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W: What was the inspiration behind “You Could Sunbathe in this Storm” (YCSITS)?

AD: YCSITS came about when I was experimenting with animation as an art form in the final year of my MA at the Royal College of Art. When making work for others, there is usually a certain way of doing things: you come up with the idea, you make an animatic, you make some changes that the client requests, you figure out how to make the film and then you make it. However, with this piece, I wanted to make a film that was lead by the making process and inspired by everyday feelings that evolved with each new day. I began by setting myself the challenge to shoot about 10 seconds of footage everyday, record some audio (conversations/news clips/interesting sounds), free-write, research, sketch and make props. I studied lots of philosophy and anthropology and had a lot of conversations with my fellow RCA students about the projects they were working on. As the process went on, I began to work with musicians as well – so the sound and music was created in the same way and not left to the end. It is a film that I hope encourages the viewer to contemplate the bigger picture.

W: What filming techniques did you use to film the short?

AD: A combination of stop motion animation, time lapse photography, and live action footage composited together with After Effects.

W: What was the script writing process like?

AD: I did a lot of free-writing and then selected sections to include in the film. It was much more word heavy in earlier versions. I also used a section of ‘The old men admiring themselves in the water’ by W.B. Yeates.

W: How much prep time was required for this short? How many plaster pieces did you end up making?

AD: This was made over about 8 months, but the first four months were spent mulling over ideas for other films and experimenting with materials, so its hard to say really. Oh and I made hundreds of plaster shapes!

W: At about 3:00 it looks like growths start forming on the pyramids – was that CG or did you create models for every single phase of growth?

AD: They are not CG, they are real crystals growing out of the plaster shapes. I would dye the shapes with ink and then sit them in a special solution of chemicals that would absorb into the plaster and grow crystals out of the shapes over a period of about 24 hours. I would capture the growth using time lapse photography. It was a little tricky trying to position the camera and lighting on something that didn’t exist at the start of the shoot, but luckily it managed to work most of the time.

W: Your music video “Where to Go” has a similar look and feel. Do you feel like this defines your style?

AD: Perhaps. I think I am still developing my style, but I am certainly very interested in the use of chemicals and other concoctions to create organic looking movement that suggests life without being alive.

W: Did you go through the same creation process with “Where to Go” as you did with “You Could Sunbathe in this Storm?”

AD: No, ‘Where To Go’ is a music video, so the music inspired the idea. I co-directed it with Annlin Chao, and it had a lot more structure and planning to it as we had a production company (Blink), musician (Chris Morphitis) and Record label (Village Green) to please. However, a lot of the experiments and processes we used to make it inspired a lot of YCSITS.

W: Are you working on any projects right now?

AD: Yes, I am in the process of making a music video for Tom Rosenthal.

Connect with Alice and see more of her work here:

Website: www.alicedunseath.com

Twitter: @AliceDunseath

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W: How did you get your start shooting time lapses? What did you find interesting about them?

SP: Looking around the internet and seeing the increasing number of stunning time lapse productions on Vimeo and YouTube really got me inspired. For me, time lapse is an extension of my existing camera skills to this growing photography genre. It’s great to capture and see how the world around us behaves which we cannot normally see with the naked eye.

Time lapse photography has been around for a long time, but this was usually static and didn’t typically draw people in. What I found interesting was the use of new tools providing a range of motion that gives the final production a real dynamic edge to the finished work.

W: What gear do you use?

SP: I use a range of equipment from various suppliers, each having their own unique point of difference. These tools include intervalometers (a small programmable controller), a dolly (long rail), and motorized heads for panning and tilting the camera.

I mainly use gear supplied by Dynamic Perception based in Michigan, USA. I believe they’re the most innovative in this field and their gear is evolving to meet the changing demands of time lapse photographers. I also use software programs like LRTimelapse specifically designed for editing and producing time lapse, and Adobe Lightroom, After Effects, and Premiere Pro.

W: Can you walk us through the process of shooting a time lapse from setup to final editing?

