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I have been working with my new favorite camera system, the Vision Research Phantom HD GOLD. The camera shoots amazingly crisp high speed footage and I am using it to capture mountain bike riders around New England. Nick and I are working on a film that we hope to release sometime next year that will feature a lot of footage shot at over 1000 frames per second in full HD. We are using some sick film lenses like the Angenieux Optimo 17-80mm t2.2 zoom and a full set of Zeiss super speed primes.

The second tease we are releasing features Giant rider Alex Couture. I spend an afternoon with him at a local riding spot near North Conway New Hampshire. I captured a small bit of trail with Alex using the Phantom during golden hour. The music is by “The Whitest Boy Alive” and the track is called “Fireworks”.

This quick Phantom session is just a small portion if the super slow motion we plan to include in the up coming bike film, the “Missing Link“. The film is currently in production.

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Nick Keating and I have been busy shooting New England athletes for a new film we are working on called “The Missing Link”. We have released more sick Phantom high speed footy in the above teaser. Check it out and let us know what you think! The music is by XX. The film was inspired by the artistically fresh new biking film called “Life Cycles”.

This is our first attempt at making a bike movie and so far, we have captured some amazing stuff. The hardest part of the job is finding time around our busy schedules to produce the film!

I have put together a website for “The Missing Link” using Wordpress. You can find the site at http://www.missinglinkfilm.com. It is a work in progress and I hope that it compliments the film in content and detail. It is also a place Nick and I can post production updates and behind the scenes vids.

The release date for the movie is unknown. We are continuing the production through this fall and winter. We plan to step it up summer 2011 and finish up the project for released in local theaters and on DVD.

Nick and I are looking for support from both sponsors and athletes. We need help funding this project and would love to get companies or vendors involved with this film. We are also looking for more local talented athletes who are interested in showing off their style in front of out high speed cameras.

Please visit The Missing Link Website Contact Page and drop us a line if you are interested in working with us. If you have some riding footy online, please include that in your message.

We want to thank Kessler Crane, Letus Direct, Vinten, O’Connor, Lite Panels, Anton Bauer, RULE Boston Camera, Fastec Imaging, Attitash Mountain and Highland Bike Park for their support.

This video is also available on Vimeo. Click Here to view it.

I am working on a mountain biking film shot mostly in New Hampshire using high speed cameras. I was inspired by the guys at “Life Cycles” and their artistic style they bring to biking films. I have been granted the opportunity to use Fastec Imaging HiSpec high speed cameras and a Phantom HD GOLD to capture New England riding for an upcoming film called, “The Missing Link”.

Nick Keating and I are currently in production on this film shooting at Highland Mountain Biking Park in Northfield, New Hampshire. I am also shooting at Attitash Mountain in Bartlett, New Hampshire. We are working with local riders on this project and hope to have it completed early 2011.

More information to come, but check out the trailer at the top of this page. Special thanks to Dave Hand and family for giving me a place to sleep at night while shooting in the mountains! Big thanks to Matt at Fastec Imaging, Eric at Kessler Crane and Mike at Rule Boston Camera for equipment support. Also, thank you “Spunky” for your voice on the trailer.

I just got back from Highland Mountain Bike Park in Northfield, New Hampshire. The place is about five miles off exit 19 on RT 93 and it is less than 2 hours north of Boston. If you like to downhill mountain bike or BMX, this is the place to go.

In fact, it reminded me of a condensed version of Whistler in B.C. Canada. And that is saying a lot! Whistler Bike Park, for me, is as good as it gets.

I met up with my bud Nick Keating to shoot some high speed footage of the Park with local riders. Be sure to click on his name to see his Flickr account. Nick is an excellent stills shooter and he is taking some sick MTB photos. He recently acquired a Canon 5dmk2 and a bunch of lenses and accessories from an online contest. Congrats Nick, time to step up your game!

Highland Mountain Bike Park GoPro HD Helmet Cam Test from Nick Keating on Vimeo.

Nick shot this short GoPro Hero helmet cam video as he ripped through “Hellion” at Highland. Those of you who have cruised down Whistler’s A-Line may see some similarities. Hellion is like a baby A-Line but this track it is in my backyard! And Highland just opened up a new downhill trail called “Happy Hour”. Sweet. I can’t wait to ride that.

Nick and I set up the Fastec Imaging HiSPEC2 Color 720p high speed camera at the base of the Slope Style course at Highland. The slope is a bunch of berms and dirt piles that form an incredible, air-inducing, super flowy downhill course. We worked with professional freeride mountain biker, Aaron Chase to shoot a simple high speed dirt jump sequence. Aaron is a great person and he was fun to work with. Crazy sense of humor and he is living the dream for sure. He was leaving for Whistler the day after we shot this footage!

