"The Sandpit" is Nominated for 2 Webbys!

Well touché. I had a good Monday, and I told Tuesday “to bring it” and it was broughten. Brought. Brung? Bringed? Whatever! It was achieved.

On Tuesday we got the great news that Sam O'Hare's short film, The Sandpit has been nominated for a Webby both in the Viral and Music categories. 

We're just over the moon with this nomination! The internet is becoming the new movie theatre of our generation (which is great as my floor at home is much less sticky). But with over 10,000 entries from all 50 states and 60 countries, we’re honored to have been nominated to the internet’s most prestigious award. (And so glad that Honey Badger didn’t steal our thunder.)

Sam shot, edited, and did all of the post visual effects on this labor of love. The music was written and composed by Human Music and their magical work was a big part of what helped propel this film to viral status. There have been over 2.7 million views between Vimeo and You Tube, and it’s the 4^th most liked video of all time on Vimeo.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

There are 2 awards given in each category—one to the Jury’s choice and one to the People’s Voice. This is where we need our Aero friends to get your clicking fingers ready and VOTE. And spread the word! It’s super easy and you can log in through Facebook or Twitter.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

So this begs the question: What do you have for me, Mr. Next Week? Maybe I’ll quit while I’m ahead…

Kids Interact With "The Sandpit"!

Ah, Monday. Here again reminding us the weekend is over. Thanks. But, Monday has been pretty great so far. I got an email this AM that made my week.  (Sure it's early, but the bar has been set fairly high.)

As you know, we have been so overwhelmed and thrilled by everyone's reaction to Aero director, Sam O'Hare's film, The Sandpit.  We’ve gotten many requests for using the film, and a while ago, we were contacted by a company called 4d Creative in England. 4d Creative designs and installs “immersive learning spaces” in schools for children. In layman's terms, they create rooms that let kids “walk through a desert” or “float in space” via video projection on the walls. These rooms stimulate kids' creative juices and help them understand what it's like to live in other parts of the world.

Kids tour "Egypt" in the comfort of their own school!

Nick Horrell, Creative Development Director of 4d Creative, contacted us an asked if he could use The Sandpit in one of the new spaces they were designing. Sounded like a very cool thing, and hey it’s for the kids, so Sam agreed and off went the film. We had forgotten about this until today’s email thanking us for the film and showing us photos of the students interacting with New York City through the film-- from exploring jobs around the city to waiting for a bus, even mimicking the actions of the diggers.

A student in England recreates a scene from "The Sandpit"
via 4d Creative's interactive studio at his school.

I can't help but be a little jealous of these kids' experience in school (as all I had growing up was a clunky Franklin PC that made duck sounds when saving data on a floppy disc), but I am excited for my own child knowing what kind of learning environments are popping up! Also, this is something none of us ever expected from The Sandpit. It's exciting to know that this film entertains and educates.

Please make sure to check out 4d Creative's site and explore all they can do. It's absolutely amazing and inspiring.

Okay, Tuesday, the bar's been set, BRING IT.

"The Sandpit" Hits AFI FEST 2010!

Sam O'Hare's short tilt-shift film, The Sandpit, has done it again!

The Sandpit was recently honored in Austria with the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction. This is a prestigious award that took us all by surprise. And now The Sandpit has been selected as one of 31 entrees (out of over 3,000!) in the AFI Fest 2010 Presented by Audi being held in Los Angeles, California November 4th-11^th. Not too shabby!

AFI's history is pretty impressive. It was founded in 1967 through the National Endowment for the Arts as a nonprofit aimed to “enrich and nurture the art of Film in America.” Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation that created AFI siting that it was a major step in recognizing film making as a legitimate business and career path. Basically, he tried to calm the fears of all the parents who heard their children say, “I want to be a film director when I grow up!”

But most exciting is that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences recognizes short film winners from AFI as qualifiers for an Academy Award! But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's an honor just to be selected. (But getting another Oscar winner/nominee at Aero would be cool... Gary McKendry and James Mangold can’t have all the fun.)

But if all this wasn’t good enough, all tickets to the AFI Festival are FREE! Free movies?! I think popcorn may cost $47, but alas, the TICKET is free! So if you're in LA, get your tickets here. The Sandpit, is part of the Shorts Program 3 on Sunday, November 7^th at 3:30 in Mann Chinese Theatre 3 (click here for entire festival schedule).

Again, thanks for all the support! 

Sam O'Hare's new tilt shift film, "Coachelletta"

You may remember Aero director, Sam O'Hare's name from the short film, The Sandpit. Well, he has a new film out using the tilt-shift style once again! The short film Coachelletta has just been released. It was commissioned by the Coachella Music Festival and is live on their site now www.coachella.com or see the director cut with vocals in full HD HERE. So give it a look and then read my interview with Sam below for more details on how this film came to fruition.

