It doesn’t get much bigger than the Big Apple yet in his short film, The Sandpit, director Sam O’Hare pares Manhattan and Brooklyn down to size without losing any of New York’s charm, energy and often frenetic nature.
In a nutshell, the short–which O’Hare directed, shot, edited, finished and funded on a modest budget–captures a day in the life of New York City as seen in miniature.
“I like the tilt-shift style, the way you can draw large scenes and make them seem like miniatures,” said O’Hare who is also a fan of time-lapse fare, among his personal favorites being the classic film Koyaanisqatsi.
However, O’Hare, who is on the directorial roster of Santa Monica-based Aero Film, wound up not going the tilt-shift lens route for The Sandpit. He did some initial tests using a rented 24mm tilt-shift lens but ultimately felt it made sense to instead go for his desired effect in post rather than in camera.
“Shooting tilt-shift requires a tripod, as it is very hard to stabilize afterwards, and gives less flexibility in the final look. I opted to shoot it on normal lenses, which allowed me options in the depth of field and for shot movement in post. I used a tripod for the night shots but many locations–like hanging over the edge of a roof or through a gap in fencing on a bridge–had to be shot hand held, and the inevitable wobble removed afterwards.”
Virtually all of the short was shot with a Nikon D3 still camera, usually at four frames a second. O’Hare deployed some slower frame rates on occasion. He lensed a total of more than 35,000 stills over five days and two evenings.
Logistics played a key role, including being able to gain access to the proper high vantage points such as rooftops, penthouses and balconies. From a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, O’Hare captured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, giving a miniature feel to that historic landmark as people stream in and out of it.
O’Hare also credited the musical score created by Human for helping to smartly and elegantly drive the piece.
Tech talk O’Hare explained other technical aspects of the project. “The footage,” he said, “was shot as raw NEFs, which I organized and color graded in Adobe Lightroom. I always shoot raw, as it gives you so much more latitude when grading. These were then output as 720p jpg sequences and quickly stabilized to do the initial edit.
“Once the edit was mostly locked,” he continued, “all the final footage was re-output at full 2800px resolution, tracked, stabilized and the DOF effect and movement added in Eyeon Fusion, using Frischluft Lenscare. I output the final shots at 1080p. Although most shots stay with the basic tilt-shift effect, some have focus pulls, or more complex depth mattes were built up along with some paint work to allow buildings to drop out of focus next to the in-focus ground. This would not have been possible if I had shot using tilt-shift lenses on the camera, which works best with relatively flat landscapes. New York City is anything but flat.
Effects pedigree
O’Hare has a design background, first brought to bear at a U.K. firm where he worked on marketing films and animation projects for architectural clients. The films showed what the architects envisioned for planned buildings, showcasing the character and functional purpose of certain structures to prospective investors and customers.
Looking to get more fully into filmmaking, O’Hare moved to New York where he served in visual effects artist capacities on a freelance basis at various effects/post houses. He got the chance to work in commercials, film and music videos, developing talents for creating photo-realistic worlds, with strict attention to lighting, detail, textures and movement.
Much of O’Hare’s work was marked by a combination of live action and CG, a prime goal being making it difficult to distinguish what was shot in-camera from what was created in CG.
Aero Film executive producer Lance O’Connor saw O’Hare’s work, including spots for AT&T and Samsung for which he served as lead artist and visual effects supervisor while freelancing at New York effects house 1st Avenue Machine.
Favorably impressed, Aero brought O’Hare aboard its directorial roster where he has already wrapped a spot for sleep aid Lunesta. O’Hare is featured in this issue’s Directors Series rundown of up-and-coming helmers.
