Dolly Test Shots from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

Here is a test video using my DIY Dolly which I built for about $150. In the next few days I’ll try and put a build log together so you can make your own. Below are some quick pictures of the dolly.

Swan River Sunset from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

This is a time-lapse of the sun setting over the Swan River in Perth. Shot with a 28mm lens and canon 7D over two hours. I did some post processing in After Effects to get the nice colours and added some blur to smooth out the background. If you really wanna know more about how its done and put together I’ll gladly write about it, otherwise enjoy.
Below is a still from the time-lapse with a quick edit in photoshop.

So I haven’t really blogged in awhile but rest assured that doesn’t mean I’ve been getting lazy (even though it does). I was able to get together with a few friends of mine to create an animation to enter to the Run Rabbit Run video competition. It is an open video competition to all moviemakers, animators and slaves to the moving image medium. The idea was to interpret the theme “Run Rabbit Run”. I had been playing around with the idea of in my head of creating a perfectly synced animation piece with each layer of the animation corresponding to every sound with in a song. I managed to get a great song of my good friend John McSweeney and spent a few days pulling apart and rendering each layer of the song so that we could animated to each layer separately. After some great concepts done by Heather Walker and Maree Fletcher we were able to start the painful animation process. After 3 straight days of animating over a weekend we were able to put together a perfectly synced audio visual piece. Each layer of the animation was rendered separately in the hope that it could be played using VJ software (with the audio as well) to preform a live AV set. Allowing each layer to be manipulated along with its corresponding audio. With time constraints and the deadline looming I didn’t have enough time to get this part completed. Although I must say all things considering I’m still really happy with what we have produced! A big thanks to Maree Fletcher for the awesome drumming rabbit and Heather Walker for the wicked style, ideas and animation. I would thank myself, but they deserve it more then me!

7D 50p to 25p Slowmotion in Premiere from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

Here is a short tutorial showing you how to use your 7D 50p footage and conform it to 25p in Premiere to get that nice slow motion look.

Cottesloe Beach, Tilt Shift Fakery – 7D from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

After getting my hands on a neat little plug-in for Final Cut Pro I knew I had to try it out. Shrink ray by Crumple pop gives your videos a tilt shift effect with very little effort and is fully configurable. Just follow the online videos and instruction and everything will be working in minutes. I went down to Perth’s Cotteslose beach on a busy sunday and filmed some quick shots with my 7D to try the affect on. Everything worked out really well and the video looks great, I can’t wait to find more excuses to use this effect.

Music used is Elle Et Moi by Cicada

Coffee from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

While testing out my new camera I put together this short film on making a coffee. Shot with a Canon 7D with a 18 – 135mm f3.5 lens and a 55-200mm lens was used just for the close up of the coffee pour. Edited quickly in premiere and rendered with out any colour grading. Enjoy.

7D Test Footage from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

If your a tech geek like me, then you would of heard of all the buzz about canon’s new DSLR that just got released a month ago. It is capable of shooting 18mega pixel photos but more impressive is its HD video mode. You can film full HD 1080p and 720p. I just managed to get one of these lovely camera’s and it hasn’t left my side since. This is my first little test video and the quality and DOF (Depth of Field) is just amazing. I used the stock 18 – 135mm lens. Its not the best lens but it is still usable. I edited in After Effects and colour corrected the video as well as added bit of motion tracking just for fun.

Balcony Time Lapse from Luke Brooks on Vimeo.

This is my first shot at Time Lapse photography using a canon 450D DSLR and canon 55-200mm zoom lens. I didn’t expect it to be perfect first time. So I’m quite happy to admit some of the shots light levels were changing and my tripod was being blown by the wind creating a shaky video. I’m sure it will be the first of many.
I used cannon EOS software utlity with about 3 usb extension cables so it would reach my computer. Once I had all the photos I used after effects to composite them together into a video file. At this stage because I was shooting high quality jpegs it was around 4k (4000x4000pixels) which is alot really, too much in fact. I couldn’t even play the file so after a quick crop and export at 720p this is the result.

In the mean time here are some photos I took using the same process as my video “water colour”.

A very interesting use of conductive body ink, to remake the track “Ready for The Weekend” by Calvin Harris. Using the conductive body ink 15 bikini-clad ladies are turned into a giant Arduino-powered synth capable of playing track, though Max/MSP and Ableton Live. Its like a giant human powerdered midi controller and seems to work quite well.