Here’s the trailer for the Vanguard episode ‘Islamaphobia’ which aired for Current TV back November for Current TV USA and UK. We were fortunate enough to be a part of the production and shoot on the UK leg of the documentary.
We have been working closely with the Stop AIDS Campaign in the making of this short. We’re immensely stoked to have had the opportunity to make a film on such an important topic and at such a critical moment in the effort to end AIDS.
The choice is there today to set the wheels in motion and bring an end to AIDS. It is a massive statement. Please watch the film, spread the word #endofaids, retweet, and find out how you can help at end of aids
Second up in the 2011 Urban Mobility series is our video on the F1 car designer, Gordon Murray and his iStream process. IStream is a change in thinking about how we produce and transport cars throughout the world. Gordon has taken design cues from making racing cars with an emphasis on light and efficient design.
He and his team have built a prototype vehicle, the T.25, to demonstrate what is possible using the iStream process. It’s an idea and one that a lot of car companies are beginning to take notice of. Here’s the video…
Our next Current TV piece will be from Sweden. Stay tuned.
trunk.
We get pretty stoked on Space related science over here at Trunk and in the months leading up to the final Space Shuttle (STS-135) launch we got the opportunity to work with our good friends over in New York, Ride5, on making a short film on the last days of a pretty amazing program. The Space Launch System, aka Space Shuttle. Spanning over 30 years, these craft have delivered men and cargo to LEO and helped push science and technology that bit further.
Ride5 were heading down to Florida show off their latest feature doc and while they were down in Florida suggested we come over and help them to make a film in the area.
With us all being fans of Space the logical thing to film seemed to be something related to the end of the Shuttle program. This idea brought us to the Space Coast where we met residents of Titusville, many of whom have worked on the Shuttle program since its inception three decades ago.
With the final launch behind us now, a great deal of these people are now left without a job and a house they cannot sell. We kept hearing the phrase ‘ghost town’ and realised that Titusville like Detroit before it, is now suffering from losing its industrial base, only this industry happens to be launching men out of our atmosphere on the most complex machine ever created.
Everyone we spoke to in Titusville saw the Shuttle as more than just a jobs program, it inspires, they care about it beyond getting a pay cheque. We, both Ride5 and Trunk wanted this piece to give a voice to the people who’ve lived by the Kennedy Space Center and worked on Shuttle program their entire lives.
Welcome to Titusville.
We’d like to thank Ride5 for inviting us along, without them this simply would not have happened and we’re grateful to have seen a small part of history.
Current TV USA are back with their Urban Mobility 2011 series and decided to kick if off with another Trunk video. We like Copenhagen and so should you.
So series two, what’s going? Innovation, Design and the creative forces behind them, that’s the tag. The Loop City concept has been developed by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Bjarke and his gaggle of merry people are doing some pretty interesting things in the world of architecture and blue sky thinking.
With design, innovation and BIG in mind, we wanted produce something fun with a bit of a more graphics centric vibe to some of our Current TV films of the past.
Check it out and let us know what you think! Boom.
We’ve got a few more films in the pipeline for the second series, stay posted.
Tusen tak!
trunk.
We’re not entirely sure what this is, but if you’re in or visiting Copenhagen, and like Art installations in car parks, you should probably check this out. (it’s near the Carlsberg Brewery)
Filmed during Trunk’s trip to CPH on commission from Current TV US shooting the opening film for Current’s new Urban Mobility series 2.
We are all constantly hearing about the essential items a videographer must have if using a DSLR for moving imagery. There are some solid and extensive gear resource blogs out there with Vincent Laforet’s Gear Page being a great example.
So what is our essential item #1? Is it the usual, Zacuto Z-Finder? No, stabilisation comes first.
As many of you will know stabilisation on a HD-DSLR is vital if you wish to avoid some fairly gut wrenching camera shake. We made the same mistake starting out but quickly realised that it is simply not possible to shoot on a DSLR handheld without something steadying it, be it a tripod, a flat surface, or a shoulder mount. If we can’t do either of those things then we won’t shoot.
