The shooting for the film HEILD goes on, mainly focusing on shooting at night. Northern lights and starry skies. we´re also testing out a new element with a super telephoto lens I borrowed from a friend, a Hasselblad 250mm with doubler = 500mm zoom. this “canon” of a lens is awesome and I want to use it to shoot the “Koyaanisqatsi signature move” where a subject is far away and zoomed in with a huge moon in the backround. Me and Loftur made some tests using this method the other day while shooting a northern light timelapse. The results are promising but I´ll have to work on getting these shots sharp and with less haze. In the shots below one can see these shots were taken at moonset in the night but I also want to try this element out during day time with a white/grayish huge moon and blue sky.
There are two other projects on the menu now, one where I´ll be the DOP in a graduate student´s short film this weekend. He is finishing his film studies at the Icelandic filmschool. And another much bigger project is coming up in febuary, An epic nature/music video for an unconventional choir of 50 men and two bands called Fjallabræður or “Mountain Brothers”. This video will be filmed in a 10 day roadtrip around the country. Looking forward to shooting this thing. There is talk about other projects as well but nothing clear on those yet.
Finally a status on my physical state, I´ve retired the wheelchair outside of my home, I´m always on my leg-braces now walking around with cruches, for me this configuration works better and is of course the road to the ultimate full recovery of my T-12 incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI) I suffered from a year ago. Also in process is applying for the first electric stance-control orthoses in Iceland which allow me to bend my knees while walking controlled by sensors and a micro-processor, a true game-changer for me. I found them in USA after extensive research on the internet, I thought they didn´t exist but fortunately they do. More on them HERE.
Below are a few shots of a nightshot session with my brother Loftur a while ago..
I´ve finally converted to Mac, thanks to an awesome cooperation with Macland. They offered me a great deal on a specialized 15″ Macbook Pro i7 2.5 quad core laptop, and wow what a workhorse!,(further details on the beast HERE) all my exporting and rendering just got 10x times faster than before. Converting to Mac means switching the NLE program, and I´ve decided to go Adobe all the way. Continuing with Lightroom and switching from Sony Vegas to Premiere Pro, and adding After Effects to the workflow. I´d like to dive deeper into special effects work and 3D graphic design.
I´ve sealed the deal with Red Marble Media and sold them circa 45 seconds of footage, a mix from older videos and short films. Also in the process of selling some forest footage to India, nothing confirmed yet though.
The winter has come here in Reykjavik, Iceland. It´s snowing everywhere, and snow has been lying here in Reykjavik for more than two weeks now and it seems that we´ll have white christmas for a change. A nice suprise. There is one downside to the snow.. my wheelchair, a pain in the ass to be wheeling around in the snow so I´ve kind of retired the chair, I use my braces with a pair of crutches most of the time now when I go out of the house, it´s nicer anyway to be standing up, and walking is of course the way to my complete recovery. I´ve also got my hands on new “wintershoes” for my car Baltasar, Bf Goodrich mud terrain, should come in handy in the snow and the mountains. There is going to be a winter sequence in my film HEILD and I´m looking forward to shooting it.
HEILD translates into Totality and is a non-narrative film featuring the country of my origin. Iceland. The film focuses on all aspects of it´s unique and diverse nature, it´s entire nation and culture. The goal with this film is to present Iceland in a way it has never been presented before, using many elements of higher-end cinematography. There are places here everyone knows, but there are also thousands of well hidden places. To find these locations one has to be an adventurous local, and to capture them right, one has to be creative and extremely patient.
Watch the sparkling new Trailer for this film below, in HD of course!
I´ll name this post “Totality” because I´m throwing out this and that in it, but mainly because it´s the name of my current project.. or at least in English. The original title is in Icelandic: ”HEILD”. I´ve been working on the trailer for this project for the past weeks, in cooperation with Box Of Toys Audio that created the musical score for the piece and are as we speak working on the sfx. I´m rendering the final renders as well so when these two jobs are done I´m releasing the trailer. It will hopefully happen this week.
As mentioned earlier my Sony SR1 died the other day after 5 years of serving as a top notch workhorse. It was sad and I started to wonder how my brother Loftur was going to finish the documentary about me making my film, as it was shot entirely on the SR1. But that problem has solved because a few days ago I received almost the same camera from a friend that wasn´t using it at all. It´s the Sony SR11, smaller with bigger hard drive and stuff…. Nice one and much appreciated. I uploaded two photos of these bad boys..
I cant seem to get the bullet-time idea out of my head, I think it´s a sign it has to be done, but as I looked deeper into the idea I found a few problems that go with building a bullet-time/ timeslice rig, they are:
You need 30+ dslr cameras obviously (30 for a one second shot, maybe 1.5 sec if post frames are made)
You need to trigger them all through the remote shutter socket, not the usb (means you need a control board with all the shutter cables and a master switch)
You need to be able to connect them to a computer to store the shots in one place, through usb?
if usb, then you need an usb hub which runs(if it works) 16 cameras, so you need at least 2 of them. This + shutter wires means a lot of cables. (30 cameras = 60 cables)
You need to point every camera to the exactly same point if you want a smooth outcome, could work with a “cold shoe modified” laser.
You might need a multi-camera software for changing parameters in the camera as well as storing and saving the data to the computer.
