Film & Video | Kmotion Media : Video Production · Animation · Post Production · Interactive

New HD Camera Prompts Romp in Field

We were so excited about purchasing our new Panasonic HD video camera and the gorgeous film-like results we’re achieving with it, that we’ve taken to bringing it with us everywhere. That includes the farm where we get our raw organic milk. While driving out to the farm, we saw a little gravel road off the highway where we filmed this scene. It was absolutely FREEZING out, so we shot for all of 4 minutes…seriously. Greg dashed out of the car, set up the tripod and established his master shot and THEN I got out of the car for my stunning no-makeup-no-hair-no-stylist-what-was-I-thinking moment. (Anyone who knows me, knows I’d rather be behind the camera! Please see the follow-up to this post, “Campaign to Save Susan from being on Camera”.) As for the footage, we cut it together, played around with some editing techniques, added a few post effects and motion graphic elements (just a sampling from our bag of tricks).

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Fun Graphics – Rich Interviews

Here’s more on-location studio style interview footage – all shot in a small room over a teal paper background. The interview style is fun and energetic – a great approach for Millennial marketing or upbeat corporate projects. We’ve incorporated motion graphics to underline key themes and maintain energy.

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Turning Negatives into Positives (On-Location Interviews Part 2)

Our last post showed examples of two On-Location ”Studio” Looks. In this post, we’re sharing a clip that utilizes available background.

In this case, we shot an interview in a room that had a bank of windows as part of the background. Instead of blocking out the light we decided to use the windows to our advantage.

By shooting with an 85mm lens, we were able to blur out the background – turning the “negative” obstacle of the harsh winter light coming in from the outside, into a “positive” interesting-looking background image.

Here’s the result:

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On-Location “Studio” Look

We do a lot of on-location interviews. In the last year, we’ve done almost 100 interviews. All were shot on-location. More than ever, clients want to shoot where they are. People, at all levels within any company, just don’t have time to travel to a studio. That does not mean, however, that clients want to sacrifice quality.

Below are just two examples of what is possible on-location. Each interview has its own distinct look and feel, but were both shot in the same size room. When shooting on location, the physical space limitation is the main obstacle. Unfortunately, the reality is that the largest room most companies can offer is a conference room. Below you will see the results of shooting in a very small room, while still achieving a studio look. Both interviews were achieved using our standard camera package, lights and lenses – no special rental camera, light truck, gear or lens rentals were employed. For the two interviews below, we took advantage of our 85mm lens. The lens imparts a cinematic effect, beautiful skin tone, and a shallow depth of field, which provides an infinite studio look. We have determined that we can achieve a studio look in a room as small as 16’ wide, 20’ long, with 9’ ceilings for standing subjects, 7 ½’ ceilings for seated subjects. Anything larger is a bonus.

White Background approach:

Black Background approach:

Although shot in the same size room, the production and post-production approaches vary considerably, resulting in two very different interviews, each with their own distinct look and feel. What’s most exciting is that these are only two possibilities – there are infinite approaches.

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Big Creative on a Little Budget

What started as an exploration in creativity quickly became an exercise in overcoming budgetary and environmental obstacles. Some key elements to take note of :

The sky, in all of the scenes, has been completely replaced with more dramatic, time lapse footage.
A flock of perfectly-timed ANIMATED birds fly over the scene. (In reality, there was only one bird that appeared in any of the footage we shot.)
Weeds and other elements appear to grow out of the cracks in the street.
The trees on the horizon have been removed.
The color of the piece is now uniform and reflects the otherworldliness we wanted to achieve. In reality, the changing light during the shoot dramatically modified the colors and light in each scene.

See below for more details and an animated movie that slowly reveals the many layers involved in crafting the final piece.

Tools & Techniques HD 1080i cinematography, undercrank blur (an in-camera effect), light reflectors (the only way to economically control the lighting), HD editing, After Effects, Photoshop, 3DS Max and Cinema 4D.

Obstacles Budget (there wasn’t one), Traffic (but they all waved), a lone walker (who transformed into a speed walker when she realized she was in the shot), crop spraying (he also waved), less-than-perfect clouds (where are those Biblical Clouds when you really need them?), constantly changing light levels, the inability to (economically) light the scene, a line of trees in the distance that really bothered Dan and having to deal with really uncooperative talent. View the animated transformation:

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Chroma Key Footage with Interactive Graphics

Here’s more on-location footage shot in a small room. This time, we shot chroma key footage on a portable green screen. Here are the before and after images:

Since the movement was fast and youthful, we shot footage of lots of flailing arms and flipping hair (not the best source material for footage that we would later need to key).

We keyed the footage and then added graphics that appear to interact with the talent – moving around them, casting shadows on them and appearing to grow from their actions. The 3D motion graphic elements were rendered out in a manner which allowed us to move the graphic elements in front of and behind the actors seamlessly. We also motion tracked some of the shots allowing us to match the movement of the graphics to the actors movements.

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