Sadly the options are often pretty expensive, and to be honest, for the price not very good. Sponsored bloggers would often have you believe that something like a basic Zacuto or Redrock micro rig is a good start. They’re great, but only when you start going for the more comprehensive cinema rigs, which for the majority of us we just don’t really need nor do we want if we’re travelling, shooting on foot and want to keep a low profile for say documentary or news work. The starter rigs are better than nothing but when you’re still looking at hundreds of £ it’s a tough call when they don’t address many of the problems that a rig should.
If you want super steady, robust and able to handle a wide range of accessories and upgrades go for a cinema rig. If you don’t need a follow focus unit, a matte box, monitor or mounting rails and counter weight to make it possible to shoot with all this kit on your shoulder then you don’t need a cinema rig so why pay the price for one? You wouldn’t but then the cheaper options leave you dealing with fatigue in the arm preventing you from shooting for long periods of time, they’re clumsy and still relatively expensive.
Is there an alternative? Yep, this, and it’s CHEAP….
The CVP Shoulder Mount is in relative DSLR terms cheap as chips. What’s crazy is that it’s actually much easier, more comfortable and stable to use than the majority of rigs that do not have a counter weight attached. It’s light and folds up into a compact unit that’s great for jumping on a plane with or hiking around all day with. The front and rear chest/shoulder sections work together to ‘lock’ the unit and camera onto your body to the point where it’s possible to actually let go of the camera if you so wished!
Your camera simply screws onto the front of the unit that has a rubber pad to help grip the camera into place.
It can take a sound unit such as the Zoom H4N or a Beachtek with a mounted shotgun mic, the only draw back are the number of single screw for mounting devices all on the same plane which can cause some slight shifts in the direction of camera in relation to the shoulder mount. Which brings me to another one of its failings. All of the joints in the shoulder mount are secured by single bolts, which inevitably causes problems when a weighted object, like a DSLR camera or video camera such as an EX1 or HVX-200 is placed at one end.
Single bolts at the joints….
It is a compromise like all things, but for the price, it is an awesome piece kit that is going to allow you to get the shot, and if you do break it, it’s not the end of the world when it’s under £100. If you don’t need to add a million and one accessories onto your DSLR for a shoot and you want something comfortable and functional, get this.
willus.
With the run up to Christmas we got the opportunity to take a road trip with Matt at Julian Alps Chalets down to one if his Chalets and check out Slovenia, and more specifically Bovec (pronounced Bovets). The Journey was a long one with the Drive beginning for Matt in the Lake District and picking the trunk boys up along the way (Thanks Matt!) Close to 24 hours of winter driving later we arrived. In the photo below you can see the view to greet us as we crossed over a snowy pass from Italy into Slovenia at around 9pm.
The impressive mountain face in frame is known as the ‘Wall of Log’, it’s huge and not in anyway what we had expected. Slovenia definitely has mountains, really good ones. The ski resort that rest above the town of Bovets isn’t the biggest but it’s linked with a resort on the Italian side and the off-piste ski options are simply jaw dropping.
Oh and don’t forget the winter tyres, you’ll need them on the Italian side of the pass ;)
Looking forward to a summer climbing filled trip to Slovenia!
willus.
Trunk were recently commissioned by our friends over at Current TV UK to produce a 15 second intro for their new TV series What Did I Do Last Night? produced by Brighthand Pictures.
This was a new challenge for us, not just having to transport all our gear plus a rented two metre Glidetrack across London on public transport, but deliver 15 seconds of gold in just over a week. Fortunately for us, our actress was very accommodating, our mates came through for us on locations, and the Current were happy. Bon.
You can see “What Did I Do Last Night?” on Current TV (Sky 183 Virgin 155) every Monday at 10PM starting November 30th 2010.
Steve.
We recently did some light retouching of this video for the UK Stop Aids Campaign. I’d love to say we filmed it as the concept and piece is incredibly moving. Certainly worth a watch.
willus.
In September the Leeds based band Hope & Social put on an event for their fans, now when I say event what I really mean is a loading up a double decker open top bus with fans and musicians and driving across the North Yorkshire Moors to the seaside to play a gig a drive back again. Nice.
This is the ‘events’ video we did of the day.
willus.
A great blog post has been put up tonight by ‘El Skid’ and I recommend anyone interested in/mildly obsessed with DSLR tech and the community that has subsequently been spawned go give it a read.
