Details of development of a DSLR 3D rig using a couple of hacked GH13s and a small beam splitter, plus general thoughts on shooting 3D with the smallest footprint possible.
Interesting video from diginfonews japan about Sony´s latest 3D camera prototype, not much more info for the moment, no specs released yet:
The shoulder mount 3D ENG Production prototype camera has four SxS memory slots, both left and right channel HD-SDI outputs, a dial for adjusting convergence. It is believed the Sony ENG twin lens 3D camera will be released in 2011... price? well my guess is north of 25k, if they adjust to Panasonic´s pricetag for their 3D camcorder.
I finally got my hands on a working dual remote shutter (it took me months) for the GH1s, through a company in Japan which was recommended to me by (the now quite notorious) Inouek3D, with whom I have regular email exchanges regarding his experiments in 3D with GH1s. According to inouek3D, using the dual shutter trigger gets the time discrepancy between cameras down to 4 ms when shooting 50P.
Here is a second demo using the small beam-splitter, (do look at the video on Youtube directly for the yt3d tag to be enabled). I had to do a video for a label I´ll hide the name for now, for their in-store screens, I shot part of it in 3D: We had a Great location, perfect light, gorgeous models, it would have been a shame not to give it a go. I am getting a better grip at it and managed to get quite a few more valid shots compared to my first trials, despite the fact that both cameras are still not synched. I wont deny that some of the shots might induce headaches, but is it due to cameras´s synching or to too much movement, or too strong a parallax? (parallax was 4cm for most of those shots, hence the girls close-ups a bit hard on the eye, I should have stayed at 120 cm minimum.) I´ll let you guys be judge of the results. Let me know what you think.
Here is a photo of the updated rig, with french flag and doors. One of the main trouble I had previously was light reflections in the mirror, giving flares in one of the camera but not the other. I (partially) solved the problem now:
Footage become easier to grade as the beam splitter mirror gave a slight tint when hit by too much light. the rig is still just about 4 or 5 kgs (9 lbs all in all, making it easy to use handheld). i still haven´t found a good way to synch the cameras, I do that in post. I shoot 720 50p to reduce the frame discrepency to a minimum.
Here is a side view of the rig with doors and french flags, with my lovely (bit messy tho!) garden behind. Hoping to post some more 3D footage very soon.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Here are a few pictures of the making of the 3D commercial for Deutsche Bank Skyliners, if you want to see the video making of, please go to www.bastienfrancois.com/3d/
Please go directly to Youtube to watch the spot in 3D as the "Y3d" tag is not suppoted in embeds.
Press Release (June 2010)
James Cameron´s epic tale “Avatar” has jumpstarted the 3D revolution, and now all major TV and computer manufacturer are offering 3D unabled TV sets, 3D blue-rays players, laptops and computers. Neue Sentiumental Frankfurt is now the first production company to have realised a 3D stereoscopic commecial: a 40 seconds spot for cinema release, and a slightly shortened version in 2D for distribution via TV have been created.
Besides the technical prowess of it all, the spot´s concept comes from the creative agency Leich + Frei: the film promotes the initiative of "Basketball in Schools" by DEUTSCHE BANK SKYLINERS*, whose goal is to promote basketball to children of defavorised milieuxs prone to drugs consumption..
Dr. Gunnar Wöbke, second vice-director of the DEUTSHE BANK SKYLINERS Frankfurt "would like to thank the advertising agency Lesch + Frei, Neue Sentimental Film and ACHT FRANKFURT for their generous commitment and great work, and agreed that the spot would help their "basketball in schools" initiative.
Neue Sentimental Film specifically assembled for the spot an international production team, helmed by the Belgian director Bastien Francois, and composed of London based sound designer Tim Harrison, and Berlin based composer Xavier of Treyer. The 2D and 3D post-production was realised by post-production house Die Acht FRANKFURT and sound and dolby mixing was done by the local recording studios Pearls and FunDeMental.
Tom Glaeser, executive producer and director of Neue Sentimental Film Frankfurt GmbH said: "We wanted to achieve optimum results for this film and have therefore opted to have much more elaborate production values and, on the advice of Director Bastien Francois, we decided to complete the entire film in stereoscopic 3D, in order to reach our younger audience in 3D cinemas, and get them excited about the `basketball for all` initiative. "
The Film is currently shown in 3D cinemas across Germany, a standard version is shown across different german TV networks as well.
So here are a few pictures of the rig as it was when I shot most of the stuff in the clip in the previous post. As you can see it is tiny, it weights about 2.5 kgs or 5lbs I´d say, which is pretty much like a handheld camcorder, but it is not very stable, even if well balanced, with the handles on each side (you can notice that in the clip.
Setting up the parallax takes me some time, I have put marks at positions I use most. I pretty much set the rig with the lenses, choose a parallax distance, and do all my shot in accordance: (ie: the distance at which I´ll keep my subject(s) at...)
