I could not believe it was real.

[CraftersOfLight]

When I first saw this I thought this was stop action with miniatures. Then I read how the artist did it and it was amazing to me. Nikon D3 a series of lenses was used (discussions here sandpit-short-film-by-aero-director-sam) with over 35000 stills. He did all the effects in post, color grading each frame and adding the tilt-shift. The music was composed after to better match the theme of the video. This is best viewed in full screen.

The Sandpit

[composite1]

Crafters,

Yeah this is an old technique called ‘Tilt Shifting’. It’s an optical illusion where you manipulate the focus to simulate the DoF of a Macro Lens. I saw this back in ’03 when a guy in my grad photography class was doing it with stills. Not surprised to see it now that DSLR’s are in play. Amazing he did it with all stills. The post work on this must have been a bear!

[D0n]

actually the post wouldn’t be as bad as you might think…

You’d start in lightroom or aperture, apply your color and image corrections to one image then “Lift & Stamp” those corrections as a batch process on all the images in the project, then there are plugin filters that work with photoshop to creat the tilt/shift look….. you’d then use a photoshop action to apply the effect to a “Batch” of photos.

you’d then load all the stills (quicktime does this) into a movie, then take final cut to crop the video.

[pseudosafari]

I had no idea what tilt/shiftwas, so I looked it up and came across this site to help those of us with less photography background: http://tiltshiftmaker.com/. Nothing fancy but it does offer a simple definition and the ability toplay with digital photos. If nothing else you can make some quick wallpaper for your desktop!

[D0n]

for those that don’t want to play around in post…

make your own lens…

Everything You wanted To Know about DIYing a Tilt Shift Lens For Less Than $10

[CraftersOfLight]

The part that got me was that this looked like stop action miniatures (ala Wallace and Grommit)but were real city shots. The way he intentionally colored/lit/enhanced the stills to induce that effect, and the distance from the subjects, all lent to the illusion for me.

[Anonymous]

I first saw this technique in a State Farm Commercial… that is just amazing 🙂

[Rob]

…and this whole time I thought the intro to the Mr Rodgers Show was made with miniatures

[CraftersOfLight]

rob

Yeah, it’s a bummer when the magic is taken away.

[Author]

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