge is how to keep the time lapse both correctly exposed and smooth looking.
Preston Kanak has a detailed piece (with a matching video) on the three ways to win the day to night holy grail:
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