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Phil Doherty

Flash Motors

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Footage of cars which the client wanted shot in a 'Top Gear' style. Although I used an LEX on some of the shots I didn't get the best out of it. I hadn't figured how much it would slow me down especially when I wanted to use a matte box and grad ND filters as well. Errors were made in the rush (in some shots the iris was stopped down beyond 5.6 and the ground glass grain can clearly be seen) but overall I am happy with the result.

Comments

Will Mahoney

June 05, 2008 01:19 PM

Nice. I keep hearing people talk about "Top Gear" style and I've never actually seen the show. But I tell you this, I liked this video. Nice work.

Shiv Kumar

June 05, 2008 04:06 PM

Phil,
Overall this piece looks very professional. I think the edit has given it that professional look. Not much to my taste :) but I realize that this is the kind of thing we see these days (the MTV generation) and have come to accept and consider professional. So this is a job very well done.

I did find a lot a vignetting on the edges. If this was not intentional then you need to zoom in some more on the ground glass (I make this mistake all the time) In some places I found that either the DOF was too shallow or artificially blurry in places it shouldn't be such as @0:13 seconds into the clip where there was no reason for the first car's rear end to be out of focus. Or the thumbnail of this video where the top of the car is blurry.

You're trying to show off the cars and they should be is sharp focus (all of the car). It's actually annoying (to a degree) that I can't see all of the car. Now if you focused on a beautiful babe driving the car, I wouldn't care to see the rest of the car :)

Phil Doherty

June 06, 2008 08:24 AM

Vignetting was intentional-mostly (Magic Bullet) but then again some of it was due to not zooming in enough on the GG. My GG is never quite centred (left/right) and I have to zoom in a lot more than is ideal.

The defocusing is artificial-it's the Tilt/shift lens effect in Magic Bullet. Unfortunately, with this effect there doesn't appear to be a way of altering the size of the in-focus area.

Will Mahoney

June 06, 2008 08:41 AM

But the colors, man. Wow. How do you do that? Do you scoop the mids and oversaturate? It's a very stylized look.

Phil Doherty

June 06, 2008 09:37 AM

Magic Bullet-makes all the difference. Thanks for the comments by the way

Todd VanSlyck

June 06, 2008 10:52 AM

Man, I love this style of cinematography and editing. Love the use of the Letus, editing style, music choice, etc, etc.
I love the transitions (the blurry "tv going wacky" one). What made the difference on the transitions was the use of the subtle sfx that accompanied them. Nice.
Did you shoot 60i? It has that Gladiator type look to it.
One suggestion, it may benefit to drop some sound of the vehicle passing a few times as it goes by. Maybe not every shot and not too loud. It may add an extra dimension to the piece.

Phil Doherty

June 06, 2008 11:19 AM

Hi Todd.

The Porsche was shot at a high shutter speed giving it that jittery look. Works really well when shooting cars.
Unfortunately, you can't use high shutter speeds with the Letus Extreme (as I found to my cost on another job!)

You are spot on about vehicle audio-but I didn't record any which was a bit stoopid really.

David Hodge

July 25, 2008 10:47 PM

Unacceptable

Okay. How in the world did you get that look like the cars are hotwheels part of the time. It has a surreal effect. I did like the look and don't think that the image looks like you messed up. It looks as if you meant to do exactly what you did. I wouldn't change save one thing that was totally unacceptable when I watched it. Guess what it was? TOO SHORT. Give me more. I love it. I just love it. Post some more will ya'? I wanted to see more and it ended too soon. Nope. Won't do my good man! Ha!

And where did you get all those cars? Someone has lots of money for toys I see. Wow.

If I ever direct a car chase scene or do a film to justify higher education (seen that poster with all the cars in the garage of a huge house you know what I mean) I will be calling you to film the autos. Wow.

You could make a spoof version of it and film old clunkers that someone has to push and try the same techniques shooting it and see if you don't get a bunch of laughs. Might be fun!

d-

Phil Doherty

July 28, 2008 10:10 AM

Thanks for your positive feedback.

The effect you are referring to is a 'tilt and shift' effect. Google the phrase and it will open up a whole new world of photography.

You can do it in camera with tilt/shift lenses or cheat it (like I did) using the tilt/shift fx in Magic Bullet. I'm not sure about the effect looking at it now. I went overboard on the FX as I didn't have that much footage to work with.