Pine Lake Films - short nature films

October 18, 2005 7:24 PM

Pine Lake Films
Steven Dempsey (bio) makes gorgeous short nature films (more here) in the wilds around Seattle using a digital videocamera and techniques that give video a film-like appearance. The videos linked on the bio page are also worth viewing.
posted by planetkyoto (10 comments total)

Coral cache of index page in case his server gets slammed.
Coral cache of other film index page.
posted by planetkyoto at 7:32 PM on October 18, 2005

Gorgeous work! Makes me homesick for my place on Puget Sound.
posted by Edward King at 9:00 PM on October 18, 2005

The techniques that provide the quality in these films are more or less based on knowledge and use of fundamental photographic principles (ie: they don't rely on gimmickry or post effects).

Most people using DV cameras don't have a clue about depth of field, exposure or when to use a tripod - editing is grossly underestimated.

DV is a great format - particularly if your end medium is the interweb.

For any aspiring film maker - his FAQ is definitely worth a read.
posted by strawberryviagra at 10:06 PM on October 18, 2005

***PLEASE*** use the coral cache links in my first comment above. The filmmaker has emailed me to say his server can't handle the load.
posted by planetkyoto at 10:13 PM on October 18, 2005

planetkyoto, Coral does not automatically "coralize" embedded links within Coralized pages.
posted by dhartung at 12:37 AM on October 19, 2005

Here are coralized links to the movies on the first page:

marymoor, snoqualmie, magical fall, brackendale, olympic

Snoqualmie appears to be larger than the 50Mb filesize supported by Coral. The others appear to be working.
posted by dhartung at 12:52 AM on October 19, 2005

In addition to good technique, his camera, the Panasonic DVX100, films with a nice Leica lens and uses 24-frame-per-second technology. I use the same camera, and I love the images. When I bought it I tested it next to a Canon XL1S and a Sony PD170, and the image blew the other two away, in my opinion (I realize that there are actual wars on various DV forums over this issue, this is just my take on it).
posted by Poagao at 12:52 AM on October 19, 2005

Well, the films are pretty, although the music is quite a bit too much.

What I'd like is for someone to find a cache of his link "1. HOW TO CONVERT NATIVE 4x3 PROGRESSIVE SCAN FOOTAGE TO HIGH QUALITY 16x9" in the tutorials section.
posted by fungible at 7:05 AM on October 19, 2005

Actually, we shot him past his daily bandwidth limit, so you should be able to see it tomorrow. I still have that page in my cache, so if you send me an email I can copy the text to you.
posted by planetkyoto at 7:59 AM on October 19, 2005

Thank you planetkyoto. I love it. Great!
posted by blue shadows at 1:18 AM on October 20, 2005