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.

Klaus & Oceana: A Love Story

It's a gross understatement to say that Aero director, Klaus Obermeyer, has always been a nature lover. Klaus grew up in Aspen, Colorado, where skiing and snowboarding were considered a way of life.  (I wasn't this lucky.  I grew up in Pennsylvania where not running over Amish buggies was considered the state pastime. But I digress...)  When Klaus started directing he moved to Malibu, California, and like a true character in an 80's film, he learned to surf, kite surf, wind surf, dive, etc.  It was then that Klaus fell in love with the ocean and all its natural inhabitants.  (Emphasis on "natural."  Ahem...)


Klaus wanted to combine directing with his love for the ocean.  He can now free dive for 2 minutes, which means diving without air tanks.  WITHOUT.  AIR.  TANKS.  (I get heart palpitations just typing those words!)  By holding his breath for 2 minutes at a time and not having air tanks on his back to create bubbles and noise, he's able to swim up right next to the creatures he's shooting without scaring them and therefore, his footage is quite amazing, unlike what a normal diving film crew would end up shooting.


It was a natural step for Klaus to get involved with Oceana. He has shot his first PSA for them all around the world in Tahiti, CA, Mexico, and the Caribbean.  He works for Oceana in tandem with Pete Zuccarini who is another underwater Director of Photography specialist. 


His newest venture with Oceana is a PSA campaign with Adrian Grenier from HBO's show, Entourage,who is also GQ's Gentlemen's Fund Ambassador for Oceana.  The PSA promotes awareness regarding the problem of over-fishing blue fin tuna, which you can watch here.  

This PSA was shot in Mexico and make sure to check out the behind the scenes footage shot by GQ and Nautica and the article in GQ itself!  And last, but definitely not least, World Oceans Day was this past Tuesday, June 8th, and La Mer also used Klaus’s footage for their own web video promoting the event.


Phew!  Klaus is a busy boy.  I hope you take the time to watch his work as it's truly his passion and not just his job.

Truck Of The Blank! (No, it's not a quiz...)

Truck of the Blank.  And no, "blank" doesn’t stand for a bad word!  It happens to stand for a million things that describe the new RAM spot directed by Klaus Obermeyer. This was an incredibly challenging shoot with lots of locations, travel, and every weather system you can think of. Thankfully, this is where Klaus thrives. 

Check out the full spot HERE!

The creative team at the Richards Group took a ton of gorgeous behind the scenes photos, so instead of me yammering on, I’ll let you enjoy the eye candy. As they say, pictures yammer 1,000 words which are far less annoying than my own.  (Okay, I might have a few words to say…)

KlausCam shows up for work.

And yes, it "drives" a helicopter.

Director Klaus Obermeyer.

AKA "The Big Grape."

The creative team is thinking about how their 

next project WILL be in Fiji...

Thankfully, this is not an accident...

nor was it set by the crew to keep warm.

"Yep, definitely next time in Fiji..."

"Or a bigger fire."

"We get hazard pay, right?!"

Setting up the shot...

Safely on the ground.

That's a wrap!

KlausCam is tired and needs its beauty sleep

for the next shoot.  Or so it says.

RAM Commercial Credits:

Ad Agency:

Richards Group/DAL

Art Director:

Dennis Walker

CD:

Rob Baker

CD:

Jimmy Bonner

Copywriter:

Ron Henderson

Producer:

Ally Tarter

Editor:

Peter Tarter  Radium/TX

"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

Happy Olympics Opening Ceremony Day! I hope there's cake...

I have the Olympic Fanfare stuck in my head. That’s a LOT of trumpets to be in one head. I had the misfortune of playing said song in concert band in 10th grade and ever since, I hear one bar of it and it’s a trumpet explosion in my noodle. Thankfully, I played the saxophone so my part was just a bunch of blunt whole notes. (I excelled at those.) But I digress… HUZZAH!  It’s time to root for the good ol’ US of A and marvel at such amazing events like the ski jump, and ice skating, and that one where they cross country ski and then shoot stuff. Well, gotta give them points for practicality. When the ice age comes around again, they’re going to fair much better than the ice dancers. (Won’t we all?)


With the Opening Ceremony at hand, we end our tribute to Shaun "Animal" White and release the final webisodes shot by Jason Farrand for HP. 

Fun fact for the day, Shaun’s brother, Jesse, is a designer at Burton and runs the apparel dept in California. He came to set on the second day with a couple of tshirts that he had designed. You’ll see Barak (the bearded character, who also goes by Bu-Bar) in one of the tees. Another fun fact, Bu-Bar was also in the Dockers “no pants” spot in the Superbowl. I don’t think he had to dig too deep into his actor-inspiration to enjoy running around in underpants. (I’m going out on a limb here, but it seems like a sturdy limb.)

Hope you’ve enjoyed all 13 episodes. If you missed any along the way, here’s the full set of links. Share with your friends! 


Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4 / Final


Wish there were more, but maybe a The Flying Tom…ahem!  I mean, Animal, will be down for shooting more after he’s won a few more gold metals. Here’s hoping on both counts. Have a great weekend everyone!!