The only things I will add to El Skids comments are a positive note that DSLR’s are here to stay. Technology will change and the Red Queen will keep running but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of DSLR for video applications, hell no! As mentioned on the blog post linked above DSLR’s have captivated us with their glorious large sensors, cumbersome ergonomics and head nod to the pre-video full manual age. They really have grabbed us by the figurative balls, seeing Reverie when it was first released blew me away to see something like a 35mm still in motion, the possibilities to shoot video like that was and is amazing.
Cameras like the AF-100 will be a great asset on a shoot but I can think of countless situations where the size and capabilities of a DSLR will simply outshine the AF-100/101 and the like. Iron Man 2 for example used the 5D markII for their F1 crash scenes to get shots that a large and extremely expensive 35mm camera could not. While I’m saddened that the full-blown DSLR tech craze might be coming to an end I look forward to being able to use 7D’s, 5D’s, and the future HD DSLR’s alongside high quality video cameras and hope that this will not distract people from what really matters, content.
willus.
We’ve being doing some work for Current TV for their Urban Mobility series and here is our latest broadcast piece for them. ‘From Waste to Fuel’ takes a look at biomethane (aka poo) powered buses in Oslo, turning waste into an asset is a pretty neat idea.
Check it out.
Hadebra!
willus.
A good friend of ours, Jake Schuhle Lewis is currently working on some great portrait pieces for an up and coming exhibition. This boy knows how to take a photo and you’d be nuts to miss him.
Anyway here is a quick snapshot from a shoot.
willus.
We’ve been doing some work for Current TV on the future of urban mobility. Obviously questions of sustainability quickly arise, how can we improve urban transport networks throughout the world while removing greenhouse gas and particulate emissions from the equation? A tough question but it was cool to see how different approaches are being used to try and answer it.
We were lucky enough to have a look at the cycling culture of Copenhagen, which is leagues ahead of anything we are doing in the UK. The main difference between Denmark and the UK in this regard seems to be cultural acceptance of cycling.
In Copenhagen cycling is a default transport option for everyone whereas in the UK cycling in the city is predominantly the enthusiast wrapped in tight lycra or the occasional London cool cat with his/her single speed. London has recently introduced its own version of the cycle superhighways taking flavours of what you might see in both Paris and Copenhagen. Haven’t had a go on one of the bikes yet but hope to soon. It’s great to see London beginning to think about these ideas but again there needs to be a cultural shift to embrace cycling and a more developed infrastructure to support cyclist in the city.
Not long after Copenhagen we went over to Oslo to check out how to turn your poo into a transport fuel. The video will be online in early September so we’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime here a small video from the trip, decadent travel of the first degree…!
The ironic thing about filming these sustainable transport initiatives is that we had to get there using some sort of carbon based method of travel. We thought it might be fun to try a couple of different ways and see what kind footprint we came back with.
There are a ton of different guides on the internet explaining which mode of transport is better and which is worse in terms of CO2. Flying gets in the press for being noticeably bad but we all still do it because it’s often the only practical way of travelling over a long distance in budget and to a deadline. I personally quite enjoy soaring above the Earth at 30,000ft and have always been quite excited about the prospect of flying yet feel a slight pang of guilt when a long flight can essentially cancel out any low carbon lifestyle choices I might be trying to adopt.
For our trip to Copenhagen we decided to ditch the plane and try the car. We looked at trains but in the time and budget we had it simply wasn’t an option. So we packed our kit in a 2.0TDI and set off from London to Copenhagen via Dover (Obviously Ferry) – Calais and then onward though France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Quite a drive, 1,419km actually, and then back totalling 2,838km. Now to fly is obviously more direct (~1770km return) but also more carbon intensive per km.
Plugging those numbers into a couple of online calculators (myclimate, CO2balance) it’s very close. For Trunk to get to Copenhagen we used 790kg of CO2 to fly and 780kg to drive, 10kg less in total to drive straight in each direction for ~18 hours. 10kg is the equivalent of ~3.7l of diesel, which is somewhere in the order of 40km travel in a 2.0TDI family sized car! One can see the attraction of a 2 hour (tops) flight.
