It’s been a fantastic fortnight for video productions with some major client wins. We were delighted to win an exciting contract to produce a series of  innovative and creative films for one of Scotland’s leading universities.

We’re continuing to produce industry led films for Heriot-Watt University which will be featuring an interesting cast list, and we’re just about to kick-off filming on another project for Alzheimer Scotland about the benefits of Self Directed Support, following on from our recent work on the incredible Dementia Champions. We’re also looking forward to starting pre-production planning on a few more jobs, but they are hush hush at the moment! We Love Video!

Slow Motion (or overcranking as it’s sometimes known) has been a part of cinema since the early 1900’s, but it’s only since the turn of the century that its popularity has skyrocketed from its use in commercials, sports coverage and feature film. Furthermore, the emergence of ‘affordable’ high speed cameras such as the Phantom and RED cameras have made this slow motion effect achievable for most production companies.

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Our new showreel:

When is a physical graphic not physical? When it’s made of light.

Light painting is a technique more often associated with stills photography.  It can bring movement and dynamism to an otherwise still image.  The technique involves long exposures which allow the movement of single points of light to be captured as streaks.  This also means the person doing the ‘painting’ effectively becomes invisible as they are in constant motion and generally not illuminated.

Like other photographic techniques it has found its way into the world of moving images.  There are different ways this can be achieved, using a stills camera to create a stop-motion video for example or with a very slow shutter speed on your video camera and a very steady tripod.  Both of these present their own issues – you would need a lot of stills to create a smooth stop motion and with a slow shutter on your camera every other moving element in your shot would be reduced to a blur.  That’s why this video really caught my attention, it is essentially ‘live action’ light painting.

Having recently made use of physical graphics in a number of projects I couldn’t help but think this would be an interesting and different way to approach them.

The makers of the video aren’t giving away their secrets but I would imagine it involved a LOT of post production working using various layers and masks.  So what’s the point? Sure, you could just create the ‘light painted’ parts in After Effects…but where’s fun in that!

What exactly is 2.5D? It’s a way by which two-dimensional photographs can be split into individual layers to create an animation which gives the illusion of 3D and depth. Moving these 2D layers around in a composition’s z-axis creates a parallax effect and gives the illusion of a shift in perspective.

This technique is now well established and widely used due to the many advantages it offers over attempting to achieve similar results with a standard video camera, even for productions with a moderately high-budget. Achieving the effect isn’t particularly straightforward, the still requires a lot of preparation before any animation or treatment can begin. Also, a high quality image with clearly established planes of depth is essential in order to recreate a plausible 3D environment for your composition.

However, once the groundwork has been completed you are left with a composition over which you have a great deal of control. The ability to manipulate your image and create otherwise unachievable animations is the main attraction of using the 2.5D technique. Advantages such as creating virtual camera movements and the ability to control the ‘action’ within your image mean there are far more opportunities to achieve the required result. Furthermore, using a still photograph provides the opportunity to work with images at a much higher resolution, enabling greater control over reframing and better results when colour grading. These opportunities for trial-and-error and experimentation, that are unavailable when on-location, have made 2.5D a valuable and popular technique.