***

AERO: So The Sandpit did pretty well. Did you ever think 1.8 million people were going to see it?

SAM: Uh, no. No, that took me a little by surprise. I'm still a bit taken aback by it to be honest. It won an award and is being screened at the AFI Film Festival in LA this November. It's been much more popular than my wildest expectations.

AERO: You made a “viral.”

SAM:  HA! I hate that phrase.

AERO: Yes me too! It’s so rarely appropriate… Bygones… After The Sandpit was posted, you were contacted by Goldenvoice who produces the Coachella Music Festival.

SAM: Yeah, they got in touch after they'd seen The Sandpit on Vimeo. They really liked it and said they were looking for somebody to do a film about Coachella and they thought that the style of film (tilt shift) would work really well. I had a week to prep and off I went.

AERO: So what is different about how you created The Sandpit versus Coachelletta? Obviously you didn't need to find rooftops this time.

SAM: Yeah, Coachella is different - it's a big polo field that they commandeer every year for a week or two and put up all the stages, tents and art installations. It's mostly flat, and I wasn't able to get onto any of the structures that they put up. So, to get the high vantage point that I need to shoot from, we ended up using cherry pickers. You know the big booms that extend out to 60 foot and have a cradle you can stand in?

AERO: Yeah, I don't like those. I'm afraid of heights.

SAM: I wasn’t a big fan, but I’ve become pretty used to heights as of late. With the help of the boom operators, I got to put them where I wanted around the edges of the site: behind the stages, in the production area, around the camping sections and the vendors' areas.

AERO: What's your favorite scene in the Coachella film?

SAM: It difficult to pick out an absolute favorite, but similarly to The Sandpit I like the serendipity of occasionally finding people doing interesting things, like the girl doing the hula hoop and the guy dancing in the glowing stick figure outfit. You just see these little unplanned events and shoot them, and that's the fun of the thing, it makes it quite like a documentary like in that respect. I also like the night shots in this - I did a lot of long exposures for these shots, up to two seconds, and so for some of those night shots you kind of get a blur and a shiver to the footage because the boom was actually moving in the wind. I rather like it as it adds to the energy of the night shots as the music track is starting to peak and the whole experience kind of leads up to that point.

AERO: So just to answer some people's questions that they had on The Sandpit, why do you shoot this on a Nikon D3s still camera instead of using a video option like the Canon 5D Mark II?

SAM: Well there are a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was quite a lot of stabilization that needed to be done on this stuff, similar to The Sandpit. Since I was up on booms, and because it was fairly windy most of the time, it wasn't possible to even stabilize the camera on a tripod, so I had to stabilize in post. To do so, you pick points in the footage that you know aren't moving, like the corner of a window and the computer tracks as it moves around in the scene and basically moves the image around each frame to keep that point in the same place. What you need with that is a little more scene around the edge of the frame, because you have to blow it up a little bit to absorb the movement. This means if you're shooting 1080p video and you want to deliver at 1080p, when you blow it up by 10% you're losing quality. Since the stills I was shooting were 2800 pixels wide, you have lots of space to play in. The other thing is that when you shoot on the 5D, it automatically compresses as H.264 and that means when it comes to color grading and tweaking it you have much less latitude. If you're shooting raw files you have an enormous amount you can do in the grade in terms of how you affect the white balance and the colors and all the rest because you've just got the raw light information that's been captured onto the sensor. If you've already run it through a compression, you are much more limited in what you can do. Also, because you can't shoot video at 4 frames a second with the Canon, you can only shoot at 24 so I would have been shooting five frames I didn't need for every one that I did and churning through data very very quickly.

AERO: There’s a moving camera in Coachella, which there wasn’t in The Sandpit.

SAM: Yeah, there are a few shots, actually. I was able to take advantage of the fact that I was on a boom and booms are able to move...

AERO: ...Not so much with The Sandpit as it was shot...

SAM: ...from buildings, yeah. Building aren’t known for moving easily.

AERO: Not so much.

SAM: Yeah, so I was able to do extensions on the boom and shoot while I was doing it. I did try to do a few pans around on the boom too, but they didn't really work as well. The best results were when the jib was either moving straight outwards or booming straight up and down, so I did quite a few of those. The problem with them is that they come out pretty bumpy, as the booms aren't designed to do these things smoothly, so once again all of those shots are stabilized. I'd pick 2 points the same distance away in perspective in the shot and stabilize from those.

AERO: So do you want a giant techno crane for Christmas?

SAM:  Sure! I don't know where I'd put it but....

AERO:   Mmm. True. Any new post effects used in Coachelletta?