So far I´ve supposedly resolved 3-4 of those problems. I still need to find a solution of transferring and storing the data on the computer. It is possible to change parameters on every single camera and shoot to the cf cards put in the long term that´s a pain in the ass. I have a copy of a program called Dslr Remote Pro, having many copies open at the same time works so one might have one open for each camera, I tested this with two cameras (photos below). No idea if this works with 30+. There is another software out there from the same company called multi-camera, but it costs thousands of dollars, even more than the camera array itself, which sounds ridiculous to me, but probably because the service of making bullet-time is very specialized.
I´ve been thinking more about the bullet time idea, we´re hopefully taking the process to the next level as we “supposably” have gotten a budget to buy all of the dslr´s that we need, funded by another project I´m involved in, a huge big budget documentary, more about that later as the process continues. But also my brother Loftur is and electric engineer and offered to make a control board where we can connect, control and shoot from all the cameras at once or with some milliseconds in between for making super slow motion timeslice-ing. Very Exiting.
When I have time I´m working in the garage making a few rod support systems out of my favorite material aluminium. Once they are ready we can mount almost anything onto our camera rigs, like matteboxes, filters and follow focus equipment. I´m also prepping the rails for the V2 dolly, I´m starting with thick 4.5m angle-tracks in three portable 1.5m bits. Testing of the V2 is on the schedule.
Photos of the SR1(RIP) and maybe from the balloney trip coming soon along with some bullet time software testing.
Yesterday I did a job for my father in law, shooting a little promoting video for a huge dryer he build along with his brother.. I used my jibcrane in this shoot and took a few BTS shots of it, with all of it´s newest accessories, available below.
We are moving into an office emerged with my friends at Borgarmynd Ehf which produced THIS amazing map of Reykjavik´s city center. There I have 24/7 access to a desk which I´m going to gear up with LCD screens, hard drives and such.. Good to be able to take work out of the home.
These days I´m working on the Trailer for the film and shooting city stuff, focusing on the night traffic/people, playing around with street lights and then the plan is to move over to the “downtown party” sequence, where we´ll be using the V2 for the first time, I still have to build the tracks for that dolly though, but I´ve tested it and it was very smooth.
Tomorrow Me and Helgi will join our friends Ingo and Elli for a roadtrip east, there are plans on having a surf sequence in my film and these guys are probably Iceland´s most experienced surfers, so I´m hoping for the natural light, correct wind direction and “the big swell” for this trip. Once again the ride of the trip is going to be my beloved Baltasar packed with all my filmgear. Heads up and hopefully some footage, surf or other kind next weekend.
My situation and our work was featured on the national television in Iceland today on primetime.. It can be watched streaming online HERE. There´s a glimpse of the work I´ve been shooting lately during good night conditions, with full moon and northen lights.. But the quality in this online stream is on the other hand nothing to jump in the air for so I recommend just waiting for the film =).
I´ve been researching the possibility of building a “bullet-time rig”, this is as of yet just in a total “fetus” stage but a very interesting idea and would be an indeed exiting element to add to the film, I´ve been thinking about this because Ingo has access to about 20 Go Pro Heroes. Now building the rig itself would not be the main issue, but rather plugging the cameras together and trigger the whole system.. More thoughts about this idea later.
Below are a few photos from recent shooting and the first 5 GoPros I received for testing the “bullet-time” idea..
I´m currently in Reykjavik and there happened to be sunny, clear blue skies and in the night time bright stars, a full moon and amazing northen lights for almost a week, Of course I took advantage of the conditions and stayed out all nights in and around Þingvellir and shot motion astro timelapses with the V3 there. Thanks goes to my friends Snorri for assistance and good company, My brother Helgi, Carina and finally Baldur for the artistic insight, his framing and assistance. Filmmaker Gunnar Konrads joined me as well for a night for our first shoot together, got two shots in stead of one that night because he has a 5DmarkII as well. I´ve put together the results and I think it´s safe to say that I´ve never seen Þingvellir like this before..
I wont publish any footage yet, but a glimpse of these shots will be in the official trailer for my film:” The Play Of Light” which will release on the 3rd of October .. not to disappoint to much I´ve uploaded a video of a 2-axis test-shot in my livingroom with a guitar-head in the main role…available HERE or simply below..
I´m back from a week film-trip in North Iceland with great company and assistance from my awesome mom. The weather could have been better but I definitely shot some usable footage for my film. Which by the way has a new working title..”The Play Of Light” or in Icelandic..”Leikrit LjóSsins”
I´m happy to announce that I´ve started a cooperation with Box Of Toys Audio, a creative sound company based in London, (of course they are on Vimeo) where they have an amazing collection of creative Musical scores, SFX and all around impressive audio. Box Of Toys are going to create the music score and sound effects for my film, at least a good part of it.
I´m also happy to announce that I´ve started another cooperation with a fellow Icelandic Filmmaker named Gunnar Konráðsson, (which is on Vimeo as well of course) he has a degree and years of experience as an editor and has a very cinematic and creative style of shooting nature with HDSLR cameras. Our focuses and shooting styles are similar so I think with him on the team we can really create “next level material”.
Channel 2 here in Iceland, the biggest private TV station in Iceland have TV series called Sjálfstætt Fólk (which is an avard winning docu program following interesting people). It has been aired for more than 10 years and this year the first episode airs on the 25th of September. The Sunday Second of October they will air on primetime an episode about me making my film in a wheelchair. They followed us filming in the westfjords, they have interviews and daily live stuff. They will also premiere the first teaser for my film, a 50sek piece. I´m currently working on the official teaser which will be around 90sek as I found the limitation of 50sek a little to short. The longer version will be online as soon as their episode has aired.