SP: Every time lapse photographer has a different workflow, but there are common threads to producing a great movie. There is a greater amount of time spent on the production using a fast computer than actually sitting behind the lens. My workflow centres on these basic steps:

1. Think as a still photographer and choose a compelling scene that has great compositional aspects, ideally something that shows some form of change over time;
2. Set up your gear and choose an appropriate interval between each shot. Always shoot in raw mode to allow better editing. Allow a moderate range of movement from start to end;
3. Load and categorise the images onto your hard drive;
4. Import the images using a photo editing program. Adjust the image for exposure, colour, highlights and tones. Apply these edits across all frames. Export them as finished images;
5. Render a high resolution clip of the finished images in a program like Adobe After Effects. Make any time-based changes using key frames, i.e. points along the way where things might change such as exposure and changing light.

The workflow could end here for a single sequence and then be uploaded onto movie sharing websites or social media. For a production, further steps in the workflow might include:

6. Importing the individual clips into a finishing program like Adobe Premiere Pro and sequence them on a theme to your own desire.
7. Find an appropriate piece of music that fits the scenes. Edit the clips to keep the best bits of each time lapse, and speed up or slow down the individual clips to match the music.
8. Test the movie by showing to others. Make any adjustments.
9. Upload to movie channel sites and share on social media

W: How do you choose locations to shoot?

SP: Photographers are always looking at the work of others, whether that be from photo websites or from a book. I do the same. I do lots of research on locations, but don’t usually shoot the same as everyone else. Some locations are overdone. I like to find my scenes by exploring with my own two feet and stopping when something catches my eye. Then I evaluate compositional aspects.

W: Do you have a favorite type of landscape you like to shoot?

SP: I like to look for interesting land formations. This might include rock shapes, the way a stream flows through the land, or an interesting sky. Colour is another compositional aspect I like to bring into my landscapes.

W: What challenges do you face when shooting time lapses? Is lighting a challenge?

SP: There are many challenges, from lighting to technical issues such as familiarity with the gear, batteries, weather, such as rain drops or condensation building up on a lens, and in some cases, sand flies. One common issue for time lapse photographers including myself is flicker. This is where the aperture inside the lens doesn’t always rest in the same position after each exposure. This causes uneven changes in light. This is easily overcome however using camera techniques or software. Lighting can be a challenge too. Sometimes the sky and light just don’t deliver.

In my recent Mainland New Zealand time lapse, I had issues with some scenes that were ‘blown out’, i.e., the bright highlights had left out some of the detail.

W: What do you take into consideration when choosing music for your time lapses?

SP: A good question and one I often struggle with. It’s been said by many that imagery and sound must compliment each other to keep us glued to the screen. A final production can look great visually, but the effect is easily lost when the music doesn’t match. I’ve seen this a number of times. When making my productions, I listen to hundreds of tracks and visualise the scenes in my mind. You know it when you hear it. I like to consider the change in tempo and beat of the track and this is great to link something from the clip, such as the peaking of the sun over the mountain on a sunrise, or a scene transition. Generally speaking, landscapes and city scenes often demand different music genre.

W: What do you have to do differently when creating  a Hyperlapse?

SP: This is a technique that requires a lot of patience, and effort can be wasted if the technique is not properly followed. Hyperlapse requires careful measuring out of the ground, a camera that’s level on the horizontal, a frame every ten seconds, and an eye focused on a central point of each shot. After that, lots of post production on the PC is required using a good program that has a good stablilisation feature.

W: Whose time lapse work inspires you most?

SP: I’m inspired by time lapse photographers including Bevan Percival who lives here in New Zealand, Enrique Pacheco and Eric Hines. Their work and knowledge of time lapse comes from hours of dedication. I have a lot more to learn to get to this level.

See more of Stephen’s work at the following websites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StephenPatiencePhotography

Website: http://patience.co.nz

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W: How did you get your start in this area?
DM: As a VFX artist and a big fan of the art, the Harry Potter series always amazed me with the special effects, from flying broomsticks to talking animals each thing was special in that movie. But one effect always used to catch the eye, “moving photos.” I always wanted to make something like that, but being in wedding photography, I never got a real chance to work on VFX.

Earlier this year, the idea struck me, why not use the effect on wedding pictures and make them even more expressive? So the concept of 3D wedding pictures came up.

W: What do you have to do while shooting to make them work for the style of photo?
DM: A lot of pre-planning is involved in shooting to create this effect. We always keep in mind taking a few pictures during a shoot to create this effect later.

