Okay, so we're total suckers for tilt-shift perspective manipulation, and since we've run a fair number of
snippy attack ads lately, we thought we'd try and clear the air with this impressive new spot from HP. Part of the relatively-new "Create Amazing" campaign, it's a miniaturized international tour through Shanghai, New York, Santorini, London, Istanbul, and some custom office sets built in L.A., and, well, we're in love. Watch the video below, maybe have a second glance at Michael Gartenberg's
Entelligence column on gadget-fan unity from yesterday, and let's all agree to agree for once in this crazy world.
Update: Sadly, the filmmaker got in touch with us and requested that we pull the video until he can clear it with HP -- we'll let you know.
posted Nov 9th 2009 3:39PM
WOW.
OMG! I've just realised DOCTOR WHO is an anagram for TORCHWOOD! Oh wait, the ad...
That is amazing, I wonder how long it took them to move all of those miniature people around. Oh your comment; isn't Torchwood an anagram for Doctor Who?
@chrise
Tilt shift photography is actually an optical illusion where pictures taken of the real world look like a miniature. So this video is actually real life footage, even though they might have edited some to finish that "miniature model-look". Great example!
@Meus
Ya I knew that I was being sarcastic. But I realized that my comment could have been taken seriously after I read some other comments. Oh well.
Isn't WOW and anagram for OWW?
Noon is as anagram for Noon.
I love tilt shift videos. Somebody should make a feature length film in that fashion. This one got a little bit Koyaanisqatsi on us at the end. Still great though. nice and relaxing after the heart attack last night.....
I just wish they hadn't put the voiceover in there at the end. It kinda jerks you back out of the nice fuzzy warm feeling they just spent the last 3 minutes and 10 seconds building up around you. You're already looking at the ad — that's the whole hook — so they could've let the text carry it at the end.
There is a similar NAB ad aired earlier here in Australia, but I can't find the link to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq7X9btLqck&fmt=22
looks like a tycoon game
Reeeeally makes me want to buy a printer.
Really, anothony, it's getting old.
Let's just pretend there was an edit button, and I fixed that to say Anthony.
i got a url link to anthony's mom's nude page...any takers?
@Anthony: I'll hold you to what you said then.
or buy whatever kind of black magic HP used to create this thing
Beautiful
I agree, Anthony's mother is beautiful!
Stunning.
I got a chance as a kid to visit Madurodam and have been fascinated ever since with miniatures.
Wikipedia has some great pics.
Why are you suddenly talking about miniatures? When this video has nothing to do with miniatures whatsoever?
anyone else just go WOOAAAAA! ?
WHOOOOOAAAAAAWWWWWWW
no, but she did...
I went ooooh.
Really cool use of miniatures. I love the look of miniatures compared to CG stuff, they make me want to reach out and touch the demo going out. It's just more tactile, even if I can't really touch it.
@Monica:
Because it's real? It's just special effects/lenses + low framerate.
They aren't miniatures. It's a perspective trick.
Nate:
So I've heard. Does not compute. I googled tilt-shift, and am not quite getting it yet. If you understand how this works, could you put it in layman's terms, to give me an incomplete understanding of the method?
@phrank:
If you play around with a magnifying lens, or glasses if you wear them, you'll notice that at an angle, things appear focused on one side and blurry on the other side and edges. This is because of the curvature of the lens. The shift does something to keep the lines straight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography#Camera_movements
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking
Ridiculous.
They look like ants... *makes a stomping motion* NYAUGH!
Err... the National Australia Bank has had an ad using EXACTLY this concept for the last three months here.
Do you think we care, prison land dweller?
It seem that HP took this idea from the Japanese clothing company Uniqlo.
Uniqlo has a calendar/screensaver for download at its website for many months by now (it's the most intriguing screensaver I ever had)
http://www.uniqlo.com/calendar/
Now that is a cool website. I love the way you can click on the video, and it launches into a mosaic of where you click, made of images of the products they sell. Very cool.
It's possible, but they're not the first to use this technique.
This "idea" has been around since tilt-shift lenses were first invented, and then intentionally misused in this way (which happened about a minute after someone first attached one to their camera).
