Detroit Gets 'Little Big World' Treatment By German Tilt-Shift Video Producers
By George Fox – @GeorgeJFox
"They look like ants." The expression is something most of us have heard. The phenomenon of being up high on a building or in an aircraft and all the cars and people below look like tiny bugs crawling on the ground.
Photographers have figured out how to re-create the optical effect with video cameras and a few post-production tricks to make adorable tiny versions of the most stunning locations in the world. Basically it involves shooting from a height with a wide angle lens, speeding up the footage and adding some selective focus (blurring everything except the focal point).
Detroit joins places like Poland, Chicago, San Francisco, Québec and Israel in the portfolio of Berlin based Spoonfilm's tilt-shift videos. Heiko Kalmbach, Alexander Pfeuffer and Joerg Daiber started Spoonfilm in 2000.
Spoonfilm's YouTube channel called Little Big World posts nothing but amazing tilt-shift videos.
Titled "Diehard Detroit" and recorded in October of 2014, according to the video's description the locations include Michigan Theater, Packard Plant, Michigan Central Station, Lee Plaza Hotel, around the Masonic Temple and the Heidelberg Project.
Photo geeks will want to know they used a Lumix GH2 and GH4 with 14-140mm and 7-14mm Lumix lenses.
The song used is Darude - Sandstorm ... just kidding it's Swan Lake by Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski.