How we shot NY 41x41
This week we presented the “NY 41x41”, the world's first short film, shot in the superzoom technique. The author of the work was the American director Paul Trillo , who used only Nokia Lumia 1020 when filming. At the time of this writing, the number of views is approaching a hundred thousand.
We could not miss the opportunity and not tell you how this film was created. From the description of the video you can understand that it was made from 41 photos. But how exactly? We prepared a short video about the shooting and asked Paul a few questions - all under the cut.
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The film lasts about 52 seconds. How much time was spent on shooting and editing and what difficulties did you encounter?
The shooting dates were extremely tight. I had only one attempt since I was limited by the sunrise. We shot from about 3 to 7 in the morning and checked with the schedule of the sunrise to understand the position of the sun in the next 15 minutes. Sunrise is a very important point, as the lighting changes every 2 minutes and every quarter should be photographed as quickly as possible.
The installation took a total of about 2 weeks. True, a lot of time was spent on the study of the technique of “superzoom” just before shooting.
You mentioned that the film “is essentially an image inside the image, repeated 41 times.” How did the glueing process take place and why does the film look so seamless?
The main part of the work is the careful adjustment of the vanishing point and the horizon line in each frame. The snag complicating this process lies in the distortions from the lens arising at the edges of each frame. The closer the objects are to the camera, the larger they appear. When you zoom into a photo, the frame is smoothed. Therefore, the whole process is reduced to finding the point at which the two photos converge. Each frame must be perfectly processed to look like a continuation of the other. In some cases, the buildings and the sky had to be drawn to get rid of the seams.
Obviously, you have the necessary experience to shoot such videos. What about the others? Will an unprepared user of Nokia Lumia 1020 be able to do something like that? If so, how?
I have to admit - I had to tinker before I learned to use this technique. However, anyone familiar with After Effects and having a keen eye can figure it out. For a quick acquaintance with the technique of "super-zoom", I recommend the teaching materials Andrew Kramer .
In addition, a lot depends on how you shoot your original frames. Post-processing will be much easier if, when shooting, to make sure that each subsequent frame was taken at an equal distance from the previous one, from the same angle and with the same focal length. I urge all owners of Lumia 1020 to watch our offscreen video and try to shoot their own “superzoom”.
New York is one of the busiest cities in the world, but in your movie it is very calm. How did you manage to get rid of cars and passersby?
This was partly deliberate, partly - logistically. I did the first test shoot at perhaps the worst time — between 2 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And Manhattan met me in all its power, making the shooting a nightmare. Frames did not overlap because of the constant flow of cars blocking the road. It was only a test that helped me hone the technique, but he convinced me that I needed to shoot early in the morning. During shooting, I only needed to make sure that the car was not within the block I was shooting. All the next quarters will still be captured in other frames. The lack of urban fuss definitely adds to the film of surrealism.
You spent a lot of time with the Nokia Lumia 1020. What practical advice would you give to aspiring directors filming Lumia?
The first thing I noticed was the ability to control the focus. Other things, like white balance settings, are also great. The ability to manually control all these settings will allow you to maximally distance yourself from what a normal video looks like, captured on a phone. And definitely buy Camera Grip. With it, you can easily mount the phone on a tripod, plus with it you can look at the battery indicator much less frequently.
And how would you use our smartphone?
PS
Attention ! Open pre-order for Nokia Lumia 1020 .
We could not miss the opportunity and not tell you how this film was created. From the description of the video you can understand that it was made from 41 photos. But how exactly? We prepared a short video about the shooting and asked Paul a few questions - all under the cut.
')
The film lasts about 52 seconds. How much time was spent on shooting and editing and what difficulties did you encounter?
The shooting dates were extremely tight. I had only one attempt since I was limited by the sunrise. We shot from about 3 to 7 in the morning and checked with the schedule of the sunrise to understand the position of the sun in the next 15 minutes. Sunrise is a very important point, as the lighting changes every 2 minutes and every quarter should be photographed as quickly as possible.
The installation took a total of about 2 weeks. True, a lot of time was spent on the study of the technique of “superzoom” just before shooting.
You mentioned that the film “is essentially an image inside the image, repeated 41 times.” How did the glueing process take place and why does the film look so seamless?
The main part of the work is the careful adjustment of the vanishing point and the horizon line in each frame. The snag complicating this process lies in the distortions from the lens arising at the edges of each frame. The closer the objects are to the camera, the larger they appear. When you zoom into a photo, the frame is smoothed. Therefore, the whole process is reduced to finding the point at which the two photos converge. Each frame must be perfectly processed to look like a continuation of the other. In some cases, the buildings and the sky had to be drawn to get rid of the seams.
Obviously, you have the necessary experience to shoot such videos. What about the others? Will an unprepared user of Nokia Lumia 1020 be able to do something like that? If so, how?
I have to admit - I had to tinker before I learned to use this technique. However, anyone familiar with After Effects and having a keen eye can figure it out. For a quick acquaintance with the technique of "super-zoom", I recommend the teaching materials Andrew Kramer .
In addition, a lot depends on how you shoot your original frames. Post-processing will be much easier if, when shooting, to make sure that each subsequent frame was taken at an equal distance from the previous one, from the same angle and with the same focal length. I urge all owners of Lumia 1020 to watch our offscreen video and try to shoot their own “superzoom”.
New York is one of the busiest cities in the world, but in your movie it is very calm. How did you manage to get rid of cars and passersby?
This was partly deliberate, partly - logistically. I did the first test shoot at perhaps the worst time — between 2 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And Manhattan met me in all its power, making the shooting a nightmare. Frames did not overlap because of the constant flow of cars blocking the road. It was only a test that helped me hone the technique, but he convinced me that I needed to shoot early in the morning. During shooting, I only needed to make sure that the car was not within the block I was shooting. All the next quarters will still be captured in other frames. The lack of urban fuss definitely adds to the film of surrealism.
You spent a lot of time with the Nokia Lumia 1020. What practical advice would you give to aspiring directors filming Lumia?
The first thing I noticed was the ability to control the focus. Other things, like white balance settings, are also great. The ability to manually control all these settings will allow you to maximally distance yourself from what a normal video looks like, captured on a phone. And definitely buy Camera Grip. With it, you can easily mount the phone on a tripod, plus with it you can look at the battery indicator much less frequently.
And how would you use our smartphone?
PS
Attention ! Open pre-order for Nokia Lumia 1020 .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/194742/
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