Tag: Photography

In preparation for our new Office Warming Party today, our creative team decorated our office with a special chalkboard mural. Check out our new time-lapse video documenting the creation of our chalk mural here:

Have you ever wanted to learn how to create your own time-lapse video? To learn more about how we created ours, read on to follow the five steps the TechChange creative team took to produce this video:

Step 1: Establish how long you want your final video to be.

We wanted to keep the video short and sweet at 1 minute.

Step 2:  Figure out  how long your time-lapse will last

Most videos run at between 24-30 frames per second. This means that for 60 seconds of final video, we would need a minimum of 1,440 still shots from the camera in order to fill each frame with a photo (24 frames/second x 60 seconds = 1,440 frames).

Step 3: Estimate how long it will take to film all the action you’re trying to capture.

We needed to make sure that Rachel, Pablo, and Alon would be able to finish in the amount of time that it would take our camera to shoot those 1,440 exposures. If we were to shoot at one-second intervals, our camera would only be running for 24 minutes. Now, our creative team is fast, but not that fast.

By estimating that it would take the team two hours (120 minutes) to complete the chalk mural, we can solve for 1,440* interval = 120 minutes to get that interval = 0.083 minutes, or about 5 seconds between shots.

Step 4: Set up your camera and film

To create the time lapse, we mounted our Panasonic GH3 onto a tripod and set it to take one photo every five seconds for 1,440 shots.

Step 5: Import your still image series into video and edit

After setting the camera to take these exposures, we imported the 1,440 stills into PremierePro by using the option to import an image sequence, rather than as individual stills. This import method is quick and matches one photo to each frame of the video sequence. Lastly, we cropped the video so that it would fill a 16:9 aspect ratio, added music, and edited in the TechChange logo animation.

Come check out the chalk mural in person tonight, May 7, 2014, at the TechChange Office Warming Party! RSVP here. We can’t wait to see you!

This is a guest post by TechChange alumna Julia Nagel.

If you’re interested in learning with TechChange, check out our next course on Mobile Phones for Public Health. Class starts June 3. Apply now! 

In December 2012, I traveled with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to Zambia and Malawi to shoot videos on women’s health. Armed with three cameras – a Panasonic HMC, a Canon Rebel T3i, and a Canon 5d Mark II – we sought to capture the voices of African women on issues that affect their lives and the lives of countless women in their country: maternal mortality, cervical cancer, and family planning. Why three cameras you might ask? My fellow videographer and I both agreed that while the Panasonic HMC is a highly versatile camera, its look does not compare to that of a nice DSLR.

With the DSLR cameras, colors are more saturated, images are more vivid, and you get a nice crisp focus on your subject (if you’re able to manage how sensitive that camera’s focus ring is) that nicely blurs the background. The DSLR does have two major downfalls though. One, it does not operate well in low light (a major problem during Malawi’s rainy season). Two, there’s no good way to capture audio. Thus, the
Panasonic was used for every shoot alongside the DSLRs.

 

In this video, Joyce Banda – the first female President of Malawi – talks about the importance of women’s health and empowerment, particularly in Africa and in her country. The interview was both inspiring to shoot and to edit. The two cameras we used in this video are the Panasonic HMC for the wide shot, and the Cannon 5d Mark II for the tight shot. The video was edited in Final Cut Pro and the cameras were matched in Final Cut using an incredibly helpful program called Plural Eyes. To read
more about the interview, please visit: www.SmartGlobalHealth.org/JoyceBanda. Also, stay tuned to www.SmartGlobalHealth.org for the additional videos that will be released from our trip, due out in February.