SAM: It's really more of an extension of the techniques I started on while I was doing The Sandpit. For that one I spent a little time on some of the shots to add extra 3D information, but for a lot of them I got away with using the standard tilt shift defocus straight across the image. For Coachella I spent time on almost every shot to add in more accurate 3-D depth data for static objects. So you'll notice that vertical bits of the art work seem to stand up off the grass, and the tents and things seem to sit there in 3 dimensions. It means that the defocusing effect happens based more on the actual depth in the shot, so the result is more like what would happen if the scene really was a model. Most of these were rotoscoped in by hand which is pretty time-consuming, but for some I also pulled keys and mattes. The result isn't completely perfect, but I was happy with the overall effect.

AERO: How many frames did you shoot?

SAM: A little over 50,000.

AERO: Are you the most patient person on the planet?

SAM: Not really! Adobe Lightroom helps quite a bit!

AERO: The music on the film is super catchy.

SAM: I approached Human, who did the music for The Sandpit and because we had such a good experience working with them last time and they did such a great job. It's very different feel to the last one, I wanted to have something that felt summery and energetic would fit the experience the festival. They did an awesome job, I was very very happy with it. They’re just fantastic musicians and composers.

AERO: Awesome, thank so much Sam! What are you going to miniaturize next?

SAM: Not sure, maybe I’ll blow something up instead.

AERO: Good plan. You can never go wrong with blowing stuff up.

Check out more of Sam’s work HERE! 

Go Little Sandpit, Go!

Director, Sam O'Hare's short film, The Sandpit, continues to be the little film that could. We at Aero are excited, honored and humbled by our latest news: The Sandpit, was awarded a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction!  

The Prix Ars Electronica is an award for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital media. Internationally renowned artists from over 70 countries participate in the Prix Ars Electronica, establishing itself as a barometer for trends in contemporary media art. Past winners include Pixar, Digital Domain, Industrial Light and Magic, and Blue Sky.

494 projects from all over the world were submitted for the Computer Animation/Film/VFX category. The entries were reviewed by 34 jurors to select this year’s prize winners based on Aesthetics, Originality, Excellence of execution, Compelling conception, and Innovation in technique of the presentation. 

Sam’s film is in good company. The grand poobah award, the Golden Nica, was awarded to Arev Manoukian for his short film, Nuit Blanche. (Make sure to watch the making of this film as well - amazing!) The other Award of Distinction went to Jean Christophe Lie for the film, The Man in the Blue Gordini. 

There were 12 Honorable mentions in the same category. To name a few, Weta for Avatar; Pixar for Up; and the animated Academy Award winning short,  Logorama.  Human Music created the score for Logorama as well as The Sandpit, so hopefully in addition to being an amazing music house, they are also a good luck charm for Oscars.

Sam commented, “It’s incredibly flattering the that jury valued the work of independent film makers like myself and Arev. To have my work stand beside Pixar and Weta’s is truly humbling. Those films were technically and creatively stunning. I never thought The Sandpit-- created on the computer in my home office-- would stand beside these huge productions.”

This years festival will be in Linz, from September 2-11th. The official awards ceremony will be part of the Ars Electronica Gala set for September 3, 2010 in Linz, Austria, and Sam will be presenting his film to the delegation on Sept 5^th.

"The Sandpit" - A short film by Aero Director, Sam O'Hare!

UPDATE 10/26/2010:  A lot has happened since we posted this!  Sam's film has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction and was just selected to show at AFI Fest 2010!  Director, Sam O'Hare also has a follow-up film (also in the style of tilt-shift) called Coachelletta, which he shot at the Coachella Music Festival in early Spring of 2010.  Enjoy and THANK YOU for all the support!

***

Aero Director/ VFX artist Sam O’Hare has finished a short film, The Sandpit, that we’re very excited to be able to share with you. This short is inspired by films like Koyaanisqatsi (really, that’s not in spell check??), and time-lapse tilt shift photography.  Click to see The Sandpit.  (For best viewing, check HD and watch in full screen mode.)

The Sandpit is a day in the life of New York City, as seen in miniature:

After watching it, there are 2 immediate questions, “HOW did he do that?!?!” and “WHAT is that music track?!” Well, the 2nd question I can answer on my own, the former, I’ll have Sam explain…. The original music is by Human, co-written by Rosi Golan and Alex Wong. The piece was created for and inspired by the film. The production team at Human were absolutely amazing and incredibly helpful. Immense thanks to Marc Altschuler, Lauren Bleiweiss, Frank Reagan, and Mike Jurasits, as well as the incredibly talented Rosi Golan and Alex Wong.

Ok… now to the “how.” For this, Sam O’Hare joins me!

