Dissecting the "Hong Kong Strong" Film

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dylansmith

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I chanced upon this Staff pick on Vimeo, and it looked pretty fascinating for me to want to dissect this film further.

https://vimeo.com/166929892

Time
Remarks
0:32
How does the filmmaker achieve a zooming out of background AND zooming in of foreground (centre) simultaneously?
0:37 to 0:40
Is that real camera movement? Otherwise how can this be achieved in post production?
0:48
How is the accelerated zooming out effect created? Also, is that real camera movement? If yes, how can it be achieved?

Note: I tried using a gimbal and quickly running backwards on a scene, then speed it up in video. There’s no way to make it as smooth as this scene. Why is that so?
1:02
Interesting mirror effect. How is it done in Premiere Pro CC?
1:12
2:00
How do they use a pole/ladder/human as the transition? Masking?

Overall I thought the transitions were very well done, which made the scenes blend together so well. Critique welcome. Looking forward to a great discussion!
 
:32 A classic move, although most cinematograhers try to hold the frame on their subject. This is done by dollying back and zooming in at the same time. In this case they dollied back faster than they zoomed in. The close proximity of the benches make it look like it is zooming wide, but it is actually a dolly back.
;37 Same move, but this time, at the beginning, the dolly back is faster than the zoom, or they did not zoom, then in the second half of the move, the zoom in is at the same rate as the dolly back.
[ edit] something funky is happening in that shot. It almost looks like a composite shot with the background being matted into the shot. I don't think what I said above is correct because I see no compression of the foreground when we see the mountain apparently stop recessing into the background. [end edit]
:48 It could have been stabilized in post.
 
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Hi there,

Thanks for the reply.

Seems like tough luck unless I use 1. Power zoom or 2. manual zoom+focus puller.

very keen to delve deeper into the accelerated zooming out effect. I just tested speeding up a 4s gimbal-stabilized shot by 400%, followed by warp stabilizer and Premiere Pro CC threw me this error - "Warp stabilizer and Speed can't be used on same clip".

The clip is stable at 100% speed, but has the "staccato" look when I speed up the footage by 400%. What am I doing wrong?
 
Regarding the error, try doing the warp stabilization and save it as a clip. then make a new sequence with that clip.

dylansmith said:
The clip is stable at 100% speed, but has the "staccato" look when I speed up the footage by 400%. What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

You can't expect miracles speeding it up 4x. Think of what silent movies look like (originally shot at ~16fps) when played back at 24fps. What frame rate did you shoot it? Try shooting at with a slower shutter or add some blur in post to see if that helps.
 
Hi,

The thing is I only need the warp stabilizer After speeding it up. in 100% speed, it is smooth.

I shot at 24fps, 1/50s. is the effect in that film using lower shutter speeds (but still at 24fps) to create it?
 
I haven't watched ^that but I think those super-long dolly-and-zoom shots are done much easily than you're thinking. At least this is how I would try to do it: shoot the dolly move in 4K as well as I can, stabilize in post, zoom in post (i.e. crop). If the move is very long, you can zoom as well while you do the dolly, but it can be very far from perfect, since you're still going to stabilize and crop in post anyway.

As usual: I don't need a 4K TV, but there are lots of reasons to shoot 4K.

Regarding the change in speed: do it in two steps. It can be speed first then warp stabilizer, but I'd also go with stabilizer first (even if it looks like it doesn't needs to be stabilized, you can erase the bumps that are only visible when sped up; doing warp stabilization first is better because it has more info to work with). In any case, if you have a way to speed up your clips that doesn't generate the stacatto effect, it will work here as well, be it first or last in the workflow.
 
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Wow that commentary is AWESOME. So much great info.

So yes, he's using digital zoom to couneract the dolly. But watch it. I found the non-technical parts to be the most intersting: the flow of themes, the reasons for cutting some scenes together, the way he got to shoot all those things, etc.
 
Anyway, I just tried using warp stabilizer first, then speed 2nd (vice versa too) and Premiere Pro CC would not allow me to do it. It simply says i can't stack the two effects.

So what exactly do we do to achieve that accelerated zoom effect (barring digital zoom aside)?
 
You can't stack the two effects. Apply one, export the result with a good codec, then import that and apply the second effect.
 
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