A View From Above
After hearing an interview with the CEO of Sekonic/PocketWizard on the Lightsphere podcast, I realized my PocketWizards had a lot more potential & uses than what I had earlier known, and got inspired to try some different techniques.
PocketWizards were originally created to trigger lights (studio-flashes) in basketball arenas in the United States, and this was also the limit of my knowledge of the PocketWizards untill I heard this interview. So, the revelation was you can also use the PWs to trigger remote cameras! All you need to do is buy a specific cable which connects the PW to your camera T3 socket.
By doing this you can set off a remote camera through a PW transmitter on top of your manually operated camera. When you click the shutter on the transmitting camera and the other camera will also go off.
So that’s all good, but how is this relevant to anything I do? Well, my inspiration came from Vincent Laforet’s blog who wrote a blog on remote camera use in the Beijing Olympics (I can’t find the post, it might have been on his old Newsweek blog). At the Olympics Vincent, and many of the other photographers, rely heavily on remote cameras to capture shots a manually operated camera cannot. Heinz Kleutmeier of Sports Illustrated put remote cameras in the bottom of the swimmingpool for Michael Phelps’ final gold-medal victory. (read the story here)
Coming up to this year’s Colour Conference and Album recording I thought of shots that would be interesting to get. Shots that had not yet been done. I started talking to the TV and marketing departments about mounting a remote camera on the 10 meter TV crane.
The goal was actually to test this setup during Colour Conference, to then use it at the album recording. The tests went well, but unfortunately the camera mount came loose towards the end of the album rehearsal, it made the video footage wobbly and we had to pull the plug on it.
It was a shame, but ultimately the video footage was more important, and we con afford to compromise the video footage. BUT, I got a better mount for the camera for the opening night of the Colour Conference the next night and got the results we wanted.
It was a lot of fun and hopefully this has inspired you to use your PWs in different ways.
Lastly, I want to thank Sebastian Heck and Magdalene Phillips for allowing me to “play” with the crane, and also to Dave Hunkeler for being flexible in operating the crane with the extra weight added to the head.
Technical info:
Due to the lack of remote controls I set the remote camera (a 5D MkII) to Manual mode and decided on a shutter speed that would handle the sweeing crane movement (I think around 1/100th), a low aperture (f2.8) and about ISO3200. The lens I used was a Canon 15mm fisheye. Thanks to Parrish Shah for trusting me with his lens:)
Enjoy some of the setup shots and results below:
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- Opening Item 1
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- Opening Item 2
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- Praise & Worship
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- Bobbie Houston
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- Snapping away
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- Sydney Entertainment Centre from above
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- Dave H operating the crane
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- 5D MkII mounted on crane
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- Ready for action
Art from the HeART: Orchestration of Salvation
Sam O'Donnell as "Chris"
As part of the annual Hillsong “Art from the HeART” film and arts festival I worked with director Nick Khoo and producer Peggy Yabevula on their short film “Orchestration of Salvation”.
It was a fun project where I finally got to put my new cameras to the test in “video-mode”. My 5D MkII’s, apart from being superb still cameras, also shoot HD video and in true Vincent Laforet style we went guerilla shooting all across Sydney for this short film.
Nick has already shared some of the limitations of this camera on his FB production blog, which are significant and could make certain film projects really difficult. The fact it shoots 30fps compressed H264, you have little or no iris control, handheld shooting is not an option, focus on that little screen is not great (you really need an external HDMI screen, and a focus assist from RedRock would also be nice..) and you really need a separate recorder and microphones for audio, as the internal microphone picks up a lot of noise from your focus ring and other on-camera dials, buttons etc.
The limitations aside, the cameras turned out to be a great match for this project. The compatibility with my range of beautiful Canon lenses, the size and light weight proved great features and really gave the opportunity for us to get some beautiful footage, and some shots that would have been hard to do with conventional video-cameras. We also largely went without needing any lighting except for a silver reflectors and one scene in the church a couple of red-heads as a fill light.
Another great thing about this project was we didn’t have to worry about audio (which suits the 5D’s perfectly) as the whole script was based on voice-overs..
Check out the video and some production stills below.
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The Orchestration of Salvation from Nick Khoo on Vimeo.
Everyday your life is filled with seemingly insignificant events, but little do you know that every moment that is made is part of a larger orchestration.
2009 Finalist : ART from the HEART Film & Arts Festival
Director : Nick Khoo
Writers : Michelle Khoo // Nick Khoo
Starring : Samuel O’Donnell // Renée Hodson // Geoff Young // Dave Hunkeler // Matt Tickner
DOP : Anders Kjondal
Producer : Peggy Yabevula
Shot completely on the Canon 5d Mark II.
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- 5D mounted close to the ground on Wally Dolly
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- Renée on park bench
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- Anders behind the camera
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- Nick behind the camera at La Boheme
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- Sam O'Donnell
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- Camera mounted overhead on C-stand
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- Filming in church
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- Balmain Anglican Church
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- The entire cast & crew
Art from the HeART: Immolation
Glenn Stewart's Immolation
Another film project I was part of for the “Art from the HeART” festival was Glenn Stewart’s animation called “Immolation”.
For this animation, Glenn wanted to photograph a series of stop-motion character movements that he could put into his film. We set up a blue-screen studio in my loungeroom and spent a night shooting the character movements. We also went outside the next night and shot a number of flame sequences for the closing scenes of the movie, where everything goes up in flames, literally..
The films are screening on the Hillsong website this week, so get in and cast your vote!
Also, visit Glenn’s blog to view the film in HD..