Bathtub IV
September 15, 2009 7:28 PM   Subscribe

Man swept out to sea, incident caught using tilt-shift miniturazing technique: Bathtub IV

More Keith Loutit here.
posted by KokuRyu (47 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Tag edit: titlshift?
posted by mds35 at 7:33 PM on September 15, 2009


Awesome video but feels like a double.
posted by mds35 at 7:33 PM on September 15, 2009


Did he die?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:36 PM on September 15, 2009


Hmmm, someone already posted some other Keith Loutit videos, just not Bathtub IV. And no Loutit tags, either.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:36 PM on September 15, 2009


chocolate pickle: See here for the shocking denouement.
posted by boo_radley at 7:39 PM on September 15, 2009


Metal Heart
posted by shoesfullofdust at 7:43 PM on September 15, 2009


I'm still not exactly sure what's going on in the process of making this. I understand what tiltshift is in photography, but maybe I'm missing something based on his comment about "using time lapse to create the illusion of forward movement for the helicopter ocean scenes". Or maybe I'm overthinking this.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:50 PM on September 15, 2009


Sorry. Didn't mean to be an ass. I love this video. Thanks for posting it so I can watch it again.
posted by mds35 at 7:50 PM on September 15, 2009


What's a bathtub four?
posted by cjorgensen at 7:56 PM on September 15, 2009


Show us your tiny, tiny tits!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:58 PM on September 15, 2009


Boo Radley, could you please just tell me the answer? I don't want to watch a man die, and I don't want to watch the video in order to find out if he dies.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:10 PM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


Pollomacho: "Show us your tiny, tiny tits!"

tiny tiny tits
posted by idiopath at 8:13 PM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


On the one hand, this is a very cool video, using awesome photography techniques and set to whimsy music. On the other hand, however, it seems that a guy was in a very dangerous position for a long time, and then got sucked into the ocean for a long time, struggled for a long time, was swept out to sea, while a camera, with a seemingly active operator behind it, was documenting the whole thing. This seems creepy and confusing, at the very least.

Does anybody have an explanation that might skew me towards the better perspective, while keeping my basic faith in the goodness of people intact?
posted by iamkimiam at 8:16 PM on September 15, 2009


He lives.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:17 PM on September 15, 2009


iamkimian he shot a training exercise
posted by nathancaswell at 8:17 PM on September 15, 2009


I understand what tilt and shift are, and I can see the effect in the short DOF, but I still don't understand how the film was produced. I mean it's very cool, but I'm not sure whether the helicopter shots are a model that's supposed to look real, or a real one that's supposed to look like a model. I think it's the latter, but I'm not 100% sure. (If it's real, someone burned a lot of fuel staging a mock S&R for him...)

It's awesome, but I'm a little confused as to what the desired effect is supposed to be and how he did it.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:19 PM on September 15, 2009


I can't watch these without grinning maniacally and making Godzilla noises. They totally need to make a fleeing crowd one.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:25 PM on September 15, 2009 [4 favorites]


This is cool, but I don't quite get how it was made. I'm cool with time-lapse, but this has some sort of "looks like a model" aspect that I don't quite get.

That said, I know bugger all about photography, so the bit that sticks with me is "this is cool".
posted by pompomtom at 8:29 PM on September 15, 2009


Mod note: linked to original video page instead, people can read about it
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:35 PM on September 15, 2009


The looks like a model stuff is from the tilt/shift thing. Also, I might be misunderstanding, but I think he just shot this when they were doing normal training missions anyway, so no waste really.
posted by Stunt at 8:42 PM on September 15, 2009


That popup shade thing(around 1:10) is pretty nifty.
Australians always get the coolest sun-blockers.
posted by madajb at 8:46 PM on September 15, 2009


Spoiler: The dude lives

On the other hand, however, it seems that a guy was in a very dangerous position for a long time, and then got sucked into the ocean for a long time, struggled for a long time, was swept out to sea, while a camera, with a seemingly active operator behind it, was documenting the whole thing

What was the camera operator supposed to do? Throw a lens cap at the guy? Go down there and give search and rescue two people to rescue instead of one? The most logical way this movie was made was:
1. Set up a camera watching a place where tourists are known to often get themselves in to trouble
2. When you see a guy get swept out to sea, call search and rescue
3. Film the ensuing rescue operation
posted by 0xFCAF at 8:46 PM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


Hold on a second, the main link was to the "bloke out to sea", and not the STATE OF ORIGIN done in weird Thomas-the-tank-engine-model-vision?

That's a new thing I don't understand.
posted by pompomtom at 8:46 PM on September 15, 2009


"Tilt shift" photography is a method that uses special lens or lens adapter to create a very very shallow depth of field and maybe do some other things I don't remember right now. The result is that real things end up looking like models.

If you search "tilt shift" on flickr you will find a million examples. There's a device called a "Lens Baby" you can buy for your camera if'n you want to try at home.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:46 PM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


All of his videos are excellent. I love the tilt-shift technique because no matter how many times I see it is always cool.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 8:46 PM on September 15, 2009


"this has some sort of "looks like a model" aspect that I don't quite get"

tilt-shift.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:48 PM on September 15, 2009


As mentioned in the post on some other Keith Loutit videos, a different method is with software, which Bent Image Labs terms "smallgantics." It starts with artists creating as many as eight planes of z-buffering, allowing someone to create the tilt-shift appearance in post-production. Check the Before and After examples, taken from the wiki article on smallgantics.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:56 PM on September 15, 2009


I think one of the interesting things to me is that if you speed up big ocean waves, they look small.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:19 PM on September 15, 2009


iamkimian he shot a training exercise

Yeah when someone is rescued from the water they are usually brought directly to a hospital for evaluation/observation rather than being brought back to the heliport for a tearful reunion with his family.

