Let’s see… Philip Bloom takes a box of Canon 5D and 7D cameras to Skywalker Ranch, shoots stunning footage around the ranch and edits a nice piece in their spectacular edit suite with a 40 foot screen.
I take an evening with my Nikon D90 and a GlideTrack at a local park with a holiday light display, shoot for a couple of hours, and edit on my MacBook Pro with my HD monitor on the side.
Hmmm…
Cranes Roost Christmas from Adriel Brunson on Vimeo.
While not at the same level as Philip Bloom’s Skywalker Ranch video, I had a great time putting this project together. Here’s the equipment list:
- Nikon D90
- Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens
- Bogen Manfrotto 503 fluid head and two-stage tripod
- GlideTrack with Bogen Manfrott0 501 fluid head
Post-production was in FCP using standard FCP 3-way color correction for minor changes. I also used the Neat Video noise reduction plugin on a couple of shots to smooth things out. As this is all D90 footage I used the Too-Much-Too-Soon D90 Upscaler on the entire sequence.
Yes, the combination of color correction, noise reduction and D90 Upscaler made for some serious render time. But the whole program is less than two minutes so I left it running while I went to bed.
Besides using my trusty iPhone to set the exposure level I also used an old trick to get smoother movement with the GlideTrack. I slipped a fairly large rubber band around the base of the camera and used that to pull the head down the track.
The rubber band smooths out the inconsistent force from my hands, producing a much smoother action even at a very slow pace. It also produces a nice smooth end to the movement. Check the last shot in the program and you’ll see the camera come to a smooth stop while the action keeps going. Works just as well to start a dolly shot while rolling.
I got the GlideTrack rather than one of the steady-cam type camera systems because it fits into the way I shoot. If I need to be more mobile I use a solid monopod.
If I want to move the camera while it’s on the monopod I get a fairly stable image. I added a fun tool that stabilizes everything and will talk about that in a future post.
Here’s wishing you a happy holiday season!
-a-