I must also add that this is very much a back of the hand calculation and has not taken into account the fact that we took a ferry from Dover to Calais and that we drove most of the way through heavy rain and snow which will have contributed to a larger carbon footprint than that shown. Now this is completely conjecture but could the driving footprint with these factors considered be larger than the carbon footprint of flying? I would hedge my bets and say quite possibly yes. I must also clarify that these figures are for the combined emissions of two people flying and the total for a car. And I haven’t even mentioned NOx or particulates.
And what about Oslo? If we had driven the route would have been 3700km return compared to flying with a total of 2410km. Again emissions workout surprisingly close, CO2balance showed that a return flight from heathrow would be 1000kg CO2 and that driving would be 950kg CO2. Myclimate on the hand showed that the same flight would be 1058kg and that drive would come in at 1085kg CO2.
We used the Eurostar for some trips Paris earlier in the year and Interestingly and not entirely unexpectedly CO2 emissions form long distance rail travel is significantly less carbon intensive. We’re talking by factor of 10 or more, of a CO2 saving compared to both flying and driving a car. Maybe next time we’ll go for the train if we’re in filming in Europe.
willus.
Time-lapse photography is pretty hot right now, there is the more traditional type stuff that looks like a well composed picture with an added dimension, motion. It definitely looks good, but then there is the other stuff what I’m finding really exciting, like the video below, it is doing something in a new way. The effort, time, patience and creativity that is going into videos like this is amazing and it’s just another merging step between photography and video.
diggin’ it.
willus.
An old friend of mine kicks it out in post-rock band, Flies are spies from hell. They recently did a UK tour and asked me to come along and do a bit of filming. Here are some shots from two nights of the tour, it was good opportunity to use our new Tokina 11-16mm lens and play around in some insanely dark environments using primes and pushing the ISO more than I’d usually like to do.
willus.
Every block of wood, lump of coal and drop of petrol we burn, every bite of food and gulp of drink is essentially a packaged up form of that lovely thing, sunlight.
willus.
This assortment/collection/amalgamation of time lapse sequences might not amount to your conventional lapse film (clouds & sunsets), but to us, it encapsulates everything we dig about taking photos and stitching them together to make movement.
Steve
Fed up counting pixels Trunk went camping, it gave us an idea.
Couldn’t resist an Orwellian quote on UK election day :)
willus.
The trunk blog took a short sabbatical, but it’s back after our favourite web developer Craig added a little bit of pixy dust. Shot Craig!
In the meantime every cat & dog has now got a DSLR camera for video, and it’s great isn’t it! All us indies out there now have no excuse and I guess this is the time to show if you have what it takes, exciting times for sure. Really looking forward to seeing what amazing things people come up with in the very near future.
Funny though, if all this DSLR tech with its beautiful images has taught me anything it is that a stunning shot is nothing without content or a story. Nobody can rely on a good camera to save their films anymore!
But I digress. I just wanted to share my thoughts on a wee afternoon mess around with the 7D just outside the lovely little village (cough town) of Welwyn. Steve and myself wanted to see how we could get more creative with our shots without being fancy and using excessive kit.
Kit list:
Canon 7D
Sigma 30mm 1.4
Canon 85mm 1.8
Canon body cap with drilled hole and a piece of card with a pinhole taped on
Tripod
Monopod
Most of the shots are just messing about, for the car shots we just got the 7D with 30mm on the monopod (on tight!) and flipped the unit upside-down to stabilise the shot a tad and to get it nice and low. Same with the running sequence, we just whipped the 7D monopod setup 180 degrees. It’s quite amazing what can be achieved with a monopod and a little help from gravity. That said, you do get a lot of shake and horizontal movement when still, but then again it’s not a steadycam but a heck of a lot cheaper.
Very gingerly we began throwing the 7D while recording at 60fps, I know this sounds stupid and probably is, however, we can catch and we figured we’re paying for the tough build of the 7D we might as well use it! Jokes aside the beauty of hucking a 7D while recording at 60fps is the motion can be slowed and the free fall of the camera body keeps the shot AMAZINGLY smooth, it’s pretty unique.
Finally got to shoot some pinhole video, we’ve talked about this before and we’ve been keen to do it but the winter months haven’t been kind with light. We had to crank the ISO up but it actually came out surprisingly well. Be interesting to see where this could go. A time-lapse can be a beautiful thing but are a bit stale, I wonder how a pinhole time-lapse might do….?
Back with more soon!
willus.