How to do two ‘Matrix’ style edits…

[Mark Suszko]

The effect at the very end that simulates “bullet time” might be achieved with just 2 cameras if you used a morphing plug-in, but it looks too good for that. Darn, I wish I could step-frame this flash player to get a better look. The more samples from different angles you can get, the better these 3-d matrix effect things look.

So I’m scratching my head that this was done with just one or two cams. The lens flares look fake and I expect are there to help hide where something doesn’t match well, because you don’t see them any other time in the piece in that same way.

I can imagine getting a couple angles from live footage, mapping it to a 3-d CGI model, and rotating the model and composite that in. That’s another way to fake it without using the ring of dozens (or more) of cameras.

Perhaps all it really is is shooting enough separate shots of the same move to have multiple morph targets, then just composite it back over one master shot after painting out the original surfer from that master. At least, that’s how I would think about doing it. That would be a lot of work though.

It is beautiful work, though I felt they used too much of the grad filter effects in tinting.

[Brendan Pyatt]

I was able to download this video. There is a link towards the bottom right of the page..

This might be just because I have Vimeo account but i thought i would mention this.

thanks.

[Brendan Pyatt]

For an AMAZING example of this type of work and the first time i have seen it outside hollywood is this:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5zn1s_revolve-2008-aaron-hadlow-revolve_sport

I know both of these videos where edited using Adobe products… Premiere or After Effects? I am not familiar with them…

[David Bogie]

Google “kite surfing” and filter for promotional video for the mfr FLEXIFOIL, or google FlexiFoil. Go to their Web site to see if they have links to their promo and advertising films.

The effects in FlexiFoil’s promo pieces are similar to the ones in the wind surfing piece (terrible opening logo, designers failed to take into account their release medium: Web) but much more refined. You should be able to locate a long dialog on several blogs discussing the techniques used by the filmmakers.

bogiesan

[Rob Jackson]

Effect A isn’t a freeze. It’s just slow motion. If you watch carefully, the sail and waves are all still moving. In real time, that big splash just happened rather quickly, hence why when slowed down, it looks like it’s moving faster than the rest of the video.

[Mark Suszko]

Looking at the photographer in some of the shots, he’s got what looks like one of the new super-duper digital stills cams that are capable of shooting video, with an extreme fisheye lens. He’s tiny and it is not clear. But it leads me to wonder if he’s got some kind of meshwarp thing he does to a strip of rapid stills from the extreme fisheye footage that lets him capture with the one shot the change in perspective that it normally takes a semicircle of independent cams to get.

[Brendan Pyatt]

This video has been out for a little while now – before the new super-digital stills was around. I think the stills photographer is just shooting stills – at the time I did wonder if the stills were used in the edit but after some thought I don’t think so. The stills guy is often shooting an angle not used in the video…

[Mark Suszko]

Now I will not sleep until I know how the trick is done:-(