26/09/2009

Tilt and Shift

Here's the video Bathtub IV by Keith Loutit:



The technique used is apparently called tilt and shift. When I first saw this video and others by Loutit I thought, "shouldn't this bloke be doing music videos for big bucks?" Now, via John Althouse Cohen's list of not-quite-best songs 2000-2009, I've come across the clip for Thom Yorke's "Harrowdown Hill" (both pages may take a while to load). It's not by Loutit, but appears to use the same technique. I rarely watch music videos, so I can't really know, but I have a suspicion that in a few years' time, tilt and shift will be seen as sooo 2009.

3 comments:

pj said...

That's a nice effect - it seems to simply involve time lapse plus blurring the top and bottom of the picture to simulate a shallow depth of field.

But I think Harrowdown Hill predates this - isn't it a couple of years old?

LemmusLemmus said...

Yup, Harrwodown Hill predates Loutit's films (or at least the dates when he uploaded them to Vimeo). I didn't say otherwise in the post.

The comments section at Loutit's several videos contain some discussion of how it's done, although he is understandably reluctant to give away details.

pj said...

Interesting - looks like he does them truly with tilt-shift (mostly titlt I guess) techniques to alter the depth of field - the Harrowdown Hill film was all done in post-production.

I like the footie ones - they're like playing 90s computer games.