Amazing Use of Off-Camera Light
This is not strobe, but it is some of the most creative use of off-camera lighting I have ever seen.
Last year, we ran a post about Pika-Pika, a group of Japanese performance artists who draw with light. They shoot still-camera time exposures of themselves drawing with flashlights, and animate the still frames to absolutely beautiful effect.
It appears as if Sprint has commissioned them to create a television commercial. I say "appears" because I don't know for sure. If Sprint came to them to create the piece, I think that's just great. But if a bunch of Madison Avenue types just lifted the technique and recreated it for a commercial, eh, not so nice.
Anyway, check out the vid and watch how quickly you can get lost in a simple series of flashlight time exposures. Really neat concept, and brilliant execution.
I find myself wondering how they pull this off. The consistency between frames is just amazing. Then it occurred to me that they probably shoot a frame, then shoot the next frame and chimp back and forth between the two. If it flows well, they move on to the next frame. If it doesn't, they delete the current frame and re-do it.
With all of the planning and shooting on the DVD's, I am pretty crunched right now. But I can see myself trying something like this just for the fun of it when I get some free time. Have you ever tried anything like this? If so, was it harder or easier than you thought it would be?
________________________
Last year's post of an animated horse walking across the floor is here, along with other links to more cool Pika-Pika stuff.
Last year, we ran a post about Pika-Pika, a group of Japanese performance artists who draw with light. They shoot still-camera time exposures of themselves drawing with flashlights, and animate the still frames to absolutely beautiful effect.
It appears as if Sprint has commissioned them to create a television commercial. I say "appears" because I don't know for sure. If Sprint came to them to create the piece, I think that's just great. But if a bunch of Madison Avenue types just lifted the technique and recreated it for a commercial, eh, not so nice.
Anyway, check out the vid and watch how quickly you can get lost in a simple series of flashlight time exposures. Really neat concept, and brilliant execution.
I find myself wondering how they pull this off. The consistency between frames is just amazing. Then it occurred to me that they probably shoot a frame, then shoot the next frame and chimp back and forth between the two. If it flows well, they move on to the next frame. If it doesn't, they delete the current frame and re-do it.
With all of the planning and shooting on the DVD's, I am pretty crunched right now. But I can see myself trying something like this just for the fun of it when I get some free time. Have you ever tried anything like this? If so, was it harder or easier than you thought it would be?
________________________
Last year's post of an animated horse walking across the floor is here, along with other links to more cool Pika-Pika stuff.
Get the Full Monte: Follow Strobist on Twitter.
Now Shipping from USA and UK: Strobist Lighting Seminar DVDs
Feed your brain: My Favorite Lighting/Photo Books
by David, at 1:48 AM.
21 Comments:
I've tried some light painting but nowhere near this complicated, even for 1 frame. It is hard, and I can't help but wonder what tricks they have up their sleeves during the shoot (or after, but hopefully not).
To be honest - it's not as difficult as it looks. I've been lightpainting for years and once you have the basic technical skills you can literally do anything you like. ;-)
Objects are easy:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/28202052_75101c01b3.jpg
For stuff like in those videos you can use cardboard cutouts as I did here for the writing:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/31/58524924_41f24debcc.jpg
if anyone's interested, the music used in that video is by an awesome band from Melbourne called "Architecture in Helsinki"
Originally, this technique was done with nothing more than a d-slr, but they've been able to perfect it with the use of a video camera and frame grabber software (so you can see where exactly you are before you even take the picture).
This flickr slideshow is also really good
A while back a friend and I had some fun doing something similar, but we never thought of animating it. I actually saw this commercial on a screen somewhere last night when we went to see the new Harry Potter movie, it's kinda crazy it ended up here.
I love the look of this. I hate to say it, but I think this has been cheated. When you look at the previous pikapika videos, they have an enormously scribbly quality, because of the difficulty of lining up consecutive frames. This video makes some very detailed shapes (the arms of the sun for example), and they hold quite still, or move very fluidly.
I think the light in this video has been animated in post-production. Being a phone company commercial increases my feeling that it isn't real.
Reminds me of Pablo picassas centaur, one of my fave b&w shots
I've been seeing this commercial on TV for about a week now. It always grabs my attention!
I've done some single-frame lightpainting using a small LED flashlight and balloons (to get different colors; just stick the LED into the neck of the balloon and stretch it over the light). It just takes practice. And patience. Lotsa patience.
Here is a behind the scenes video of the making. Awesome stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfefTRDY4sc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjamesyu%2Eorg%2F2007%2F07%2F04%2Flight%2Dpainting%2Dsprint%2Dcommercial%2F
The making of the spot is here. All done by hand over long nights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfefTRDY4sc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjamesyu%2Eorg%2F2007%2F07%2F04%2Flight%2Dpainting%2Dsprint%2Dcommercial%2F
I'm no pro, but I inadvertently painted with light last weekend while on a bobbing boat, trying to take fireworks pictures. You can see it here: http://bp2.blogger.com/_xwVD2pyUQ3s/RpLgxPW-WoI/AAAAAAAAAl0/bQSfmGITwOQ/s1600-h/IMG_4357.JPG
(or tiny url here: http://tinyurl.com/yrpqxb )
I guess I'm the pessimist proved wrong! I'm glad to see they really did it by hand...
I tried this before too, but not with video. You can find a shot of me with
my imaginary friend in my gallery.
Much much much harder than I expected.
The pikapika work is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!
There is a video behind the scenes of the sprint ad. It took four days! WoW!
Or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfefTRDY4sc
I had a go last winter. Surprisingly easy to do, but difficult to do well (particularly if you want to do lots!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigfez/384521708
I have been doing light painting with LED flashlights for a while now, never tried to animate it. I loved the Pika Pika videos when you first linked to them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluheron/sets/72157600280375552/
A great tool (besides cheap flashlights) for colorful light painting is the Sauce Color Changing Lightwand. It will fire in one solid color, change abruptly from color to color, or run through a rainbow smoothly. You can do some pretty neat stuff with this guy. And its quite bright.
yes. pika pika were not commissioned by sprint at all. sprint did approach and ask them how to do it. it's not so much that pika pika invented the technique, it's the communal aspect sprint applied to the commercial and how it was made with recruited artists/illustrators to "draw" that irks them.
-a friend of pika pika.
Post a Comment
<< Home