You can't fault HP for copying anyone on this, any more than you can say James Cameron copied the idea of science fiction from George Lucas. This is a pretty generic and obvious "idea".
The link you went to was made by the guy who makes the video. HP contracted him to do it. He's been doing it for years and he's pretty much the foremost guy on doing these videos.
So the idea was not stolen from Uniqlo.
It's okay...nothing "amazing".
That's the problem with tilt-shift pictures (or video). Once you've seen one, you seen them all. =/
@Laughton: Oh its pretty amazing to say the least... What can you do?
With that kind of budget? Not sure but it'll certainly involve coke and hookers!
A "making of" would be more interesting...
Use a tilt-shift lens, speed up the video and increase the color saturation. That's most of it.
Search Flickr for tilt shift photography and you'll probably find some useful info.
The lens costs a couple thousand dollars.
What's that song?
If you click the picture it gives this info:
Artist: Mr Little Jeans
Title: Rescue Song
Wow that was kinda trippy! Music sounds like it should be on an ipod ad
think i'd rather buy a technical product from a company that values ideas above hope/change/passion/controversy...
Ok, I don't know what the hell I just saw (were they toys? were they real people? is it cgi? is that the matrix?) ... but I freakin' loved every second of it. It's a great thing to be absolutely amazed by something once in a while.
Hint: tilt shift photography.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/16/beautiful-examples-of-tilt-shift-photography/
it looks like they're using tilt shift photograhpy (in this case video) to create the illusion that it's all in miniature. when in fact it's filmed at full scale...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallgantics ? seems like it could be...
Wow, this is really beautiful. awesome work, I love things done in this style
http://ff0020.com/Home/Photography/Pages/Tilt_Shift.html
Thats some Tilt Shift work of my own.
These aren't miniatures - its a real "picture" that has been manipulated with a simple effect (blurring a certain percentage of the bottom and the top of the picture) which makes whatever in the picture look like a miniature.
As far as I can remember, there's even a web-site where you can upload any picture you want and it applies this effect on it, for free... Google it...
http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/ Just googled it haven't used it yet but looks sweet
Here's one that makes this effect for you for free!
http://tiltshiftmaker.com/
Whatever this technique is, it's awesome. They're like ant-people, and I want to put them in a little glass farm on my desk.
If you are not amazed, then you don't get it - beautiful visuals, design and production value that compels the viewer to want to see more. My only gripe is the V/O at the end was soooo clinical. Only visuals please! But if they HAD to do a V/O (because we know that someone in HP marketing didn't "get it" and had to add their opinion) they should have used a woman's more sensual voice or at least a more gentle tag.
I'm betting all CGI too - but if it wasn't, I want to see the models and a "behind the scenes" of the production. This along with the light-tracer Nano spots and the BlackBerry phones made of media spots are my favorites!
Good Job HP!
bee tee dubs it's def not cgi, it's a common technique for making real life look like legos :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography
They look like ants. Oh wait, people are ants!
Did they animate all of this using stop motion? That must have been crazily complicated to do. The models are all so detailed, i'm amazed. A couple of times during the video i actually thought it was all the real thing, filmed with one of those cameras that make normal scenes look like macro shots.
Does anybody know what those cameras are called?
Seriously? You actually know there's a technique that can reproduce that macro look, and yet you still think they did this in miniature?
heh, sound a bit ridiculous now that i think about it :P
sounds*
but everything looks like it's made out of plastic :\
It IS the real thing, shot with a DSLR and one of those crazy expensive tilt-shift lenses.
Tilt shift is well known among architecture students, because it can nullify the effect of perspective on a picture, making parallel lines in reality also parallel on paper, even if you shoot a building from below. It is fairly old actually, but it seems to be all the rage nowadays (which is good)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography
@Trankzen
Ugh, please, that sounds very unlikely.
I do not believe you.
Wow, incredible. That is an awesome mtv. It seems that after apple started the style, companies just started making ads of nothing and put in a smooth music. Aih.. apple's power to make more idiots.
You're right, people should stop being interesting and instead just be as boring as possible. That's how you sell products, right?
now to make me some miniature pron!
