A month or so ago I got a tilt-shift lens (Nikon PC-E Micro Nikkor 45mm f/2.8D ED) and one of the first things I wanted to try was interval shooting to make a stop-motion like tilt-shifted video like these awesome ones from Australia photographer Keith Loutit. Haven’t quite figured out how to make them look that cool yet but here’s one of the first efforts, taken from the Burj Al Arab looking down at its car entrance at night. Watch how the lights come in and out of focus, and how fast the cars are at the intersection. The video is available in full HD if your computer can handle it just toggle it in the top-right and go full-screen.
Big thanks to Michael Pick of WordPress.tv fame for doing all the video magic here.
Great first stop-motion video, looks great in HD at full screen, the blurry side’s effect focuses your attention in a nice way. It reminds me of various Chaplin movies with the music pick and the speed of the video.
By the way this WP player is so much better than using a YouTube player, is there any way to use this player on a self-hosted WP blog?
Sure just make a placeholder WordPress.com blog with the space upgrade and upload your videos there, then embed them wherever you like. That’s what I did above.
With that in mind I feel like one of those guys who keeps asking the obvious questions. ^^
Thanks Matt.
That looks fantastic. Could you tell a little bit about how many images you took and what your shooting interval was?
I took I think 990-ish images at a second apart.
Cool… Blue Rondo A La Turk is a nice choice for the music on this too.
Looks cool! I’ll be heading there tomorrow 🙂
I like this video player better than Youtube… where can I upload videos and embed on this player?
Yes, read the very first comment on this thread.
That looks awesome. Great job!
Is there a plug in with this player?
Please see the first comment in this thread for how to use the player. It’s available as Open Source if you want to run your own video infrastructure, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re systems savvy.
I think you’ll get better results if you get closer to the action, allow more of it to be in focus, and concentrate on side-to-side action rather than back-and-forth action, which too quickly enters and leaves focus. You might need daylight to do that.
Very cool. Looks like it turned out great, especially for an early try. The one from Keith is really impressive.
Looks great! Although it’s called time lapse, stop motion is moving inanimate objects frame by frame.
You are correct.
Nice video! I have never used a professional camera, so I don’t know how hard this could be, but I suggest you to try rotating the tilt-shift lens 90°, so the focus is across the center instead of being vertical like it seems to be in this video.
Good luck! 🙂
careful matt… this stuff is addicting… would be cool to see something you shoot with your own music…
here is a link you will find interesting..
http://www.timelapsedigital.com/contact.htm
Awesome.
If you want to create the miniature effect, perhaps try two things: lay the focused part in a horizontal rather than vertical area. And use a slow tempo piece of music.
The up-tempo suggests the image is sped up, which you don’t want if you want to create the effect that it’s a real-time miniature, like in Keith’s videos.
Can’t wait for your next showpiece!
Are you still in Dubai?
No I’ve been back a few weeks.
I love this video! I love all the “Tilt-shift miniature faking” videos !!!! 🙂
Beautiful city of Dubai
Wow. That’s gorgeous.
this is really really ace i love the audio also as it ads to the whole aura… it could have had its blacks added to it in post processing but it also looks authentic as it is.. great work.. check out my work if you like
Cool! I’m sad we didn’t get to make one in Houston together.
Matt, you REALLY need to make this video content management available in self hosted WordPress blogs. It’s FANTASTIC!
Jay Lee
http://www.geekradio.com