Daily Inspiration - Coldplay’s Strawberry Swing

Strawberry Swing is a visually stunning stop-motion video starring Coldplay’s Chris Martin in the lead role as a flying superhero fighting giant squirrels, sea monsters, and ultimately, getting the girl. It was created in collaboration with the group Shynola, and utilizes an overhead stop-motion animation style that has come into vogue in recent years. But this video takes it to a whole new level, using perspective and live elements in a way that hasn’t been done before. You’ll no doubt watch this video a few times over, trying to solve the inevitable “how did they do that?!?” questions. Enough talk, watch below.

THR Roundtable with 2009’s Top Directors

The Hollywood Reporter has put together a great video roundtable series with some of the top directors of last year. They brought together Peter Jackson, Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, and Quentin Tarantino to discuss various filmmaking topics over breakfast. It’s a fascinating discussion.

In one exchange, Tarantino insinuates that he’ll stop directing once theaters stop projecting 35mm film and move to all-digital projection. James Cameron’s response is priceless. Gotta love Tarantino’s childlike obsession with celluloid...the Editing Room nailed him in their re-write of Basterds. Watch the discussion below…

Steven Soderbergh featurette on shooting Che with RED

The upcoming Criterion release of Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” has a brilliant little featurette in the disc that talks about the Red One camera, and how digital cinema affected the production of this film. If you aren’t familiar with the story, Soderbergh basically took the Red One camera’s digital promise on faith, and was the first to use the system in a true production environment, and a very rough one at that. “Che” was shot on-location in the damp jungle and in extremely hot conditions. Essentially a trial by fire situation for a camera that was largely untested for real production.

Watch the featurette “Che and the Digital Cinema Revolution” in the video playlist embedded below the fold.

Throughout the course of these interviews, a portrait of Steven Soderbergh emerges...he is driven, unrelenting, and wants no compromises in production and post. He seems willing to cede a number of technical concerns that would cause most directors to pause, in exchange for greater control and flexibility in attaining his filmmaking vision.

Camera Blocking - A Case Study

Last year I had the opportunity to worked as Director of Photography with Tim Zwica on his new project “The Nest,” a 35-min horror short shot on a minimal budget. Shooting a lot VFX shots and action sequences on a budget naturally made for a very compressed schedule. One of the things that I wanted to do right away was find a way to shoot longer master shots on a dolly to facilitate our schedule. This allowed us to combine a large amount of coverage into one long shot, and yet still be creative with the camera blocking. The following narrated behind-the-scenes video is a case study exploring the way we handled one such dolly shot. The goal here is to show just one of many possible approaches to the creative challenges we encountered on this shoot.

Click the link to watch the video tutorial below…

Stunning Trailer for Battle for Hearts and Minds

Back in May I posted some footage from Danfung Dennis, a photojournalist and videographer embedded in Afghanistan. He was one of the first to use the Canon 5D MKII in military action, and was filming a documentary on the Battle for Hearts and Minds in the region. Well just the other day the official trailer for the film came out, and it looks simply amazing. You can watch it below, as well as check out the tools he’s used to create this film.

What is the role of a Camera Operator?

In this fantastic short video clip, professional cam op Gerard Sava talks about what it takes to efficiently and successfully perform the role of a camera operator on a production set. Watch below.

MacMediaTech podcast premiere episode

MacMediaTech podcast premiered the other day, and I’m one of the guests in the premiere episode. I like the format of this podcast, and really enjoyed the discussion with fellow filmmakers Paul Del Vecchio, Paul Zadie, and Kenn Bell. Give this one a shot if you’re into podcasts. 

The most ridiculously cool Steadicam shot you’ll see this week

Saw this link being tweeted amongst those who use that newfangled Twitter thingy. It was a behind-the-scenes video clip of a Eurovision performance rehearsal in which a Steadicam operator rode a Segway at top speed towards the stage, leapt off the Segway onto the stage and proceeded to carry the move into a few circles around the talent, before exiting stage right. It’s the sort of video you have to watch again immediately. After seeing this clip, I hit The Google for a bit and dug up some other BTS clips, as well as the final Steadicam shot from the live performance. You can watch ‘em all below.

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