Amazing Use of Off-Camera Light

This is not strobe, but it is some of the most creative use of off-camera lighting I have ever seen.

Last year, we ran a post about Pika-Pika, a group of Japanese performance artists who draw with light. They shoot still-camera time exposures of themselves drawing with flashlights, and animate the still frames to absolutely beautiful effect.

It appears as if Sprint has commissioned them to create a television commercial. I say "appears" because I don't know for sure. If Sprint came to them to create the piece, I think that's just great. But if a bunch of Madison Avenue types just lifted the technique and recreated it for a commercial, eh, not so nice.

Anyway, check out the vid and watch how quickly you can get lost in a simple series of flashlight time exposures. Really neat concept, and brilliant execution.



I find myself wondering how they pull this off. The consistency between frames is just amazing. Then it occurred to me that they probably shoot a frame, then shoot the next frame and chimp back and forth between the two. If it flows well, they move on to the next frame. If it doesn't, they delete the current frame and re-do it.

With all of the planning and shooting on the DVD's, I am pretty crunched right now. But I can see myself trying something like this just for the fun of it when I get some free time. Have you ever tried anything like this? If so, was it harder or easier than you thought it would be?
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Last year's post of an animated horse walking across the floor is here, along with other links to more cool Pika-Pika stuff.