Interesting video but the staged nature of some of it leaves me feeling cheated.
posted by Avenger at 9:19 PM on September 15, 2009


Did he die?

He was rescued by tiny ant people.
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:20 PM on September 15, 2009 [3 favorites]


He's too tiny! Aiiiieee! Deploy widdly toy helicopter!
posted by Artw at 9:21 PM on September 15, 2009 [4 favorites]


I love the tilt-shift technique because no matter how many times I see it is always cool.

That's the difference between you and me.
posted by Dr. Send at 9:22 PM on September 15, 2009


Well, the wave thing is cool. Speeding up low frequency ocean waves makes them look like the high frequency waves we see when a puddle is disturbed. Who knew?
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:28 PM on September 15, 2009


Show us your tiny, tiny tits!

Tilt-shift photography pornography.
This could seriously effect the midget porn industry, Pollomacho.
posted by Avelwood at 9:55 PM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


Interesting video but the staged nature of some of it leaves me feeling cheated.

I think the part of the joyous time-lapse reunion with his family, while clearly the most staged, fits into the style of photography quite well. Then again, I'm a fan of HO-scale modeling and this is almost like watching them come to life.

Knowing nothing about this, I started laughing when the poor fellow fell into the water, since it looked like it was stop motion animation. But the water was much too realistic. So then I felt a little sick having laughed at him fall in, struggle, and then be swept out to sea (although I still found seeing the whole process in time-lapse fascinating.) When they finally rescued him and the crew left him on the tarmac while they properly stowed their helicopter ... I just had to laugh again.

Metal Heart is amazing.
posted by chemoboy at 10:25 PM on September 15, 2009


Interesting video but the staged nature of some of it leaves me feeling cheated.

Oh, I know. I totally feel the same way about The Wire, Star Wars, and Mad Men. So staged! What a rip-off!
posted by dersins at 10:54 PM on September 15, 2009


Tilt shift photography is simple and makes perfect sense if you stop thinking of the focal plane and film plane as permanently parallel...amirite?

If your lens and film are normally like this | | and you are focused five feet away, think of what would happen if your lens and film are actually like this /|, so that the focal plane is intersecting with the film plane at an angle: the line of objects you have in focus can become smaller and smaller (or larger and larger).

Our brains visually interpret this as macro photography because that is usually the only time we see such tiny slivers of objects in focus -- it is an entirely learned response.

Okay, that probably didn't help anyone. Sorry.
posted by ztdavis at 11:16 PM on September 15, 2009 [4 favorites]


Bathtub V might be better.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:22 PM on September 15, 2009


The other thing that makes this very cool is the vividness of the colours. What a sweet production. Thanks for posting.
posted by salishsea at 12:05 AM on September 16, 2009


Okay, that probably didn't help anyone. Sorry

It made me feel much better about not knowing anything about photography.

Yay!!
posted by pompomtom at 12:10 AM on September 16, 2009


I wonder if anyone's tried showing tilt-shift photographs to someone from a culture that isn't exposed to a lot of photography, to see if they interpret it as 'miniature'. Probably not very high on any anthropologists' to-do list, but an interesting idea.
posted by primer_dimer at 3:26 AM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]


primer_dimer: "I wonder if anyone's tried showing tilt-shift photographs to someone from a culture that isn't exposed to a lot of photography"

Find an arrangement of various objects somewhere near you right now (a cluttered desk works great). Move closer to it and put your face about three inches from one of the objects while keeping as much of the rest in view at the same time. Do you notice how you have to pick which objects are in focus, and other objects nearby are severely out of focus? Tilt-shift does a pretty good job of duplicating the experience of looking at a number of small objects that are close to your face.
posted by idiopath at 5:13 AM on September 16, 2009


I liked it. I haven't seen tilt-shift photography combined with time-lapse before. I did a lot of time-lapse work in my undergraduate research project, and I've always found the results to be fascinating.

I think we should take off the accident tag.
posted by muddgirl at 6:01 AM on September 16, 2009


For everyone who, like me, was equal parts baffled and mesmerized by the spectacle and didn't know if the footage was real or toy:

Tilt-shift photography is a creative and unique type of photography in which the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model.
posted by That takes balls. at 7:38 AM on September 16, 2009


Well, the wave thing is cool. Speeding up low frequency ocean waves makes them look like the high frequency waves we see when a puddle is disturbed. Who knew?

They are exactly the same thing. It seems like we have a pretty deep-seated sense of the relationship between frequency and size for waves, where high frequency == small waves.
posted by rusty at 8:32 AM on September 16, 2009


Knowing nothing about this, I started laughing when the poor fellow fell into the water, since it looked like it was stop motion animation. But the water was much too realistic. So then I felt a little sick having laughed at him fall in, struggle, and then be swept out to sea...

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." —Charlie Chaplin
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:35 AM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]


.
posted by mouthnoize at 10:42 AM on September 17, 2009


« Older Washed Out   |   Wikirunner Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments