Introduction
In my previous article on beginning your journey into architectural filmmaking, we weighed the pros and cons of delving into offering video services to your clients. If you’ve decided that pursuing motion work is indeed the direction that you want to follow, let’s now identify and explore the initial steps you need to take in order to execute your first architectural video.
Camera Cages are just for videographers, right? In this review I am going to show you why I love a cage for my hybrid work between architectural photography and videography.
From day one I put my Canon R5 into a camera cage and only let it out of there for trips with the family, where I want to carry minimal equipment.
Last year my fellow writer, Veeral, put together a fantastic article entitled, ‘Getting Started in Architectural Filmmaking’ which focused on the new opportunities the medium provides and showcases some beautiful examples of videos that take a more sophisticated and minimalist approach to capturing architectural space.
We’re shaking things up with this Project of the Week by geologist turned photographer/filmmaker David Bewick. At the risk of turning this to Architectural Video Almanac, this week we are diving into the creative process behind this captivating piece of film featuring the Stirling Prize-nominated Windermere Jetty Museum.
Dmitry Tkachenko is a photographer based in Oslo, Norway. I came across his amazing time lapses on Instagram and wanted to interview him about his process when making these videos.
Kyrre: Hi Dmitry! Thank you for taking the time to chat with me.
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the attacks carried out on September 11th, 2001, I continue to be affected by the ability of architecture to encourage the public’s memory to endure and, in the best examples, help them heal as well. The National September 11 Memorial in New York City is one such example.
With Independence Day in America having just passed, I was feeling nostalgic when considering what I wanted to share with our audience this month. I decided to go back to my academic roots. Being from the South, I recalled how nearby Auburn University’s Rural Studio, and in particular its visionary co-founder, Samuel ‘Sambo’ Mockbee, were so inspirational to me during my architecture studies way back when.
Icons of the modernist movement, Charles and Ray Eames, taught us to see the world differently. “Eventually, everything connects – people, ideas, objects…the quality of the connections is the key to quality” Charles Eames famously stated. Over their remarkable career, the Eames cultivated a design process where ‘learning by doing’ was their mantra and who vowed to never to delegate understanding.
I have always viewed architectural visualization and architectural photography as two sides of the same coin. They bookend the architectural representation process, the former being created at the very outset, while the latter wraps up the project’s design and construction journey.
In an architectural photography group I’m part of, there are always questions being asked in regards to getting started in architectural filmmaking. Even though I have covered architectural filmmaking through interviews with other photographers, there isn’t anything directed towards architectural photographers who are interested in making the shift to this medium.
Over the past couple of years, I have been following the progress of the Deakin Law Building part of Deakin University in Burwood (Victoria, Australia) which was designed by Woods Bagot. Towards the end of the second lockdown in Melbourne, I had my chance to take a stroll around this building.
What do you get when you bring together a hotel brand known for producing design excellence to traditionally less-traveled locales, a gorgeous, geographically-unique location, and an architecture firm known for designing some of the most extraordinary cultural buildings in the world’s most populous country?
Israeli-Canadian architect, Moshe Safdie, first visited China in 1973. Little did he know then, that nearly five decades later, he would realize one of the largest, most audacious architectural projects not only in China but on the entire planet.
It’s incredible to think about what people in the 1920s went through to put food on the table. The title of this video describes how the men in the film risked their lives to build iconic skyscrapers in New York. The likely truth is that they risked their lives for their families and futures and not for New York itself.
As the pandemic brought on by COVID-19 rages on, traveling beyond our city limits (or perhaps even our living rooms) remains an unlikely reality, at least in the short term. Given that many of us are stuck at home, with more free time on our hands than we’re used to, I wanted to share a couple of photographers’ personal projects dedicated to showcasing the role architecture can play in crafting our sense of ‘home.’
Since I have started writing for APAlmanac, discovering how other photographers and film-makers using are motion to create a narrative about architecture has been fascinating. Even the recent ZoomedIn Festival heavily touched on this subject matter as part of their talks.
I could be wrong here, but the way I see it, the market for filming real estate and architecture is possibly more lucrative than its photographic counterpart. For this reason, I think it’s probably a good idea for us photographers to develop our skills related to filming.
