Stereoscopic Yo-Yo: Doctor Popular at Flip Video Night at AT&T Park from Flip Video on Vimeo.
I was recently asked if I’d like to come to a Giants game and shoot some video with some Flip cameras. “I’m always down to shoot, as long as I don’t have to edit.” I replied. I’ve been experimenting with creating 3D effects in my comics and illustrations by using an animated gifs (see here), so I pitched the idea of recreating the steceoscopic effect with video to the folks at Urgent Content (who were organizing the event at the ball game). I was able to build an EXTREMELY simple rig to hold two cameras with just a few bucks in parts from a hardware store. My goal was to keep the lenses about two inches away from each other and try to keep the cameras as lined up as I could. After shooting the footage, the folks at UC made lined up the footage from each camera so that I was always in the same space. Then they weaved the footage from each camera together so that each frame alternated from left to right and back again. Whether or not the result gives you the feeling of depth, it certainly is an amazing effect. By keeping me lined up, I really seem to “pop” from each video. At times it almost appears as though I was standing in front of a green screen.
I’m really happy with how this experiment turned out and I hope I can try it again someday. BTW, the music used is a song called “Crimson Dreams (remix)” from our recent KnifeTank: The Albumhole. It features rapping and beats by yours truly with Beefy on the second verse and many of Crashfaster’s original sounds and singing throughout.
Thanks to Unwoman for helping me shoot most of the footage and to the folks at Urgent Content for doing such a great job editing it all together. Oh yeah, I also realize I may sound like I’m shilling for Flip cameras right now. I’m not on their payroll or anything, it just happens that due to their small size, these cameras are great to experiment for things like this. After the shoot, I was allowed to keep the cameras, and I’ve been using them for all the recent Zine Fest videos I’ve been posting.
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