I shot at 718 frames per second off a tripod (most of the time) and had my cam assist, Nick help with lenses and moving the tethered laptop around in the intense sun and heat. The camera shut down twice, due to temperature and the black Sony VAIO laptop got so warm, it was hard to hold. But so far, both are working well in the field.

I have to use 12 volt lead-acid batteries with a 140 watt inverter to get the camera power. At one point, the laptop died and we had to grab a power strip at the lodge to send juice to both the camera and the computer from the sketchy Walmart inverter. I have a USB powered monitor that mirrors my computer screen, but with the limited battery power, i have yet to use it on the high speed camera. It is a real challenge to follow the action without a proper viewfinder mounted to the camera itself.

Fastec Imaging has me testing out new high speed software and a firmware update to the HiSPEC2 camera. The software on the PC was version 1.0.0.0. Never fun to run that version. A bug was found and I was unable to export the high speed footage as an uncompressed .avi file. This was the workflow I was use to in my past experience with this camera and now I had to do a few extra steps. I had to export as a “.tiff image stack” and then load all the images as a sequence in Quicktime 7. The same process I use when taking stills from my Canon 5dmk2 and building a timelapse. This added extra time to the rendering and will be fixed soon.

I want to use uncompressed .avi, I think it looks better. I found the .tiff files added aliasing and moire to the camera images that I had never seen before. The .tiffs looked “digital”.

When editing the content in the lodge (waiting for a storm to pass that never arrived), Nick made the suggestion to turn the entire project black and white. I agreed with him once I looked at the footage and saw the moire and heavily blown out sky. I used Magic Bullet Looks to apply a film-like soft feel and removed all the color. This little camera has trouble with high contrast situations. It also creates the “screen door effect” where you see small black lines and texture off the sensor in dark and white areas of the picture. This can be avoided as long as the do not clip the video or shoot in very low light. It can also be removed, in most cases, in post.

I will be shooting much more at Highland this summer. Hope to get a Phantom into the bike park next! Stay tuned…

If you have any questions about this camera system, please email Matt through this contact form at Fastec Imaging.

This video is also available on Vimeo. Click Here to view it.

I had some fun with the Fastec Imaging HiSpec2 color hi speed camera shooting a “fake” lacrosse commercial. The commercial was a copy of the Paul Rabil 111 MPH spot that my buddy Dave sent me on YouTube. It looked as if the real commercial, shot by Maverik Films New York, was captured using a Phantom camera. You can watch more of their work by clicking here.

Dave’s son, Dylan, plays lacrosse in New Hampshire. We traveled to a local lacrosse field and set up to shoot the commercial. I brought the HiSpec2 color camera, a set of Vinten sticks and the Sony VAIO laptop computer running the hispeed capture software. I had a Nikon 16mm f2.8, 55mm f1.2, and 200mm f3.5 lens.

We shot for just two hours! No lights, just the sun. We had to wait a few minutes for clouds to clear and have consistent sunshine. Dave brought some water so that we could wet down Dylan’s hair and lacrosse strings to get the “hi-speed sweat effect”.

When we finished on the lacrosse field, we shot in the locker room for the first two shots on the spot. I used the Canon 5dmk2 shooting at 30fps with a Canon 85mm f1.2 lens for just these shots. We were in and out of the locker room in about ten minutes! For locker room lighting, we used a clip-on light with a bare 60 watt light bulb (you can see it on the lockers in the background). The key source was a florescent worklight with 1/2 CTO gel gaff taped to the lamp. No KinoFlos on this shoot. This “commercial” had a zero budget thanks to my friends at Fastec for letting me play around with the camera system.

If you are wondering about pricing, this camera can be rented for about $500/day and you can buy one for around $20k. A Phantom may shoot better pictures, but the rental on one is $2,500/day or you could buy one for $150k! Do not quote me no these prices, you can ask Fastec directly by clicking here.

I really wanted to shoot this spot to prove that a very expensive hi-speed Phantom is not necessary for doing this sort of work, as long as 720p HD is enough. When shooting this sort of stuff for the web or even broadcast television, the Fastec Imaging low-budget HiSpec cameras may be the perfect solution.

I will post my version of the Paul Rabil 111 MPH Maverik Lacrosse commercial at the bottom of this page. The following video below is the actual commercial shot (with a big budget for sure) by Maverik using a hi speed camera system. Watch this video first, so you can see what inspired Dave and I to get out and shoot our own version with Dylan.

I am not the only one out shooting spoofs on this great commercial spot. Watch the video below for an attempt to imitate the look and feel of the real commercial. I loved the sweat stains!

