War photography is a serious thing – but not when it’s tackled by workers at a Canadian camera store.
An imaginatively directed promotional video made by employees of a Calgary camera store (called, not quite so imaginatively, The Camera Store) has gone viral. The 60-second shootout, entitled Battle at F-Stop Ridge, has clocked up more than 800,000 views in little more than a week after being uploaded.
The entertaining production shows the store’s employees engaged in a mock military battle, except that they’ve replaced guns with cameras. Instead of shooting bullets, the ‘soldiers’ shoot nothing more lethal than pictures – lots of them. The sound of the shutters turning over at high speed really brings the video to life, together with some nice directorial touches.
You can take a look at it here:
Writing on the PhotoRepublik website, the man behind the camera, Jordan Drake, gave some interesting background to the making of Battle at F-Stop Ridge. Showing that you no longer need highly expensive equipment to produce something cinematic, Drake used the Canon 5D Mark II as his primary camera. Everyone in the team threw ideas into the mix. “The entire film was a collaboration in the best way,” Drake writes.
Overlooked by many amateur filmmakers, Drake knew that the movie’s sound was key to the success of the production. Recordings of multiple camera shutters were made before the shoot, then mixed with live recordings in the final edit. On the subject of adding a music soundtrack, he writes: “I considered using some, but decided against it as it would detract from the intensity I was going for. Looking at a video posted online, someone added a score to the video, and I don’t think it plays nearly as well.”
The whole shoot took just four hours, with the camera operating at 24fps to give it a more cinematic look. As for editing, that took Drake an impressive seven hours on Final Cut Pro, with it becoming “progressively more outlandish” as the edit went on.
With the video approaching a million views, the guys at the store must be elated with the response. We eagerly await the sequel.
