Friday, June 4, 2010 at 12:47PM 6 Comments If you've been following along, you'll know I recently spent three days in the valley. We were there to shoot an interview with Ken Burn's favorite ranger, Shelton Johnson, this one for our own upcoming film about the John Muir Trail... The film is the brain-child of one Peter Bell, who shot the bulk of the footage in '08 while hiking the JMT with my business partner and friend Brian Burnham. The story of how it got to that point is a long one, but let's just say it's been in planning for some time. Peter shot the entire thing in HD, and Brian shot stills the entire time, so it looks incredible. We needed a bit more for the final cut, so we headed to the Valley to get the interview with Johnson, but also some supplemental footage. Using the 5Dmk2 and 7D, we shot a bit of BROLL video, but I concentrated my efforts on timelapse.
I'm relatively new to the timelapse game, but I see even the seasoned professionals are still trying to work out certain approaches using the power of the current generation of DSLRs, so I guess we're all on the same curve, just different places. I'm pretty happy with how most of these turned out, and I learned a bit from my mistakes as the days went by, then forgot the lessons and repeated mistakes.
I have to get a nice little TL rig figured out, since this year, the wife and I are taking our turn on the JMT. No roads and no battery charging or card dumping for 20 days, or 218 miles. I have this crazy desire to be shooting TL while I'm out there, especially the pristine night sky...but that's gonna be a lot of extra batteries and cards. More than you know. Any suggestions?
The music is by the Felice Brothers. They are a band out of New York. If you don't know them, you damn well should.
-llg
Reader Comments (6)
thank you for sharing!! :) i've been watching from a distance since your wife mentioned this about a week or so ago...I've been working back while keeping in pace w/ the day-to-day & am selfishly grateful that you're under the halfway mark b/c I'm finding what your postings to be a) fun b) beautiful c) technically lovely/stimulating & d) a great way to start/end my own day. thank you! great work!!
The night TLs are insane...i got goose bumps
I concur, G - goosebumps.
I could watch the time lapse all night. amazing. music choice was solid just like the music for the rusty gate farms time lapse.
Amazing beauty. And like preparing a delicious meal with the perfect complement of wine or beer, you selected some killer Felice Brothers.
Dedicating a whole day* just to time-lapse projects such as this is tedious. You are so diligent toward expanding your incredible talents and expertise in visual arts, that I'm no longer surprised. But, geez, Leon, every posting makes me more and more grateful that you share this with us.
*and weekend as in other cases I recall when y'all were with friends.
Betsy, thank you so much. I'm glad you get something out of it, because you are right, it can be tedious. But I have to do something to balance my inherent laziness! Just happy that you dig it.