Images That Move
Throughout this project, I will explore different mediums of still 'moving' imagery in the styles of cinemagraphs, parallaxes and a luma matte poster. The images will be based upon a chosen item/ subject, then presented as an 8 second long loop 'advertisement'.
It is important to know how to use all aspects of the gear that you use, which is why I think it is important to explore and used the video settings in cameras (or photography settings ect). This could the be used in your portfolio, creating more avenues in which you could be employed. Photography is a competitive craft, which is why I believe this project will help me and better my understanding in video editing.
The future is lens based, so let's take full control of our lenses.
In relation to taking control of our lenses, I'v decided to base my project around reading glasses.
The images shown are what I am going to reference the entirety of my shoot upon. Quite often in cinemagraphs, the layout is composed as a "flat lay". A flat lay is a face down shot of objects purposefully placed around a subject. With this in mind I decided to experiment on a shoot of my own.
Photos shown below are images I captured on 'Recce Shoot One'.
The gear that I used for this project will be the same for each shoot as due to Covid restrictions, I am unable to shoot in a professional environment or rent out any gear I need. The gear that I will be using is my own personal equipment, and will be used for the Cinemagraph, Parallax, and Luma Matte.
Gear List:
-Canon 5D mkii
-Canon ultrasonic 50mm f/ 1.4 lens
-Tokina 12-24mm f/4 lens
- ESDDI tripod
-Sony ZV-1
-Amazon ring lights x2
I used two pairs of glasses for this shoot, one pair being my personal reading glasses, and the other is a pair I bought off of eBay for this project. I specifically bought this design as they had a larger frame to my D&G's and the turtle pattern showed up really nicely in camera.
Equipment list:
2x glasses
canon 5d mk ii
canon ultrasonic 50mm 1.4
wooden desk
ring light
tripod
A1 white card
A1 black paper
Lighting set up:
I based this shoot on Mr Porter. Since launching in February 2011, MR PORTER has established itself as the world’s leading, award-winning online destination for men’s style, with an unparalleled product offering from the best menswear and luxury brands, including categories that range from luxury watches and lifestyle through to own labels Mr P. and Kingsman.
They often use flat lays to show off the product on their website. I've never experimented with this type of photography before this project so it was definitely a learning curve to try and figure out the right composition and set up for an at home shoot.
Cinemagraphs
Cinemagraph
Often described as Harry Potter-like moving images, cinemagraphs are a magical hybrid of photography and video. They contain subtle motion that plays in a short, never-ending loop, while the rest of the image remains still. The motion highlights a few seconds from the video, blending it seamlessly into the still photo.
Since cinemagraphs are photos in disguise, they surprise the viewer when they come to life with hints of motion. This makes them a popular choice for advertisers trying to capture and hold their audience’s attention.
Cinemagraphs are now used everywhere, but people often don’t know what it is that they’re looking at. They are like a magic trick… they make the viewer think they’re seeing a living photo. In actuality, cinemagraphs are a harmonious marriage between photography and video, blending the two mediums together.
Cinemagraphs are shared as short looping videos, usually between 3-10 seconds in length. They’re created in a way that the viewer can’t tell when the video loop starts and finishes; it’s seamless. A single cinemagraph loop is traditionally very short, lasting only a few seconds in length. When sharing a cinemagraph, people will often loop the file a few times to get the desired length of video.
These are some examples of some cinemagraphs I made in class over Zoom.
Recce Shoot
The images shown above are from a recce for my cinemagraph. I wanted to extend the theme of Mr Porter Kingsman and print out nautical and air craft themed pictures. This is because the Kingsman secret service are as important as these charters.
I started wanting to base my idea on the subject of Kingsman, however as I started the parallax part of this project I found it proved more difficult to create an interesting composition. Instead I toyed around the idea of the creation of the glasses, how they where made. I started off taking apart a pair of my glasses, however once I had gotten the clips into photoshop it proved to be more difficult to edit in post.
I wanted to add multiple moving elements to the cinemagraph like screws spinning and have my hand moving up a ruler.
I didn't go through with this idea as I was unable to figure out how to create multiple moving parts. The image above shows the composition I would have chosen if I was able to technically figure it out.
Parallax
The Parallax Effect is also known as the Ken Burns effect, which is named after the filmmaker who made this effect his signature visual style in his documentary films. This technique is a panning and zooming effect that is used to create something like a video from still images. The zooming and panning across photographs gives the feeling of motion, which keeps the viewer visually engaged.
