Final LEGO Tilt Shift Video

Manchester moving time lapse

This scene was creating by putting my tripod on rollers and slowly moving it along as i filmed to create a smooth fluid motion when the footage was sped up.

Narrative screenshots

 narrative structure of my video, going from a rural setting to a developing urban city

Development: adding a 'camera'

To some of the clips i added a camera layer, which would pan across the footage. I wanted to do this so not all my videos weren't static and to keep it interesting for the viewer.

Development: Adding Filter

Using curves and tint effects to add a filter to the footage. It adds more contrast, more definition  and more hyper real which helps sell the idea that this is a miniature city.

Development: blur effect

I then created an adjustment layer and a shape layer so i could add a blur effect. Masking it off to certain areas is the key to achieving the tilt shift look. i was a case of trial and error, seeing where to blur and where to leave in focus.

Development: speeding up footage

Putting my original video footage in After Effects, i then sped up the footage by change the time stretch to 15% which seemed to speed up the footage just right to achieve the desired effect. 

How to create the tilt shift effect

A great video that show how to recreate the tilt shift effect to an ordinary video. I can then use this as a step by step guide to add the effect to my videos 

Filming locations

One of the videos i capture, i would stand atop a high vantage  point, put my camera on a tripod a filmed the scene for a number of minutes

Heres are screenshots of other location in Sheffield I filmed at

Location Scouting

 Looking around sheffield to find places i could film the city centre from

writing down possible locations to actually go film at

Talking about my idea

The Lego competition was to create a campaign that was both aimed at the young audience as well as their parents. Looking at Legoland it looked like miniature towns, I was intrigued by this idea and I wanted to use the tilt shift effect to make real cities look miniature. However I wanted to give the video some sort of loose narrative so people could connect with it. Looking at a field of grass reminded me of that great slab of green Lego you always used as the base. This got me thinking about this idea of building up; something starting small and growing, so the idea was to have a the video start in a field and end with a built up city, it was meant to echo the idea of Lego and the child’s imagination growing, and ideas getting bigger.

So now i am going to go location scouting, finding good locations around Sheffield as well as Manchester to do a bit of filming.

Green Slab - A growing City

The idea was that when you start off building you might build a small house at first, then as you get older and imagine more things and get more creative, you expand the complexity of your buildings. I wanted to simulate this notion with real life footage. I will take footage of both rural and urban environments to try and put this idea of a city landscape growing.