Thank you!!!

I'm using a Nikon D300. I just got it not too long ago, and I love it!!!

It looks great! Did you do any color correction on this? The colors look magnificent. What editing program do you use?

Oh, thank you!

No, I didn't do any color correction on this, the photos were just taken straight from the camera. That was one draw I had to the camera, just really brilliant images with no post processing needed. Sometimes the photos I get from the camera are so vivid they don't even look real! I guess that could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you're going for (and luckily you can turn down the vividness of the colors and make them "normal" if you like). If you get me talking about this camera, I could just go on and on... like I said, I love it! :)

And for editing, I use Sony Vegas. It's a PC program (ahhhh!) and I've found it does a good job handling still photos.

thanks jessica... the focus thing was a "new technique" i was trying. having such a short depth of field with the lens i was using made it fairly easy to do. i'm glad you liked the effect! i'll have to experiment some more...

thank you kindly, mr. sims!

Why thank you ever so much, Jared. That is very nice of you. Glad you liked it, too!

Thank you!!! That is very sweet.

And anytime. ;)

Todd, that is very swell of you to say. I'm really flattered as to how this inspired you! Let's see more SLR-based videos... plus this way you can post in widescreen HD! :D

Aw, Irynka, thank you! You are too kind!

Well, thank you kindly Charlie!

I shoot on my SLR for two reasons:

- gives me flexibility to shoot high quality HD videos and apply interesting techniques that video doesn't necessarily afford
- and an SLR is all I've got!!!! Hehe...

But I encourage you, definitely try shooting on a still camera. It's tons of fun (and all I know)!

Well, after I have all the shots I pull them into my editing software in batches. This allows me to adjust the timing for each batch, which will translate into being a part of the video.

I'll then have to tweak timing individually of each of the frames to get the timing just right. A lot of times I'll end up just deleting entire sections because they don't sync up like I want. It definitely takes time to do it, as it's just a bunch of trial & error!

Hi Benoit,

I'm so glad you like it!

I'd be glad to answer what questions I can for you.

I take the series of photos with my DSLR at varying speeds (anywhere from 3 - 6 per second). This particular film was probably about 1000 photos or so.

I'll preview the photos in succession with a program like Picasa, which allows you to scroll through photos very quickly and loosely emulate what the video would look like, to give me some ideas to start editing.

I usually don't have the music chosen when I start shooting, and have found that the music will often times dictate how I approach editing. I find the music immensely important, and recommend that you wait for the right track to come along before you try to start pulling things together in editing.

Then I'll import groups of photos in batches into the editing program, to create a given scene (not necessarily from beginning to end, however). I'll adjust the "time per frame" in the editing program's options prior to importing, which will import all selected frames and give each of those being imported in that group the specified length in the film. This particular film has most frames imported with a fairly short duration (probably about .10 seconds per frame) which gives it that very sped-up look. Deleting a few frames where the subjects are moving will give it that broken up look.

The end product is what you see, sort of a tip of the hat to old 8mm films from back in the day!

Hehe, great! Glad it gave you some ideas! Please post whatever you come up with!

Thank you kindly, Frederic!

I was using the 1.8 50mm. Gotta love those Nikons!

Love the vid! MGMT just makes everything more fun.

Jon,

I just watched it a couple more times. Again, great job. Such a steady hand.

Did you do any developing in PS at all? The colors looks so vivid.

Thank you, Marcelo!

Hi Jon,

Well thank you so much, I am extremely flattered!

Would you be able to post a link to your music? I would love to take a listen, as the music makes the video for me.

Well, I have some songs up on myspace (www.myspace.com/trailerparkjackson)
But if you'd give me your address, I'd love to mail you a cd so you could hear them all.