One of the exciting things that has simultaneously sprung up in this GoPro era of video is drone technology – in this case quad-copters. Flown by a single pilot and sometimes a second operator to control the on-board camera, these tools have exploded on the consumer market in the past few years thanks to a company called DJI. With a stabilizing gimbal one of these copters can help produce some really interesting shots. Here is a collection of shots that my friend Chris and I created using a variety of DJI copters and a GoPro Hero3 Black.
Had a fun shoot with my GoPro Meetup group. We spent a few hours shooting Ark on is motorcycle in Brooklyn. Chris brought one of his quad copters and we tried a few different shots. This is also the first time I decided to shoot in Protune which is GoPro’s higher bitrate (35Mbps) flat color profile (Hero3 Black). GoPro’s recommended workflow is to run clips through their Cineform application. I’ve done some tests and their software does a nice job of applying the “GoPro look” on the footage. I opted for skipping this step and doing color grading directly in Adobe Premiere to attempt the same look. I started to get myself wrapped up in color grading tutorials and might have pushed a few things too much (or not enough?? I’m still learning this process).
Protune also produces a softer image. Apparently the camera does some sharpening with Protune off. I haven’t been able to figure out an equivalent unsharp mask setting in Premiere that mimics Cineform or the camera’s non-Protune output.
I’m including both YouTube and Vimeo versions here. As expected the YouTube compression has done a number on some of these shots while the Vimeo upload is much cleaner.
Directing/Editing: Keith Hopkin, Copter: Christopher Kaczmarzyk [chrisap.com], Biker: Arkadiy Birger
Special thanks to the GoPros who participated in shooting: Lior Burg, Orlando Benedicto, Tom Lassu, Sean Keane
Additional thanks to Magnet Media for providing a “pre-production” meetup space.
I spent the last few months on a project that I’m really proud of. Thanks to an artistic grant from Petcurean Pet Nutrition [ www.petcurean.com/savoureverymoment ]I had the opportunity to create something really special for myself and the pet owners of the world. It’s called “Savour Every Moment” and is a short film that tries to capture what we love about our pets.
The original score is written by my friend Carly Comando who is an amazing musician and I am really happy she had the chance to work on this with me. I had a great time shooting with C.J. Gardella (Producer) and Dave McGrath (Director of Photography) and look forward to future projects together.
I was really excited to pull in pet photographer Seth Casteel for the pool shoot portion of this project. He’s an awesome guy and great photographer. We had a blast working together that day. He has a stunning book out called “Underwater Dogs“. If you haven’t seen his work online you should check it out!
You can buy the beautiful score in “Savour Every Moment” written by Carly Comando on iTunes!
This project wouldn’t have been possible without all of the amazing friends, pet owners and of course animals! There wasn’t enough room in the film to thank everyone so at the end of this post is a complete list. But first, here are some stills!
Shar and Owen, Jeff and Lisa at the Red Robin Song Guest House, Brian Applegate, Paul Bajerczak, Scott Barber, Mitch Bergsma, Cat Black, Doug Bresler, Jeff Campbell, Angie Carlson, Seth Casteel, Jared Cicon, Matthew C., Drew Dewitt, Chris Edwards, Jesse Garcia, Alexis Gardella, Marilyn Hopkin, Justin at Nocturnal Lights, Alexa Kadish, Noah Kalina, Peter Keane, Ferraby Lionheart, Neil Lucey, Mark Martin, Chris Mauch, Heather McCandless, Bree Melanson, Regina Melzer, Jane Park Mohr, Pete P., Jeremy and Vanessa Perman, Production Junction, Rachel Postman, Aaron and Jessica Rathbun, Mary S., Lawrence Scaduto, Antonio Simonini, Jason Stare, Elka Stern, Kim and Adrian Sultana, Jamie Surenkamp.
UPDATE 1/18/2019
At some point in 2018 the video above was removed by YouTube and the Petcurean account was suspended. I contacted Petcurean and they did not know why the video was removed (at 1.8M Plays). You can watch my Director’s Cut here though:
I was down in Miami testing out the new GoPro Hero3’s 120fps setting. Here’s a video I put together featuring the Bark4Green family Benji, Nina and Rocky. Enjoy!
Benji – Whippet Jack Russell Mix
Rocky – Chinook Labrador Mix
Nina – Bichon Frisé