This is nothing new, but I guess if Nilay says it is, it must be right.
Where did Nilay say tilt-shift was new? Are you so bad at reading that you didn't notice that he used the word "new" in direct relation to the spot itself, as in "new spot for HP"? How about the first line of the article where Nilay said they liked tilt-shift, did you miss that too? I mean wouldn't that sort of indicate that he's seen tilt-shift stuff before?
Please stop being stupid. PLEASE.
Holy Crap-tacular that was long!
Must... resist...
That's what she said !
Never resist !
Very similar to some works of the italian photographer Olivo Barbieri. google it.
same fancy effect, same trip around the world..
First, this isn't really tilt-shift photography. It's just tilt...without the shift. Tilting the lens is what lets you artificially limit the depth of field. Shifting lets you slide the image up/down/left/right without the distortion that results from tilting the film plane. You can make these types of fake miniatures with a lens baby, which provides tilt capabilities without any shift.
That being said, there's clearly more to it than that. The frame rate has been altered. It's definitely a little bit faster, but also looks sort of jerky - like claymation. I suspect they dropped frames to speed it up a little (remember that the effects of gravity always appear to be faster when looking at small objects). They also seem to have altered the textures somehow. I think some of it may be HDR as well, given the fantastic shadow detail in scenes that are clearly shot in broad daylight. Definitely a fun video.
Eddie: "Look at all the people, they look like ants!"
Jr.: "Those ARE ants dad..."
That was cool and, it actually helped pep up the shitty day I'm having.
Very lovely ad.
nice, this looks really awesome. i bet hp have spend a fortune on this ad.
There's some photos of Rome in there, too.
Sad. Apple can toss a white sheet on a wall and say so much more, in a fraction of the time.
How the hell is this related to HP anyway? "We're HP. We know how to print money."
@AniMill hahah yeah I agree. I think the voice at the end is very incongruous with the whole feel of the ad.
Wow — debuting right after a bank in Australia did this about 3 1/2 months ago ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jj8ymjRrN4
You should probably have looked at the videos at the link you went to a little closer.
These videos you point to were certainly done by the same guy who did the commercials for HP. Look at his bathtub series, which starts over a year ago. Neither HP nor this bank were anywhere near first, they just both saw his work and said they'd like to do a commercial like that.
It's just tilt, there's no shift going on. This is depth of field manipulation, not perspective manipulation.
even though it's a really cool ad, and i think the point was supposed to be everyone putting aside differences for a while, most of the comments here are just people pointlessly arguing with each other, as usual...
And to think George Lucas was such a sucker - he used miniatures to represent full-scale. Why do that when you can use full-scale to look miniature? It's an epiphany of epic proportions! (Though the proportions look miniature.)
well.....as a commercial editor of some 25 years and finally ripping myself away from the business, I am now selling burgers from a truck.... This is Typical Director's Cut. Full of a "technique" but ultimately Self indulgent, Pointless and it sells nothing because it's too long and meanders forever. This is why agencies cut their own spots with real editors. Nice technique though but most likely not stop motion unless it's CG. Either way. incredible waste of money although I am sure someone made some in the making of it. I'll stick to Will Vinton.
//tom acito (editdogg)
Reminds me of this: http://www.vimeo.com/3156959
Complete with "indie" girl singing... both cool videos.
I think you should check out Disney's Tilt Shift video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyZfIlxwsfI
Wow, what a total rip off of the Uniqlo calendar!!!
http://www.uniqlo.com/calendar/
meh, that video was too long
That was spectacular. Is the process as simple as importing the video and running through the appropriate filter? I think a soccer game would look particularly cool.
Uh oh! This video no longer exists!
how much do tilt-shift lens sell for nowadays?
"Update: Sadly, the filmmaker got in touch with us and requested that we pull the video until he can clear it with HP -- we'll let you know" Glad I got to watch it before the pull. If HP doesn't give permission, please let your readers know. They'd be insane to stop a blog from airing it's ad for free.
http://vimeo.com/4946315
another good one
Alternate location.. For your viewing pleasure : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq7X9btLqck