Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

That's great--I'd love to see a higher quality version. Very cool.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

That was cool. I stepped through this frame-by-frame to see the camera's they were using - didn't see any.

I can't believe one of those guys were wearing wallaby’s, I used to love those shoes.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

Is that the only way to get that effect of them spinning around like that with multi cameras? Could you do that with one camera and spin them some how in post? I like the way the video was edited.

I think they used a DVX on the Hip Hop Honors show on VH-1 a couple of weeks ago. The Beastie Boys started their performance outside on the street (like Eminem did a few years ago) and every now and then they would switch to a wide shot and you could clearly see the other camera operator with a MiniDV camera. They had a grip holding/carrying a softbox light. The whole intro to their performance was shot on MiniDV as they made their way from the street, into the venue, right down the aisle and up to the stage then they switched back to the high end cameras to get them on stage performing.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

Nope, the only way to get the REAL bullet time effect is to set up tons of cameras in a huge circle.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

This was a nice job though I think that double the cameras was needed for a smoother flow. A call on dvxuser would have given him a few dozen proud users with full gear and a carefull eye on thie baby I imagine ;D hey maybe there is a challenge for us . . . where do you find more readily available dvx's in one place! As for bullet time, there are ways of cheating it though with one camera and some work in post thats worth looking into 4 sure.. . I have been on a couple of shoots were we pulled of 'Dead Zone' shots by crowd coordinating and freezing details in post.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

That's kinda part of the Beastie Boys grassroots style though... maybe?

Maybe not.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

The compression on the web file is so brutal and bad, it's really hard to gauge the quality of the original piece. What's with the cyan skin tones, though? I hope that's not the method for color matching all the cameras--push everything into the cyan/blue and forget about it. Deconstructing the first 360 in the video, I found it took 60 frames to complete a 360 degree circuit, but every 5th frame is a repeat of the preceding frame, so there are only 48 unique frames. So there were 48 cameras arrayed 360/48= 7.5 degrees apart. Maybe they planned to have 60 cameras, but couldn't get that many and still wanted a complete circuit to take 60 frames. If so, I think it was the wrong decision, because the cadence looks way jerkier than it should with 48 cameras. Maybe it's a stylistic thing and they wanted a jerky look.
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

I saw the Beastie Boys at the Patriot Center and the bullet-time setup is part of their stage show -- they can do the effect in real time on stage. The cameras for the stage show are in a small arc on the front of the stage, angled up so you can't see any of them in the shots. On this video, it looks like their are more cameras than with the stage show.

Do you think there are some still cameras in between the video cams?
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

[quote author=DVX100Shooter link=board=Offtopic;num=1099083771;start=0#4 date=10/30/04 at 00:18:34]Is that the only way to get that effect of them spinning around like that with multi cameras? Could you do that with one camera and spin them some how in post? to the high end cameras to get them on stage performing.

[/quote]

As Matthew noted - It’s doable and it can be done but it is “low budget” But I think a talented and patient dude can pull it off better and more effectively.

this one is ULTRA low budget and I don't think they put much time in it...

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/kumar_satish/bullet_time/index.htm

I think low end gear too - But if you did some net serching I bet you can find better homemade examples.

I think the next DVX will have a "bullet time" switch ;)
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

the method I worked with was interesting as we literaly shouted 3,2,1 and stilled a crowd of 300 fighting soldiers and left the hero actor to walk amounst the frozen scene. We stilled some blinking exras or flapping clothing and intoduced some 3D dust and particles in the scene that got tracked in 3D space. The moment the specks of frozen dirt move past the camera and loose focous it becomes very credible . . . and over all music and a great woosh sound effect always doubles your effort. 8)
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

i'd love to see that matthew. do you have a quicktime of it?
 
Re: Beastie Boys Video shot with 60+ DVXs

Nice! Man, I love the beasties. One of the few groups today who still do real Hip Hop. Anyway, the video is slick. As for Matt, I've seen that technique used before. I think it was on techTV when they were hyping that show about the kid who has nanobots in his bloodstream. John2.0 or something of the sort. They would have the actors freeze and steadycam through the crowd. Pretty slick and inexpensive way to go about it.
 
I like the look (despite the compression, what were they thinking?) but I don't really understand the process.

If it works like I see it in my head this must have been a tedious process.

-rook
 
There are in fact a few other ways to achieve the effect.

First one, being the more low quality one, would be setting up an array of only a few cameras and then morphing between the images in post. That way was used on the pretty funny German Matrix XP.

The other way is using the pinch-hole cameras and exposing a strip of film where each frame would be exposed by a different hole, or a lens if you can afford one. This of course requires a single shutter for all the holes, but the effect is very smooth, much smoother than the choppy movement in the BB video. Information on those type of cameras can be found over on the Time Slice website along with numerous demonstrations. The downside of this method is that the time can only be frozen, not slowed down as in case of setting up still video cameras (like in the Matrix).

Now, even being a die hard Matrix fan, and especially a fan of this effect, I have to admit that it has seen its days. The Matrix has influenced too many directors and cinematographers to abuse the effect, to the point when we saw it in many commercials and other films. Hence, even though still entertaining, for me at least, the effect probably should stay in the past and be written about in film books.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it's very similar to the vocal autotuning effect in the audio world, the one you can hear in Cher's "Believe" and all over Eiffel 65's tracks. It got very widespread, abused, and then abandoned almost completely. Occasional trance and progressive house tracks still use it but it's not mainstream anymore, thankfully.
 
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