House of Cards - An entertaining challenge to you.

[RadioFlyerMan]

This has been out here before. But nobody caught on to the trick, so I'll be more direct in my challenge.

This movie was made entirely using my MPP. Now tell me where in the movie it would seem impossible to do so, and how did I do it.

 

[old man mavic]

opening scene clouds going different ways ,somehow you edited two different takes together

 

[Maviac]

The Vertigo shot?

 

[brett8883]

opening scene clouds going different ways ,somehow you edited two different takes together

Yea used the blue sky to “blue screen” in the other clouds. Probably took a shot with no trees in it at all and keyed it in. May not have been any clouds in the original shot to begin with so needed something moving to show the passage of time.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Now tell me where in the movie it would seem impossible to do so, and how did I do it.

Alright then, I will bite! The forest scene from 0:26 - 0:35; I would wager it's impossible to fly in that and you walked back wards with your MPP on your hand (or walked forward and reversed the segment in post )
What's everyone on about with the opening scene? May be a post trick or two but that is not "impossible to film with a drone".

Also, I wish I had your editing talents !

 

[Gorm]

Time-lapse combined with Ken Burns effect?

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

opening scene clouds going different ways ,somehow you edited two different takes together

Actually you would think that. But it was real, and surprised me after I reviewed the shot. But that is not the tricky issue I'm trying to get fellow pilots to see.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

The Vertigo shot?

Good guess, but that's not the trick. The vertigo or "dolly zoom" was flown legit and processed in post.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Alright then, I will bite! The forest scene from 0:26 - 0:35; I would wager it's impossible to fly in that and you walked back wards with your MPP on your hand (or walked forward and reversed the segment in post )
What's everyone on about with the opening scene? May be a post trick or two but that is not "impossible to film with a drone".

Also, I wish I had your editing talents !

The forest scene is legit also. The opening between the trees was rather narrow, but I stood in line with the MPP and few backwards. Actually that's one of my favorite scenes. But it's not the trick one.

 

[Thomas B]

Flying forwards through the piney woods... then reversing the s segment in post? Sorry, we posted at the same time.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Time-lapse combined with Ken Burns effect?

You are the closest to the issue of trick scenes. But it's not entirely the trick.

 

[spamgnome]

The scene where it appears the drone is looking upwards?

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Flying forwards through the piney woods... then reversing the s segment in post? Sorry, we posted at the same time.

Yes I did that, but that's no trick... I'm composing a post to reveal the trick and will post it shortly.

 

[brett8883]

Oh this was done on a MPP so all the dolly zoom effects are fake. Key in an anomophic effect while keying in a crop effect.

 

[brett8883]

1:02-1:05 is impossible with a prime lens.

 

[spamgnome]

Oh this was done on a MPP so all the dolly zoom effects are fake. Key in an anomophic effect while keying in a crop effect.

English, please

 

[brett8883]

English, please

No optical zoom no dolly effect

 

[brett8883]

I was thinking this was with a M2 zoom which can do this effect for real

 

[brett8883]

Mavic Pro Platinum camera has a fixed focal length, it’s a “prime lens”. It cannot zoom optically.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

The goal of my video was to show the gardens and pond that my wife built over the years. She is the "Set Designer" I referred to in the video. As I started flying and shooting clips, the project then evolved into making a spoof on the House of Cards theme. When I first published this video some time ago, I was expecting someone to say "Hey wait a minute... you can't do that with a drone!" But nobody caught on, and I was surprised.

If you recall the opening to House of Cards, they include a scene where the sun shadows on a building is the primary movement and the camera location is the secondary movement. I wanted to create that.

The problem with such a scene has to do with the time scale of movement. I wanted to create hyperlapse scenes with at a minimum of two time scales, and perhaps three. The time scale of vegetation movement is in seconds, the scale of cloud movement is minutes, and the time scale of sun shadow movement is hours. Hours??! I don’t know of any off-the-shelf drone that can fly for hours. “Hey wait a minute…!”

So I cheated. It’s cheating because I did not fly. To capture the sun shadows moving across the lawn, I had to do a time lapse of 15 seconds per shot over a period of 1.5 hours, giving me roughly a 12 second clip at 30 fps. The only way to do that is to place the MPP on a platform…. “Cheating”.

All of the time lapse shots, especially with sun shadow movement had to be done on a platform. And a high one so it “looks” like I’m flying.

The pond shot includes time scales of seconds (vegetation, water and fish moving) combined with real time camera movement. That shot was made over a 20 minute period, but I could not hover and get an extremely slow yaw to pan over the pond. So I cheated… I made a platform that would rotate 45 degrees over a 15 minute period.

Time lapse intermixed with realtime flying clips and I've got a spoof movie!

I had fun making this video, and I learned a lot about time-lapse... all the while my wife was rolling her eyes and laughing at me.

Here’s my stationary platform…


And here’s my rotating platform…