LA-based director and cinematographer Phil Holland of PHFX recently joined forces with Gotham Film Works to create something out-of-this-world. Using the first Shotover K1 Hammerhead Aerial Camera Array, Holland shot a flyover of New York City using not one, not two, but three 8K RED Weapon Monstro VistaVision cameras.
The result, once processed, is a 100MP motion picture made up of images “with a sensor size of approximately 645 medium format film.” Put another way, the 12K by 8K footage above is 48.5 times the resolution of 1080p.
Holland explains how the rig was used and the footage captured in a short behind the scenes blog post, where he also shared some BTS images that he is kindly allowing us to repost for you here:
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Holland’s BTS post covers camera and lens selection, before moving on to explain what it takes to rig something like this up.
“On a technical level there’s a lot that needs to happen in terms of proper spacing, finding the zero parallax point, lens selection, determining your overlap, rigging, payload balancing, etc.” writes Holland. “Every RED Weapon 8K VV Monstro has a JETPACK SDI Module attached to sync genlock, provide power, control the camera, etc. This is actually one of the first times I’ve ever seen this bad boy used to maximum intent. WIthout this module something like this would be very difficult to pull off.”
All of this allowed Holland to control the rig from a single “brain” and create “a quality stitch with pixel and frame accuracy.”
Check out the final video up top to see the stunning results for yourself, and then head over to Holland’s blog for even more details about how this beautiful creation was captured.
All photographs ©Phil Holland/PHFX and used with permission.
