One month alone in the Laos countryside (w/5D Mark III)

[Tao]

Hi!

I spent one month alone in Laos last January, travelling between the North and the South. As usual I like to take photos and videos. Last time I did a road trip with a friend so it was simpler to get something strong that linked the sequences. Here I had to focus on landscapes and people, trying to picture all the shades of the country I visited for more time than most tourists. I tried to follow different trails.

I used a combinaison of LUTs from the great "LUTs Color Grading Pack by IWLTBAP" to give different moods. My ND filter was crap so I lost lots fo sharpness. I didn't have a stabilizer and the Adobe post stabilizer helped a little but it was sometimes hard with a 70-200mm in a boat or a hot balloon. I had a tripod though.

I don't record sound with the 5D Mark III so the sound effects are added in post-production. The music is a remix I made using the UTOPIA (UK Tv Show) soundtrack (n Answer + To You All Kids Will Come + I Feel Separated/ Utopia). It was the hardest part since I didn't have any clear underlying theme that could link the images. I shot something like 800 sequences, a large majority are not in the video.

Hope you like it ! Feel free to comment and criticize it, it helped me last time here

Youtube Link :

Vimeo Link (with ProRess 422 download button) :

My websites with photos : http://www.thibaultelie.fr/albums/laos/

Last video I made : http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=16456.0;topicseen

[markodarko]

Some really beautiful sequences there, @Tao. You did a great job of adding audio into the mix in post too. A very appropriate music track as well. Fits it perfectly. Great stuff.

My only 2c would be that the cutting on the notes at the beginning is a little jarring. I mean, it's not a music video after all ;-) so it would flow better if those shots were a little longer there IMO.

Lastly, have you considered letterboxing it to 2.35:1 or even 2.39:1? I felt that some of the compositions really cried out for a longer landscape crop rather than 16:9, but obviously that's just my opinion.

Lovely shots though. Must have been a real adventure as looks like a place full of photographic possibilities!

Incidentally, did you shoot RAW? You must have taken a bajillion CF cards with you! :-D

Thanks for sharing.

All the best,

Mark.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[_OLLE_]

this is really beautiful, especially the balloon part!

[Tao]

@markodarko : Thanks for your comment Mark! 2,35:1 could have worked yeah. But I shot everything at 16:9 so I don't really like to cut in post especially up and down since monitors are 16:9 or 16:10. In my opinion this has to be on purpose. For example my first idea was showing the cities of Laos in 1:1 (square) and then expand at 16:9 when reaching the countryside, similar to what Xavier Dolan did with Mommy. It didn't work and I understood that the cities were not that interesting so I focused on landscapes and people. Although I like to play with aspect ratios with photographies, much more flexibility.

Yep I shot on RAW! I had 2 64gb 1066x cards and often put the files on a 2Tb external hard drive. My bag was so heavy, but hopefully I could leave the heavy stuff in hotels.

@OLLE : Thanks! Balloon was hard to shoot, only 30 minutes, 10 people in it, I had to try to stabilize especially with 70-200 (what a crazy idea) and change lenses. Some shots are from the day before though.