It involves capturing the background without the subject first so that we use it in depth (having a background with less distractions or a plain sky is better, as it helps in cloning later).

Then we add our couples in the same frame.

Having several layers of depth is a must for this effect to work.

W: What happens during editing to make them move?

DM: A person needs to have Photoshop and After Effects knowledge to create such effects, even other 3D software can be used.

So to start, you need to keep each subject (foreground, mid ground, and background) in different layers.

Then, by adding them to 3D space in After Effects, you can create depth and effects to it.

Adding rain, smoke, and other effects comes as the last part.

W: Do couples request to have it done or is it something you started doing extra?

DM: We always wanted to do something innovative in our work, and got a chance to do this 3D effect for the first time, but we are sure as these are more interactive and appealing than photographs, couples will certainly request for it.

The second video to the series would be out soon, on our FB page: facebook.com/weddingrams

If you’d like to see more from Weddingrams, visit their website: weddingrams.com

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Sometimes Souls Collide

W: How did you get your start in photography?

LS: Growing up, my parents always took lots of family pictures, and they got my sister and me cameras when we were quite young. This is where my interest in photography started, though it was only a hobby back then, and not one I did on a regular basis. Flash forward many, many years, to the age of about 35. I had been working at a job where I did Medicare billing, and so I was on the computer typing all day long every day. I developed carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis in the shoulders and arms, and, worst of all, my neck was just killing me, which turned out to be because I had three herniated discs in my neck, cervical spinal stenosis, bone spurs, and a couple of other problems in my neck. I had continued working through the pain for years, but it finally got to a point where I just couldn’t do it any longer.

So I left my job, and I knew that I had to find something else to take up some of my time, something meaningful to focus on, and something that could bring me some joy as I went through lots of different therapies, appointments, and a couple of surgeries – otherwise I would go insane. I immediately thought about photography, and before too long, I started taking classes, first at a local photography school, and then through New York Institute of Photography, which was a correspondence course. And I just totally and completely fell in love with it and dedicated myself to learning all I could!

I started (nervously) posting photos on a photo website I’d found (jpgmag.com), and was pleasantly surprised by the wonderful encouragement I got there. Before too long, I’d found somewhere online that listed “calls for art,” and eventually decided to submit some photos to one that was looking for photos to include in a small photography show held in a restaurant. And my photos got accepted!! From there I continued getting my work accepted into photography shows and art galleries, won contests, and got published!

I’ve Got Arms to Hold You

W: Have you always been based in San Francisco? Or did you begin shooting in other locations?

LS: I actually live about 40 miles outside of the city, but yes, I’ve always been based here in this area. I also spend a lot of time down in the Southern California desert and have shot there pretty extensively. And I love traveling as much as possible and photographing new places!

Ever Changing

W: Do you have a specific subject matter that you seem to be drawn to?

LS: I most love shooting landscapes and nature. But to narrow it down even further, I am totally in love with oak trees and clouds! A landscape is always more interesting and beautiful if the sky is full of gorgeous clouds! And oak trees….I just love their gnarled branches and amazing character! They so often remind me of people….wise old people full of stories.

But I Still Need You

W: How do you decide whether or not an image will be black and white? 

LS: That is always a tough decision for me! Sometimes an image immediately calls out to be black and white. Certain scenes just seem to be made for it. Definitely if I want to convey a more dramatic or possibly somber mood, I will go for black and white. But a lot of the time, I’m not sure if I’m going to go with color or black and white. And then it simply becomes a matter of trying an image both ways. I do love color, so if the color is particularly pleasing to me in an image, then I have to go with that.  I seem to be pretty selective in what gets done in black and white, though those also tend to be some of my most popular images!

Though the Tides May Turn

W: It says in your bio that you love Photoshop. What tools on Photoshop do you use the most?

LS: The Photoshop tool I probably use the most is the Spot Healing Brush Tool to get rid of the spots that are from sensor dust and dirt!

Enchanted Evening

W: Do you have any special techniques you use either while shooting or during editing?

LS: I don’t really have any special techniques when out shooting. I just always try to remember to get most shots at a couple of different focal lengths, even if I only really “see” it one way. And I always take a LOT of pictures! The more the better! Having more to choose from can only be a good thing! When editing, I love using certain adjustment layers, as well as different Photoshop actions, to tweak the tones and color a bit. I also sometimes really like to layer textures over my images to help bring out a certain mood.

