The making of Toy Soldiers

20 August 2009 ~ View Comments

The making of Toy Soldiers

This video shot on 14th July (Bastille Day) in Paris jumped out at me straightaway. Great visuals that play tricks on the eye plus an ultra cool soundtrack. JTV checked in with Albrecht Gerlach, Photographer/Director from Alta Media Productions to find out how the Video was made.

ALBERT GERLACH: ‘The hardest part of pulling this off was getting access to the Rooftop on the Champs Élysée. We probably knocked on about 50 doors and almost gave up on the project. In the end it worked out really well thanks to and old lady that let us up on her terrace. We actually were right next to two Snipers of the French Special Forces watching over the terrain. After all you had the President (Sarkozy) and a bunch of high ranking officials passing by just in front of you.

On the technical side we used four 5D MKIIs. Two cameras from the main position. One with a 24mm TSE shooting the whole scene, and one with a 90mm TSE getting the close ups. The shot of the planes going by as well as the opening shot was done from the rooftop of an office high-rise. No TSE lens on that camera. The effect was done in Post, you can probably tell. We did also have one camera on the Eiffel Tower with a long lens but ended up not using those angels since the lighting conditions didn’t match well with the main footage.

Canon EOS-5D-MKII

The parade and the preparations were on for about 4 hours, and it was pretty tricky to shoot with two cameras, and manage the files at the same time. I was constantly emptying cards and making backups on a notebook. I only had 6 CF cards with me that day. However I did get my hands on those elusive LP-E6 spare Batteries just before the shoot.

Probably quite hard on the cameras, doing around 14.000/h for four hours in a row. On a side note, I did have one of the bodies checked by CPS in Paris and they were all confused and were like: Sir, did you know that your camera already has xxx.xxx shutter actuations?!?

Processing the files does require some beefy hardware. Even with a top of the line MacPro, I had Final Cut crash on me all the time.

Basic color correction in FCP, some Grain with Tiffen DfX and cloning away birds etc. in Photoshop. The Smoothcam Filter was also invaluable, since even with a heavy tripod there was always some camera shake due to wind.

I’m very happy about the soundtrack. It was mixed by Camille Michel, a Paris based sound designer.’

Credits:

Photography: Albrecht Gerlach www.albrechtgerlach.com
Production: Tatiana Pereira @ Alta Media Productions
Camera Assistant: Tom Chabbat
Sound: Camille Michel www.unterdecke.com
5DmkII rental in Paris: www.photocinerent.fr

ALTA MEDIA PRODUCTIONS ON VIMEO

See the Canon EOS 5D MKII at Jessops
High Speed Kingston Compact Flash Memory Cards