Making movies

[wlbragg]

there's mosquitoes aplenty...

Yeah, that'll take the joy right out of it!

[wkitty42]

needs some smoke pots or smoking wood fire like when cooking... the smoke generally runs'em off...

[Thorsten]

needs some smoke pots or smoking wood fire like when cooking... the smoke generally runs'em off...

Yeah, but we couldn't plausible do this for a 2 hectar sized area...

[wkitty42]

that's true... i was just thinking about maybe there in the area where the scene was shot but i can see how that may not be viable...

[Thorsten]

Beautiful sky and calm winds - the right time to get the UAV out again and do some more aerial video clips of the surroundings - in particular I was keen on the lake, so I made passes from several altitudes and filmed the lakeshore.







And here's the approach-selfie

[Johan G]

Beautiful sky and calm winds - the right time to get the UAV out again and do some more aerial video clips of the surroundings [...]

That is another one of those "The future is now" moments. Only a few decades ago shots like a drone can easily take these days would require hiring a pilot and a helicopter for a couple of hours. Probably for a price higher than a better than decent drone today.

[Thorsten]

Well, that holds for the whole project I guess - we can do special effects and digital filtering at home a Fantasy series in the 80s would have been hard-pressed to do at all. In order to do so we crunch multiple GB-sized video files which a bit more than a decade ago would have been plain unthinkable to fit in any computer memory.

We also now have a gyro-stabilized camera for less shaking in hand-held shots - these things were hellishly expensive in the past (still sort of are, but we could acquire a used one from a friend).

The only thing that's just as difficult as it was back then is to assemble a cast of 36, equip them with costumes and get them to act halfway naturally

[Thorsten]

We shot the Beltaine evening yesterday - all statists were asked to come at 8:30 pm. The whole day, rain showers pass through. 8:15, the first people arrive, it starts to rain again. Everyone gets into costume, Katharina explains the scene, more people arrive, everyone gets ready. 8:50, the rain starts to lessen, I get out and get the fire going (with liberal application of liquid fuel...) - 9:00, everyone shows up, the rain is gone for good and the clouds look pretty much like a continuation of the last day when we did the first part of the Beltaine feast.

One might get the idea we're actually witches... except, as we know from episode three, witches don't mess with the weather

Since it came out so beautiful - here's our music group playing for the dance:

[Thorsten]

Some more UAV footage trying to catch autumn colors from above:

[Thorsten]

And another good flight today...

Straight from the 'come to Finland' ad...



Rather unusual angle, taking the camera straight down:



And taking the UAV up to 160 m altitude, the next lakes become visible:

[wlbragg]

Wow, that is so cool. I want one.

[GinGin]

Wow, that is so cool. I want one.

A forest ?
Indeed, stunning scenery .
A nice back ground for an horror movie where everybody get lost in the deep forest

[wlbragg]

A forest ?

No a "Finland".

That drone appears to be one of the nicer models. It's high up on my list of I wants!

[Thorsten]

It's an Upair G-10 (frankly, we didn't have overly much choice - most models require a smartphone or tablet as a telemetry display, and since we refuse to have these in our lives, we had to look for a model that comes with a screen at the remote control - but all things considered, it seems to offer a really decent bang for the buck once you learn to live with the quirks - like slightly wrong info in the manual...)

[icecode]

since we refuse to have these in our lives

Waking up to those landscapes and not depending on smartphones is quite an enviable lifestyle. Very nice pictures, they give a fantasy vibe even though they aren't edited.