At some point, these high speed cameras will become more available for almost anyone who wants to shoot at fast frame rates. The above YouTube video was inspired by the very well shot and attention stirring professional lacrosse advertisement. I am looking forward to see what people do with these cameras when the price drops.

Now, here is my version of the Paul Rabil Maverik commercial. Dave, Dylan and I shot this entire thing in a couple hours and I edited it using Final Cut Pro. I used the Eureka “Vapor Across” transition for the white flashes. I made a few changes to the shots and enhanced the sound a bit to match the white flashes. The last few fast action shots at the end of my version were shot at 718 FPS, but I speed them up in post 2,000 percent to get them back to normal real-time speed!

Be sure to download the video in the links at the bottom of this page to view the commercial spot on your computer screen at full resolution 720p HD. The video will play much smoother off your hard drive. These Fastec Imaging cameras are silky smooth when it comes to slow motion playback.

This video is also available on Vimeo. Click Here to view it.

I used two Canon 5dmk2 cameras with “L” Series glass to shoot a music video a few weeks ago. The band is called “Sleep Alive” and they are out of Worcester, Massachusetts.

We shot in two locations. The first was a small bar/restaurant in the city of Worcester and the second location was an old movie theater in Millbury.

I shot this video alone. No crew. I used available light in the restaurant and used Kino Flows and Arris in the old theater. I had a dolly and short jib. I also used a Glidecam 4000 Pro for the tracking shots. I shot with the Canon 5dmk2s in 1080p 24fps.

All the footage shot with the band was at ISO 6400. There was very little light inside the theater. Amazing how good it still looks!

The band played the song about 8 times and each time I shot differently. I locked off the second 5dmk2 on the drummer or wide to get the most for our time in the location. I shot this entire music video in 5 hours.

Torey Champagne edited the video on Final Cut Pro and used Adobe After Effects.

UPDATE: 6/21/10 BEHIND THE SCENES AND MAKING OF “LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION”

Torey is the lead vocal in “Sleep Alive”. He is also one heck of an editor. Torey edited the music video and shot and edited the “making of…” video. Did I mention he directed the music video too? And again he sings in the band. Great guy to work with, that’s for sure.

Check out his website at, http://www.toreychampagne.com

We used Boston area freelance camera operators and rented six Sony PDW-355 XDCAM cameras from Rule Broadcast. We had an 18 foot jib camera with a wide angle lens and I wondered around with the Sony PMW-EX1 with Letus Ultimate 35mm lens adapter during the show. I was able to get some sweet fisheye shots with a Nikon 16mm f2.8 lens that showed how crazy the concert was at the House of Blues.

All cameras recorded 35mbps XDCAM on dual layer 50GB disks. Torey Champage layered all camera angles on video tracks in Final Cut Pro and edited the project.

You can read the blog post from last year by clicking here.

Below are a few excerpts from the DVD to be released in the USA March 16th, then a few weeks later in Europe. In all, the distribution will include over 20 different countries all over the world.

Thanks to the hard work of Torey Champagne, TJ Powers and all the crew the DVD came out very well. This concert will also be available for download in HD off iTunes. Check out the Dropkicks website for more information.

I was hired by a good client of mine out of Rhode Island, Cox Communications, to DP a short spot for the Newport Skating Center. I had a few rough storyboard emailed to me and I was asked to shoot the project using my EX1, Letus Ultimate and my PVC skateboard dolly system. We shot outdoors at a skating rink and I used all natural light.

I knew the job was going to be a fast shoot, so with the help of two Cox interns, we were able to knock out each shot very quickly. I am mastering the use of the PVC pipe dolly and it works effectively with little setup time. The entire commercial was shot within two hours. Very simply spot, nothing flashy here.

I enjoy directing kids. The secret is to give them hot chocolate, tell them to act natural and never look at the lens. When the hot chocolate runs out, the problems begin!

One thing that helped me rush through the setups was a bit of insight from one of the Cox people. I was told that the “Digi” costume was designed only to be worn for ten minutes. Apparently, the white bubbly-headed mascot did not have any air holes for breathing! Just a little obstacle you can sometimes run into on location.

I used the Letus Ultimate and the Sony PMW-EX1 because the client likes the XDCAM EX work flow. I just transferred the footage at the end of the day using my Mac Book Pro onto a Cox external USB hard drive. The producers took the drive back to the station and dumped the footy into their NLE system. I had a backup of all the files on my external drive and held on to it for a few weeks, just in case.

I could have shot this using the Canon 5dmk2, but I am still making a lot of money using my XDCAM and the Letus 35mm lens adapter. Plus, I love the look of the old Nikon Nikkor lenses and the Letus Ultimate!

I mostly used the fast Nikon 55mm f1.2 and the super sharp Nikon 105mm f2.5. I shot on my Vinten Vision 10 AS tripod and used ten foot spans of PVC pipe under my skateboard dolly. I also used a set of Vinten babylegs on the dolly for the low sliding moves. All the stuff shot on the ice was done handheld.

Antony Finucane at Cox Communications edited the spot using Final Cut Pro. I found it interesting that he decided to use two-frame dissolves instead of cuts for all the transitions. Softens up the look I suppose. I really liked the use of a wipe when the white cups of hot chocolate sweep out of focus across the frame. That was not part of the storyboards. I was hoping the editor would pick up on that!

Special thanks to John Parris for sending me this video file to post.

I shot with the Sony EX1 and Letus Ultimate a few days ago for a shoot promoting the New England Sports Network’s NHL hockey TV show called “The Instigators”.

The show is hosted by Jack Edwards, Andy Brickley, and Mike Milbury. Starting this Thursday, the second season begins on NESN at 6pm and runs every Thursday after that during the Bruins season.

I worked with these three guys for a few hours shooting “Childhood Pranks” promos. This footage was shot in and around the NESN headquarters in Watertown, Massachusetts. We did not have time to shoot everything that we wanted and one of the guys had to leave early. I was running around (with some help from creative services) to get all of this stuff shot!

Since the client wanted the film look with limited setup, I decided to use just two tungsten balanced Kino-flo DIVA 400 lights. These lights are very easy to use and they can be set up in very little time. I also used the Letus Ultimate with Nikon glass (mostly the 55mm f1.2) mounted to the Sony PMW-EX1 and a Vinten Vision 10AS tripod. I used wireless V1 Sony microphones.

At the end of the shoot, I transferred all the 1080 30p footage to a NESN creative services hard drive and handed it over. NESN and other clients really like the XDCAM format and I find myself passing along hard drives (with a personal backup on my own hard drive just in case) for editors to dump directly into their RAID servers for editing.

We shot much more footage that what you see in the video above and I will try to post it to this page when I get it. I will also try to get a high definition version of these promos so that you can see how sharp and vibrant the XDCAM EX footage is using the Letus Ultimate. I hope to be using a NanoFlash to capture off the EX1 at a higher bit rate for projects like these. But for now, 35mbps XDCAM EX looks pretty good on my HDTV at home.

If you live in New England, these promos are running on NESN (Comcast HD Channel 851 or SD 51) around the clock through the hockey season.

Video courtesy of NESN and yes, Jack did get nailed with a water balloon below the waist!

I decided to use the Canon 5Dmk2 DSLR camera because the director, Torey Champagne, wanted this shot in available light and with very shallow depth of field. I found it a challenge because “available light” in certain locations really meant, “no light”. I come from a television camera background where the biggest image sensor is 2/3 of an inch. It would be ridiculous to add 18dB gain into a television camera and expect usable results, but this camera is different. The Canon 5dmk2 sensor is much larger, that of a 35mm digital cinema camera. People across the internet are pushing the low light capabilities with this rig, so what the hell. Maybe it would be possible just to shoot it guerrilla style like this, after all, we were going for a grungy music video look.

Instead of me using my better judgment and telling Torey that it would be impossible to shoot in these locations without the help of a one ton grip truck and several people, I decided to take the Canon 5dmk2 and shoot at the dreaded ISO 6400. Not all the shots were at this nutty super high gain setting, just some of them. At this insane level of video amplification, I found noise and a bunch of dead pixels reared their ugly red eyes. In fact, whilst shooting at 6400 with a Nikon 55mm f1.2 prime lens, I said to one of the band members, “this is like shooting night vision!”

I used the Glidecam to shoot all the city shots with the band members/actress. I found pulling focus impossible to do whilst shooting so I just keep a specific distance between the film plane and the subject as I tracked them with the Glidecam. You will only find a couple focus pulls in this video. I later (or earlier in the morning) used Vinten tripods and my home made PVC dolly system during the music performance inside Union Station.

Take a moment for the video to load below and see for yourself. This camera is changing the way I look at a shoot location. It was simply amazing that the camera was even able to make exposure with little noise at the top of an dark parking garage or empty city alley without additional lighting.

This video is now on Vimeo. You can watch it by clicking here.

The Worcester Massachusetts band is called, “Sleep Alive” and this track is titled, “Put it on my tab”. Torey Champagne directed and edited the video. This video is copyright Torey Champagne Productions.

Use the comment box below to ask specific questions and let me know what you think. There was a behind the scenes doc crew (struggling with the low light conditions!) shooing with a Panasonic HVX-200. I hope to get that footage soon to post to this site.