The effect can also be called the 2.5D parallax effect. 2.5D refers to the visual depth perception in an otherwise 2-dimensional image or view. If you want to adopt this parallax effect in your photographs, you can, with the help of Photoshop.
These are a couple of examples I made in class, unfortunately the loop playback doesn't work on bechance so just use your imagination.
Uses of a parallax in the creative industry and how to create one:
Uses still images.
Easy to shoot and create a good composition.
More complex to edit than a cinemagraph.
The more images you use, the more complex it becomes to edit.
Use photoshop, but use after effects for a more professional edit.
Use puppet warp in after affects.
This is an edit I made on after effects using the puppet warp tool moving the arm up and down so it creates the illusion of the subject 'catching' the glasses.
I used a simple background so I was able to mask out each subject separately.
This was a practice shoot of my own to see if I was able to composite a shot.
I changed my idea however to cater towards the creation of glasses instead.
In this composition I wanted to have the glasses spinning above the case. I tried using photoshop and after effects to create this however I wasn't able to stitch together the photos in a fluid motion as my camera only shoots at 8 fps.
Due to this, I had to re-evaluate the overall outcome and idea behind the parallax. This is where the idea os the creation of the glasses makes another appearance.
In this image I have my glasses suspended up above my case. The final outcome would be that they slowly fall into it, signifying the final touch in the creation of the glasses before they are sent out to the customer.
This was the first out of two recce shoot that I've planned out as I wanted to test out the animation before hand with a less 'busy' shot.
The images above are stills from the parallax animation. I photoshopped the string from the frame and masked out the glasses from the image pasting them onto a separate layer. Then using content aware to erase the glasses from the image below, creating two different stills.
I exported the PNG file into after effects and used the camera tool to zoom out of the glasses as they fell to show a sence of scale and so the audience know that the glasses are the main subject.
The image above is the photo I used for the parallax. I didn't use any lighting equipment in the shot as I shot under my skylight and used natural light from the window. I re-used the newspaper from my cinemagraph as an additional element to add more to the shot. I also shot at f/3.5 to add a shallower depth of field.
Luma Matte
Choosing the Luma Matte option asks After Effects to use the brightness, or luminance, of the top layer as a mask for the bottom layer.
Playing around with this mode can yield some interesting effects that cannot be achieved with alpha matting, especially when compositing layers.
Choosing the Luma Inverted Matte option asks After Effects to do the opposite, using the top layer's low-luminance areas as a matte.
Perspective is everything. Things are not what they are; they are we perceive them to what we think they are. Things are what we compare them too. Yet we make psychologically subordinate to everything else. Psychological value is often the best kind.
The shots above are from a T.V. series called True Detective. In the opening credits for the show they use the Luma Matte technique. These are my biggest inspiration for my final image as I want the subject in view the whole time, whilst blending seamlessly with the backdrop.
The images shown above are from some testers I made in class. In this case the Luma Matte element is revealing the subject as the smoke rolls into the shot.
This outcome is interesting however these where only to broaden my understanding of the effect and how to edit.
I wanted to have a wooded background in the shot, I went to a couple different locations near where I live and decided I wanted a group of trees clusterd together. This was because I didn't want the background to be distracting the audience from the main subject being the glasses.
I also wanted to include birds flying in the shot, however I wanted them to be a still image as to not be too distracting either.
This are the photos I had chosen to go with.
I photoshopped the images of the birds together as I wanted a specific shape for my final composite. I flipped the image upside down to make it seem as they where flying in screen rather than out. This will become more apparent in the final outcome.
I also decided to add a third image to the final composite as I wanted the campaign to be more apparent that it was advertising glasses. I went for a photo I had taken at the beginning of the project in one of my early recce shoots as I felt as it worked well. I cropped the image to landscape and turned the saturation down to 10%. This was because I didn't want my final composite to be totally black and white.
After I had captured the background images, I started filming different shots of a model wearing the glasses chosen for this part of the shoot. I did 3 recce shoots for this aspect as I wanted to capture a certain movement that felt natural. This was difficult to direct as I had never shot anything like this before.
This is the lighting set up I used to capture the backlight behind the subject.
I shot around 5 minutes of footage total and decided to go with the more orange tinted video. I used red and yellow gels over my lens to capture this effect. I tried laying the gels over the lighting equipment however the footage wasn't at the right tint I wanted.
This is a screenshot of the video clip I chose.
From here I layered the images onto aftereffects and created the luma matte.
This is the final composite for my Luma Matte. In the MP4 file the head turns to the right revealing the glasses into shot. This also signifies the final outcome of the creation of the glasses. The customer is now wearing them.