ME: Hi Sam!

SAM: Hi Sara.

ME: I feel like Stephen Colbert. This is exciting. My first interview in the blog-osphere!

SAM: Should I be frightened?

ME: (thinks) Maybe. Anywho… How did you shoot The Sandpit?

SAM: It is shot on a Nikon D3 (and one shot on a D80), as a series of stills. I used my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 and Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 lenses for all of these shots. Most were shot at 4fps in DX crop mode, which is the fastest the D3 could continuously write out to the memory card. The boats had slower frame rates, and the night shots used exposures up to two seconds each. The camera actually has an automatic cut off after 130 shots, so for longer shots I counted each click and quickly released and re-pressed the shutter release after 130 to keep shooting.

ME: That has to be a lot of stills!

SAM: I shot over 35,000.

ME: Holy shit.

SAM: No kidding.

ME: How did you capture the mini look?

SAM: I did some initial tests a while back using a rented 24mm tilt-shift lens, which is the standard way to do this. However, after my tests, I found it made much more sense to do this effect in post, rather than in camera. Shooting tilt-shift requires a tripod, as it is very hard to stabilise afterwards, and gives less flexibility in the final look. I opted to shoot it on normal lenses, which allowed me options in the depth of field and shot movement in post. I used a tripod for the night shots, and my Gorillapod (which is much more portable) where possible, but many locations—like hanging over the edge of a roof or through a gap in fencing on a bridge-- had to be shot hand held, and the inevitable wobble removed afterwards.

ME: That sounds kinda badass.

SAM: Um, sure?

ME: How long did the shoot take?

SAM: The entire shoot was completed in 5 days and two evenings, during the hottest week of August 2009. Many thanks go to all the people who gave me access to rooftops, penthouses and balconies to shoot from.

ME: So, you’re sitting with 35,000 stills. I’d probably have a Virgo-clutter overload and need a beer… But what did you do?

SAM: At first, I had a beer.

ME: Good man.

SAM: The footage was shot as raw NEFs, which I organised and colour graded in Adobe Lightroom. I always shoot raw, as it gives you so much more latitude when grading. These were then output as 720p jpg sequences and quickly stabilised to do the initial edit. Once the edit was mostly locked, all the final footage was re-output at full 2800px resolution, tracked, stabilised and the DOF effect and movement added in Eyeon Fusion, using Frischluft Lenscare. I output the final shots at 1080p. Although most shots stay with the basic tilt-shift effect, some have focus pulls, or more complex depth mattes were built up along with some paint work to allow buildings to drop out of focus next to the in-focus ground. This would not have been possible if I had shot using tilt shift lenses on the camera, which works best with relatively flat landscapes. New York City is anything but flat!

ME: And you did this all yourself?

SAM: The post? Yeah. It’s good fun. I had help from my friends Mary Joy Lu and Alex Catchpoole at Tanq finding all the locations, and you helped with that, too… And you also kept on me to finish this as soon as possible.

ME: I am delightfully bossy.

SAM: Something like that.

ME: The music track is amazing… How did that come about? Chicken before the egg?

SAM: Towards the end of the process I approached Human to provide music for the piece, and they very generously donated their time to produce a beautiful sound track for the film. It captures the feel of the film beautifully. I wanted the track to speak to what it is like to experience the many rhythms, pulses and moods of the city and the composition, especially the peak, does this beautifully. The vocals add narrative and pacing to the piece, and really help draw you through it.

ME: Without getting too artsy-fartsy, what inspired you to make this film?

SAM: I have always loved time-lapse footage, and films like Koyaanisqatsi especially, which allow you to look at human spaces in different ways, and draw comparisons between patterns at differing scales. I also really liked the tilt-shift look of making large scenes feel small, and wanted to make a film using this technique with New York as its subject.

ME: Thanks so much, Sam. The Sandpit is truly beautiful, and we’re so happy to have you as a part of the Aero Film family.

SAM: I'm happy to be here! I'm really glad you like the film, I had a lot of fun making it.

*****

Check out The Sandpit and then click on “like”! Please forward/tweet to friends, family, pets, etc.

More of Sam’s work can be found at the Rocket Film website as well as on Instagram and Twitter.

Special thanks for locations to:

Alex Catchpool, Mary Joy Lu at Tanq

Grace Kelly at Nice Shoes

Zach Hinden & Even Levy

Susanne Kelly and Chinagraph

Ray Foote & Ann Zagaroli at Big Foote Music

Diane Patrone, Chris Zander & Sean Mihlo at The Family NYC

Ken Duffy at Tams Witmark Music Library

Christopher Marich at The Standard Hotel

Ken Gelman and Dan Real @ One Brooklyn