Bruce Lee – Better at ping pong than Jamie Oliver

OK so most of you have seen the C4 promo (below) with Jamie Oliver revealing his prowess at ping pong.

But wait a minute. Have you seen the real master, Bruce Lee. Now there’s showing off.

Wow. Another great use of compositing and motion tracking to make a funny and believable video. I’m in the process of putting together a few posts and tutorials on greenscreening, compositing, motion tracking/ matchmoving so watch this space for more. 

Also check out the Gremlins fan film for more fun and a great making of video which explains the processes involved.

Slitscan (photography/moving image)

Slitscan is a photographic technique which creates interesting results by stretching movement over time.

This is done by masking off the lens so that only a very thin strip of light enters. Instead of taking a standard photo, the film is wound through the camera, so that the end result is a long strip which changes over time. In the example above the person slowly rotated and thus showed all angles of their head. An easy way to understand it is to think of a photocopier or computer scanner. A bar of light scans or copies the image over a few seconds to create a full image of what is under the lid. If you put your hand under the lid instead of a piece of paper, and move it about as the scan is made, then you get a strange stretched out hand.

It was reportedly first adapted for moving film use by Douglas Trumball for the superb ’stargate’ special effects in the film 2001. various footage was processed to create the bizarre ‘trip’ sequence, including aerial shots flying over landscapes.

Slitscan was also used by Zbig Rybczynski in his 1988 film The fourth Dimension. Can’t find a copy of it on youtube, but come to one of my sessions and I’ll show it to you. 

 

It remains a technique that is widely used in experimental circles and lots of people have fun playing with it. For more info please click on the links below.

http://www.mefeedia.com/tags/slitscan/ – a great collection of slitscans

http://caseypugh.com/slitscan – plug in a webcam and see

http://vimeo.com/438009 – casey’s example

http://www.flong.com/texts/lists/slit_scan/ – great looking resource.

http://processing.org/discourse/yabb_beta/YaBB.cgi?board=Exhibition;action=display;num=1213382538 – processing slitscan code

Machinima

Machinima is the use of realtime 3d and game engines, combined with video editing equipment to produce dramatic ‘films’. These have a strong look, based on the 3d engines that they are originated on, and range from simply recording game footage, and dubbing over voices, to actually taking the 3d engine and making your own characters and environments. 

It’s been around for a while, and is developing as a concept. There are filmmakers also developing work in second life, the online virtual world. 

Molotov Alta is the first real celebrity filmmaker in the area, and HBO has paid a six figure sum for his second life film.

This is getting more and more interest from major media. Machinima adverts are being produced, and an episode of CSI is to have a second life killer.

to be fair, a lot of machinima are not very good, but it’s certainly an interesting development. 

Other places to look for more info

Second life documentary

Red Vs Blue

Machinima Festival Europe

illclan animation studios

Bloodspell