In early summer 2018, Rethink Canada approached us regarding a series of video commercial for its client, the Vancouver amusement park PNE Playland. The campaign was centered around the slogan “Too much fun” and would show people enjoying themselves at Playland while experiencing emotions from excitement, nervousness and even sickness. This would be depicted as emoticons flowing from various parts of the body when said emotions were at their peak.
The technical execution of some of these shoots was challenging. Safety was the primary concern for the Playland staff, so were not able to mount a chest camera on the model on every ride. One shot in particular required the use of our high frame rate Phantom VEO camera, which was too heavy to be safely fixed to a chest mount on the free-fall “Hellevator” ride. We proposed to use a tight shot of the subject and simulate the hair-raising speeds with a leaf blower pointed at the model’s face. The simulation was a success.
While the Phantom VEO has long been a staple piece of equipment for our action sport films, we have seen an increased demand for high frame-rate imagery on many of our commercial projects.
“With the Phantom VEO we’re able to capture fast-moving subjects and slow them down during the editing process without any image blur or distortion,” says Anthill director Darren McCullough. “When shooting a product for example, it allows us to hold the focus on that product for longer while still keeping the shot dynamic.”
CLIENT: PLAYLAND AT PNE VANCOUVER
AGENCY: RETHINK CANADA
ASSOC. CREATIVE DIRECTOR: SEAN O’CONNOR
ART DIRECTOR: JAKE HOPE
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DARREN McCULLOUGH
CINEMATOGRAPHY: COLIN JONES
ADDITIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY: MATT BUTTERWORTH
PRODUCER: SCOTT JEWETT, ROBYN FARNHAM