UWOL #13 "Velocity" - Per Johan Naesje
 

When the theme - CHAOS was annonced for the 13th round of the UWOL challenge, I decided to do some experimenting with stop motion sequences. I've never done this before, so I think I've some more to learn regarding this matter.
But it was a lot of fun. Even if you do this by a digital stillcamera, you never know if you succeeded before you can view the sequence in your NLE (editing system). It's almost like in the good old days, when you was waiting for the film to process at the lab.

There is of course possibility today to do this with videocameras, but I decided to give my good old Canon 20D a "new life". Loaded with "tons" of CF-cards I went out to get the sequences I needed. To get a workable sequence you need at least 300-400 stills, which give you a sequence of approx. 12-16 seconds of video. In my part of the world we use 25 frames per second. Then you can edit 4-8 seconds of the best part of the sequence.

There was some trial and errors before I learned how to set up the timer (the interval between the frames). For sceneries with moving clouds, intervals at 6 to 15 seconds between each frame was best. For sequences of moving people and birds, intervals at 1 to 3 seconds between each frame was best.
I also planned the shoot of an flower opening, but didn't get enough time to do it. I believe you need some minutes between each frame to get what you want.

There is a great advantage of using a digital stillcamera for stop motion sequences. You got a much better resolution in every frame, which you can benefit on in doing pans and zooms into the stop motion sequence, which I tried in the film (Ken Burns effect).

I had some technical issues though during the edit. I started to do some color corrections and using brightness and contrast filter, when sequence suddenly started to color flicker, during playback. This also occured in the exported QT-version, so I had to remove those filters, leading to some of the sequences in the film to look a bit dull.

My final timeline in FCP was set to ProRes 422, rendering everything, I decided to try out how much I could compress the sequence without losing too much quality. I was quite surprised when my final QT-file ended to be no more than 11 MB in size! The whole exporting process was done direct from FCP by using QuickTime Conversion!



Here's link to my film - Velocity
Velocity - UWOL13 on Vimeo

http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen...3_velocity.mov



Appreciate any comments to my entry!

Enjoy!

Awesome.

The ending clips, just love the saturation, and audio.

Amazing how much work went into that, wait to process.

Per Johan;

You never cease to deliver some beautiful and interesting images.

I have started playing with time lapse and stop motion with the 5D, and it is a lot of fun.

While interesting, I am not sure the insert of the camera and the timer unit, helped the piece. I 'll be curious what other think.

Another nice piece !

Per Johan,

Very fun to watch and very clever how you made it. A lot of work, but worth it. I had to watch it twice.
I'm also amazed at the quality since you compressed it down to 11M.

Like Chris mentioned, I might not have put the camera in the beginning. At first I thought it looked like a camera commercial.

Again, great job!

Bob

Per Johan,

You always come up with something interesting. I loved the end, very dramatic.

Nicely done. I would like to do a similar thing with the northern lights!!!

enjoyed it very much.

Per Johan,
I thought the camera and timer shot was a plus and very well composited. This video was a pleasure to watch. I’m glad you are now doing time-lapse. Did you use any deflicker software? Have you seen the trick over on Timescapes for locking an EF lens shutter so it doesn’t move between shots? I haven’t tried it yet. Let us know if you do.

Thanks all for your kind comments to my film!

Well, seem that I have to consider buying a 5D, now that Canon decided to release a firmware upgrade!!! This is very good news and I think it's more to come....

Mike, thanks so much for the link! I didn't use any deflicker software. I will study your link close as I'm in the beginning of learning this stuff!

Excellent!

I personally liked the timer and camera. The motion on them was very smooth, very good job with the composite, and the camera 'winks' at you when it centers up. I loved that. The clouds roiling and meshing together was another big deal in my book. I loved that too.

I noticed your ken burns on the duck lake. I recognize the FCP smooth motion zoom. ;) Of course would not have if I didn't edit with it so not a bad thing! And the ending was great as well. A flair for the dramatic? :)

Overall a great job for a first time stop motion! You got some wonderful footage and brought it together well!

Per Johan,

This was interesting and amazing!
I am impressed of what you could do with the still camera.

Thanks for sharing your master piece.

Per Johan,

Well, I expected a good film from someone who wears a three-piece suit when out in the wilds! You don't catch Norwegians wearing cheap €10 hats and white T-shirts!

I'm a fan of timelapse, and you didn't disappoint. The cloud sequences were unusual; a change from the usual clouds-over-the-landscape timelapse, it seemed to give a feeling of being up there inside the clouds. Beautiful.

It all looks so... well, clean, far from the urban grime in other countries. Well done.

Technically, the compression was remarkable. And my attempt at timelapse was done the old fashioned way, using tape and doing it all in the editor. I can see the benefits of the stills camera.

Can I be the only one who can't listen to that music without thinking of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd?

Just super!

Per Johan,
Your video and technique is fascinating and gives inspiration to practise in similar ways.
The file of not more than 11 MB is interesting. It shows what a modern codec can do when the pictures are steady, clean and noiseless. The Ride of the Valkyries sets a dramatic effect to the film.

Per,

Nice take on the theme.
I enjoyed how the sped up motion took people walking down paths and walkways and turned into into a chaotic frenzy. Even the boats in the water looked chaotic sped up. :)
Nice job on the DSL time-lapse.
Very nice dramatic scene at the end. I about jumped out of my seat with the thunder!!

Great job as always!!

Wow - it's hard to know what to say. The ideas were great - the movement of people, I thought, looked more orderly when speeded-up. I was surprised at the birds footage - where people were feeding the gulls, you still knew what was happening. And the clouds - always look fascinating when you can see them moving, bubbling up etc. The quality of the video was, as they say "awesome".

I've been thinking about trying the technique on the rising tide down on the estuary here, so I guess now I've got no excuse for not trying it! Except for that horrible problem of finding enough hours in the day!

Thanks alot for your kind comments, guys!
I learned a lot from this shooting regarding timelaps sequences. And I will certainly do more of those things in the future. I'm looking at some kind of stuff to control motion, especially some pan motion. We'll see what I come up with.

Annie, you don't have to sit and watch the camera taking thousands of pics for hours. If you can set up the camera on a tripod in a area where it can be safe to put it (no thiefs!) It can do the job on it own, until the battery is done or CF-card is full!

Mike, Finn-Erik, the music - Ride of the Valkyries - is one of my favourite classical pieces!

Unfortunately the sites I have in mind for when I have time to do some time lapse, are all in public places so I wouldn't leave the camera running if I wasn't at least close-by. I'd probably be using the video camera for other footage while the still camera is doing the time lapse. Another place would be from a neighbour's garden, but there would be too great a risk from their dogs knocking against equipment.

Right now the county if full of tourists, so I can't even leave a camera and motion detector out because there are too many campsites and too many kids exploring the area.