Sit With Me Here

W: Do you have a trademark shot?

LS: Yes, it would have to be “Sheltering Sky.” It’s a black and white image where I was looking up at an oak tree and the sky. That is by far my best selling image! And it’s funny….after I initially took that image, I couldn’t make it work to my liking, and it sat in my files for at least a year, maybe two! Then one day I pulled it back up to see if I could make anything of it, and I actually was able to see it differently that time and was really happy with the outcome! And it became my most popular image!

Sheltering Sky

W: How do you pick the titles for all your images?

LS: A lot of thought goes into most of my titles. I try to really tap into the mood and feeling of the image. Sometimes the way I’m feeling when editing leads me down a certain road. And I often use song lyrics as titles. I really like for the title to complement the image and for both together to tell a story of sorts. I’ve heard it said before that a good photo doesn’t need a title, and I agree; it doesn’t. But even if it doesn’t NEED it, in my opinion, a good title can only make a good photo better!

It Rolls Through

W: What is your inspiration?

LS: Given the right mood, almost anything can inspire me! I get inspiration from nature itself…. I can’t look at beautiful scenery, trees, or clouds without being totally inspired! Strong feelings really make me want to create, too, whether it’s love, heartache, despair, joy, etc. I feel a huge need to share them with the world somehow! Memories, music, movies, and other artists’ and photographers’ work are some other things that can really inspire me.

The Reclining Woman

W: What challenges do you face in the industry?

LS: It’s just an extremely competitive industry! That has to be the biggest challenge! And you need to realize that just because one person may not like your work, that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It’s just one person’s opinion, and art is very subjective! Tomorrow I may come across five people who absolutely love my work! So you need to keep your head about you as much as possible, have confidence in yourself and what you do, and never give up!

Connect with Laurie here:

Website: http://laurie-search.artistwebsites.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LaurieSearch

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laurie-Search-Fine-Art-Photography/592510690851765

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“A story is a story whether you shoot in 4k or 1080p.”

The problem was, Tristan wasn’t sure that he wanted to direct.  He had dreamt of being an actor since he was young. In fact, when Tristan started college at City College of New York, he declared a major in acting his freshman year – even though the school advised first-year students to wait before declaring. “I’ve spoken to a lot of actors,” Tristan said, “and it turns out to be exactly the same thing. We all wanna declare acting right away. Acting is such a crazy thing to pursue, there’s nothing that can really talk you out of it.”

Tristan was sure he wanted to act. So sure, that when a director at NYU approached him and asked him to transfer after he’d spent a few years at CCNY, Tristan said no. NYU’s acting program didn’t allow students to actually get on stage until they’d been in the program for a few years, and Tristan didn’t want to wait.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of actors, and it turns out to be exactly the same thing. We all wanna declare acting right away…There’s nothing that can really talk you out of it.”

So he stayed enrolled at CCNY, and he acted. He enjoyed acting so much that he dreaded taking a directing 101 course that was required for the completion of his degree. “I put up a fight. I told my teacher, ‘what do I need this crap for?’ Eventually I was like, fine. But I’m gonna complain about it,” he said jokingly.

Tristan was surprised when he liked the class. Soon, he started to recognize “all of the little tricks” directors used on him to get results.

After Tristan worked on The Fantastics for CCNY, he realized he could direct. For Tristan, finding unique ways for actors to convey meaning and better understand the perspectives of their characters was one of his most important roles as a director. “I basically wanted to be a therapist, but I didn’t wanna go to med school,” he said. “You’re taking on everything that they [actors] have in their day. You’re trying to get them to be a character that they are not ready for.”

Tristan was divided. He’d spent his college career preparing to become an actor, but he’d developed an even greater passion for directing. It came down the pivotal 24-hour period – Blizzard Entertainment had offered him a job, but Tristan had received another call that same day – from an old director who offered him an opportunity to act. Tristan talked to his current director before he made his decision. “He said, ‘what are you enjoying right now?’ And I said, ‘directing,’ so I went to California and started my new job.”

