Happy to have just finished my first product shoot for an extremely gifted Kaohsiung-based magician, Taiwan Ben. Not to mention he is one of the consultants to Lu Chen, recently crowned the Magician of the Year 2011. If any other magician is interested in his performances and his products, do not hesitate to log on to his website =)
http://www.taiwanben.com
http://www.taiwanben.com
gear.
Shoot-day was pretty hectic as we had only about 5 hours to shoot but we covered most of what we needed. As I was short on tripods, I rented the Manfrotto 504HD Fluid Head plus the 546B Video Tripod.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/683563-REG/Manfrotto_504HD_546BK_504HD_Head_w_546B_2_Stage.html/c/product/#inpage:IN+STOCK?gclid=CN_tkq2Y978CFdcTvQod0FIAaA
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/683563-REG/Manfrotto_504HD_546BK_504HD_Head_w_546B_2_Stage.html/c/product/#inpage:IN+STOCK?gclid=CN_tkq2Y978CFdcTvQod0FIAaA
First impressions were that it was a bit of a load for a one-man crew. Extremely sturdy, and I absolutely loved the maximum height of 60.63", which is 1.54 metres. The only complaint I had with the tripod was that the leg stage latches were made of plastic and they would come off if more pressure was needed to release the latches, an unnecessary inconvenience for a shoot that demands optimum mobility.
If this was a more complex shoot and needed some serious rigging on the camera, i.e. microphones, externals monitors, follow focus system on the camera, this would be the tripod I would go for. For the rental price, it was worth it.
Everything was shot with the Canon 5DMKII, currently the best gear I had from my good friend Choco =)
If this was a more complex shoot and needed some serious rigging on the camera, i.e. microphones, externals monitors, follow focus system on the camera, this would be the tripod I would go for. For the rental price, it was worth it.
Everything was shot with the Canon 5DMKII, currently the best gear I had from my good friend Choco =)
working with a m agician.
To be honest it was just like any other case, Ben was a great client to work with. He knew what he wanted and that was important for production to go as smoothly as possible. =)
Was there the occasional magic surprise here and there? Definitely. We chatted, fooled around and had fun all together =)
Was there the occasional magic surprise here and there? Definitely. We chatted, fooled around and had fun all together =)
We were lucky enough to have had Ben's friends to help us out on the day itself. As we were shooting on a stage, we used mostly stage lighting as we didn't have sufficient lighting equipment.
We had quite a number of things to cover but couldn't because there was a slight technical problem with the lighting so we ended up with a 5-hour shoot schedule. Fortunately we covered enough to finish the promo.
We had quite a number of things to cover but couldn't because there was a slight technical problem with the lighting so we ended up with a 5-hour shoot schedule. Fortunately we covered enough to finish the promo.
post product ion.
Some stills from the edit.
PremierePro was used for the edit while the VFX shots, with After Effects.
Just finished the vfx shots for the titles using After Effects.
Production is currently in its final stages. Will try to upload clips from the edit as soon as possible.
learning curve.
Am currently new to the world of motion graphics so I started Google-ing and found this extremely useful article by motion graphics artist Danny Greer on The Beat.
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/infographics-after-effects/
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/infographics-after-effects/