Roman Kuhn - The Illusive

[cawimmer430]

A very nicely done video - shot using a Canon DSLR.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCkTUzva2Oc



Roman Kuhn: Moving Photography


Late last year a video started to circulate the internet showing the Mercedes-McLaren SLR in an internet film. Not surprising, but the amazing aspect of this 10-minute movie was that a large part of it was shot using still cameras - EOS-1D Mark II N and EOS-1D Mark III bodies. David Newton met up with Roman Kuhn, the man behind the idea, to find out where it came from and what was involved in the shoot.

Roman Kuhn didn?t start out as a photographer but as an art director in an agency producing print and concept work for advertising and brochures. Roman had always had a love of painting and drawing and later on he got involved in the 3-D graphics world working for the first ever German 3-D animation company as a creative director.

?It was a lot of blue and green screen work and I worked as a director for several music videos before moving into films and TV work,? he says. ?I always dabbled in photography, but never as a professional. It was the release of the EOS 20D that really brought me into the photography world and my animation background and experience with computers really convinced me that digital photography was the way forwards.?

While working with a friend (who was director of photography at the Bahrain F1 racetrack) the conversation turned to how he used his film camera for short sequences of details within the cars. On returning home, Roman took his EOS 20D and tested to see how it would work for longer sequences and wider shots. ?I was looking for a method to allow me to jump in during filming and grab a few sequences and use them alongside the film production I was already doing.? That was in 2005, and although the idea was good, further testing identified that the EOS-1D Mark II N gave a faster frame rate and a much-increased buffer. ?

The problem with the EOS 20D was that the buffer was not big enough to allow me to shoot longer sequences ? I could only shoot a sequence of 60 or so images which was simply not long enough for what I needed. The camera would lock up and I?d have to start again. The EOS-1D Mark II N allowed much longer sequences to be filmed and was therefore the obvious choice for this kind of photography.?

The idea of shooting a series of images and creating a flick-book style image sequence movie is far from new, but the application and ability to turn this into a commercial product required someone with a certain background. Fortunately for Kuhn, he had the film and TV background and realised the commercial application of what he was doing in order to make full use of it.

He has called the technique ?Movph? ? his abbreviation of the phrase 'moving photography'. His first tests for movph involved a model walking around to see how long the sequences he could create were and to work out how the post-production would work. From there, he contacted a few members of the music industry who had seen these early tests and moved on to shooting music videos as a series of still images. Roman?s current most well-known movph film is the aforementioned 10-minute movie produced for the Mercedes-McLaren SLR roadster.

It was filmed over the shoulder of the press photographers as they took their images for publication in Lanzarote. It has been used as a web movie for marketing and a DVD giveaway present for Mercedes-McLaren SLR buyers. Roman has also made an 11-and-a-half minute movie called 'The Illusive', starring Canon cameras and the Mercedes-McLaren SLR, which also utilises movph footage techniques.

When you're pushing the boundaries and trying to do something different, finding clients can prove difficult. Roman explains: ?They don?t see creative issues. If it?s too expensive, they simply won?t do it. Big companies have strong finance management who control everything. If you show them an idea that looks great and saves them half the money, then they?re interested. Our production costs are lower because we don?t have all the people needed when compared to a film shoot. It?s also quicker and easier to shoot ? lighter cameras, more flexibility and more mobility. The only concern then is whether they like the style ? the stop motion effect ? or not.?

An movph production is a lot like a film shoot but with fewer people required and less post-production. The cameras are set to shoot small jpeg, as that is more than big enough for the end use, especially when compared to the stills taken from a video camera. ?This gives the longest sequences as the files are small and the buffer empties quickly,? says Roman.

?Obviously the cameras are set to high speed continuous shooting and we use AI Servo setup on the back button to allow us to track focus if we need to and also quickly shift focus from foreground to background which gives a nice effect.? He says that he often shoots in manual focus ? a difficult skill to master when you?re shooting at a rate of 10fps!

You?d think that producing a moving film using stills would need more assistants than a conventional stills shoot but, in reality, many studio photographers around the world employ more assistants. Roman explains: ?For each camera you need three people to be safe ? a photographer to take the pictures, an assistant to help with equipment and a loader to take control of the memory cards. You can do it with two people, but having three means one person has control of the cards to download the images to the computer as soon as the card is full.?

He adds: ?They can be right on your shoulder and tell you when you need to change card before you run out of space, potentially ruining a sequence. They can also check the images as they download them to make sure that everything is in focus, rather than moving on and finding a sequence is completely out when we get back?. This three-person team ensures there is no need to re-shoot scenes. Roman explains: ?We shoot almost everything handheld so repeating a scene exactly is difficult.?

Since the end result is a film or movie, it makes sense to shoot in a more film-like manner using more than once camera at a time to create cutaways and detail shots. ?It?s nice to have at least two photographers shooting at the same time ? one shoots details with a long lens while the other shoots wider shots with a wider lens. Sometimes we change and the guy shooting wide goes long and the guy shooting long goes wide ? we have ended up with almost the same shot.?




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Biography: Roman Kuhn

In a 28-year career this German-born photographer, director and producer has worked in advertising, creative animation, music video, film and TV. His latest films for clients including BMW, Audi and Mercedes have been widely circulated, viral video style, around the internet.


Link: http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/interviews/roman_kuhn.do