His first project with Blizzard Entertainment was a South Park episode called, “Make Love Not Warcraft.” “We won an Emmy for that,” he said, nonchalantly. “We went down to South Park studios. I would sit down with Matt Stone and Trey Parker and we would talk about the show – what made sense in the game, what didn’t.”

Tristan spent four and a half years at Blizzard before technology started catching up with him. Eventually, the team at Blizzard found ways to automate the films he was making, which removed the interpersonal interaction that Tristan loved. Faced with another big decision, Tristan decided to leave the company. “I was going to pick up, and I was gonna start a business,” he said. “So I moved to New York.”

It was hard to start a photography business in New York. “You can make a plan, but at the end of the day you don’t really know where you’re gonna land,” Tristan said. He didn’t like jumping through hoops to photograph New York agency models.  “A young girl right off the boat holding onto the arm of a 60-year-old man in some shifty nightclub, was called ‘networking,’” he said. The environment associated with photography in New York made Tristan dislike his own craft, and he wanted to make a change. “When you have a plan and that plan is not going accordingly, it’s hard to change gears quickly,” he said.

The answer, he discovered, was working with dancers. He would go to ballets and shows to meet potential clients, and finally networking became something he enjoyed.

Tristan has mastered several different roles – though ironically, several have been off the stage. Though his career is in flux, he excels at everything he’s done. After founding Tristan Pope Photography, he would go on to stretch the boundaries of modern storytelling by creating the first short films shot on an iPhone 6. Tristan pays attention to what’s fulfilling him at the moment. “I was once told that if you can’t wake up and think you are doing what you love, it’s not the job for you,” he said. “Every day that thing, for me, might be different.”

“I would sit down with Matt Stone and Trey Parker and we would talk about the show – what made sense in the game, what didn’t.”

When he filmed Dancers of NYC, he recognized that the iPhone 6 had a slow motion setting. This made footage more interesting, he explained.  “Instead of capturing that perfect jump, frozen in time – to be able to show lead up and exit with that move…It was a new way of interacting.” Tristan got the iPhone 6 the day it came out, filmed 15-17 dancers for 3 days, and edited the footage on the 4th day. Since then, the film has won several awards, including the 2014-2015 Nikon Photo Contest. Following the film’s success, Tristan has since followed up with Dancers of Zurich.

“I was once told that if you can’t wake up and think you are doing what you love, it’s not the job for you. Every day that thing, for me, might be different.”

He said he never felt limited by the iPhone. “The image quality was extremely acceptable,” he said. “At times, I think it’s better than my Canon – minus the depth of field and what you would get with the $3,000 lens – but that [Dancers of NYC], inspired me to start the Kickstarter for Romance in NYC.”

Romance in NYC Trailer 2014 from Tristan Pope on Vimeo.

Romance in NYC has been deemed “the first short film on an iPhone 6,” and it’s won an impressive amount of awards. It won at the 2015 New Media Film Festival in LA, the 2015 iPhone Film Festival, the 2015 International Movie Trailer Festival. It was also part of the official selection at the Madrid International Film Festival, the New Filmmakers of New York, and the International Mobil Film Festival.

“I was going to pick up, and I was gonna start a business. So I moved to New York.”

Tristan filmed the entire thing with an iPhone from the first person point of view. He worked with an indie-budget to produce the film, but said that he didn’t run into too many issues. Although, when filming the film’s restaurant scene, a lot of grain was introduced into the footage. “I was like, this is going to look  terrible,” he said. It turned out the the footage ended up looking like film grain, and Tristan said he was taken aback by the quality. 

“With any piece like this where you talk about mobile filmmaking, there’s gonna be a backlash. It’s like an argument of a foreign car vs an American, or Apple vs Android, or Mac and PC,” Tristan said. But what’s important, he stressed, is the story. “I believe it’s [the iPhone] is the best medium for telling people the stories that I want to tell. There’s this quote going around, that apparently I said but didn’t realize – ‘a story is a story whether you shoot  in 4k or 1080p.’”

Tristan plans to use whatever technology he can get his hands on to communicate meaning to his audience, and he says he’ll  continue to battle against conventionality, drabness, repetition, and rules.

Connect with Tristan at www.tristanpope.com

Or on Instagram: tristanpope

Interested in reading about other dance videographers like Tristan? Check out B-Boy ChazB from Glasgow, Scotland.

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